One thing I've noticed among the top motorcycle blogs, is that very few give credit where credit is due.

A "credit link", or "reference link", is simply a link back to the blog or website where you found the inspiration for a new article. It's part of a larger blogging phenomenon called the "meme".

A meme is like a "thread" on a message board, except it's carried out across multiple blogs. One blogger will post something really profound, funny, newsworth, or cool on their blog. A second blogger will see it, and then write about it on their blog, and include a credit link to the previous blog. Then other bloggers will see the second blogger, and then write about it on their blogs, and post credit links to the second blogger, or first blogger, or both. And then so on and so on. It starts a chain of reaction that spreads out across several blogs, sometimes thousands.

That chain reaction builds up Google PageRank value for each of the blogs linked within that chain. The first blog in that meme ends up with a bonanza of PageRank, and that's usually how people build themselves a career in blogging, by writing really good material that gets the blogosphere talking.

If you don't offer that credit link, then you're breaking the chain. You're stealing thunder, basically, for yourself.

Credit linking is very strong in the electronics and gadget blogging world, and as a result, it has built up a lot of PageRank for all of the blogs there. Because everyone gets involved in reacting to each other's articles, and linking back to them, everyone shares in the PageRank, and everyone gets a boost out of it.

I just wish I could see more of that in the motorcycle blogging community.

If you found a very interesting piece of motorcycle news on Biker News Online, and you decided to blog about the same news on yours, then give me a credit link, just to say thanks for giving you the inspiration. I'll do the same for you.

Methods of Credit Linking

Often, bloggers will just create a credit link using some words in the middle of a paragraph.

But there's also a popular way of using a postscript. For example, you might see the following at the end of an article...

via Motorcycle Philosophy

or

KT DID via Motorcycle Philosophy

The first example above, simply says, "The source for my article came from Motorcycle Philosophy".

The second example says, "The primary source of this news comes from KT DID, but Motorcycle Philosophy is where I found out about it."

Instead of using "via", you could also say, "source", or "thanks", or whatever you think works.

Just do all of your fellow bloggers a favor, and give credit where credit is due, and you'll find that they'll do the same for you.

Labels: Blogging-Ethics, Linking-Strategies

There are probably hundreds of "blog directories", websites that contains thousands and thousands of links to blogs. They categorize them, rank them, and review them. But do you get anything out of it?

The biggest selling point is that by having your blog listed in a directory, Google will give you some additional PageRank. That is, because Google relies on links to determine popularity and authority, the directories argue that getting listed on their websites will help towards your search engine rankings.

It's largely baloney.

Google is smart enough to know what a directory looks like, and is smart enough to know that links from directories "don't count".

The reason is because Google considers a link to be a "vote of confidence" on behalf of the site being linked to, AS WELL AS, the site that's doing the linking. It means that the website publisher found a website that he/she felt to be worthy of a link. These opinions are what Google is aggregating across the entire Internet.

So ask yourself, what opinion is there in a blog directory? A blog directory allows any blog to be listed, even if the blog sucks. Anyone who pays money, or offers a reciprocal link, can get listed into the directory. The links in a blog directory obviously doesn't reflect an opinion on behalf of the blog directory owner.

So you're not getting any PageRank value from those links. However, those little image buttons you're placing on the side of your pages are links that do in fact give PageRank back to the directory. You're giving PageRank value to the directory, and the directory is giving you nada.

All that you can ever get back from a blog directory is some direct referrals. Take a look at your blog's statistics, and see if you've ever received traffic from a blog directory. Then wonder how much traffic and PageRank you've given to them instead.

Here's something you can do prove this to yourself.

Go to Google, and type in the following query...

link:http://www.myblog.com

Replace "www.myblog.com" with your blog's address.

This will display all the URLs that link to your blog, but only those that Google considers to be worthy. These URLs are the only URLs that Google is using to calculate your PageRank. I bet you won't find a blog directory in those URLs.

There are actually many more URLs out there with links to your blog, but Google doesn't count them either because it can't find those URLs (behind a database or login), or because those URLs are too new, or because those URLs are redundant, or because Google considers those URLs to be worthless.

Now, go to a blog directory that your blog is listed on. A really popular one is Blog Catalog. In fact, go to their motorsports section...

http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/sports/motor_sports

Now go to Google and run a "backlink search" on that URL (click below)...

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DKUS,DKUS:2006-44,DKUS:en&q=link:http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eblogcatalog%2ecom%2fdirectory%2fsports%2fmotor%5fsports (opens a new window)

Now tell me if you find your blog in there.

Was it there? If it was, do you feel ripped off? You gave them PageRank, but they didn't give you Jack. They're getting rich off of you.

Take my advice, get rid of all those blog directory links and buttons. You're giving away PageRank to them, and they're using it to grab a higher spot on Google's search results. Run a Google search for "motorcycle blogs" (opens a new window), and go through a few pages. Notice that many blog directories are ranking higher than actual motorcycle blogs. Those directories are grabbing traffic that you could've gotten.

Focus instead on getting links from other people's blogrolls. I've found that those are the most valuable links you could ever get. I'll explain some other time.

Labels: Linking-Strategies