Shady Link Building Methods You Should Avoid
When it comes to link building, not every link is counted as a vote for the website. Although the search engine is not a human, it uses the algorithm to discern good and bad backlinks. The search engine evaluates the websites links are coming from, anchor text, quantity of links appearing within a period of time and some other factors. If there is any doubt, the search engine can consider the links as spammy and lower the website in ranking.
So, whether you are just starting your link building campaign, or looking for new link building methods you’ve never used before, here is a good list of things Not To Do while optimizing your website:
Abusing Wikipedia
As you probably know Wikipedia has an enormous value for the users. This site provides accurate data based on facts and not on assumptions. Many Internet users search Wikipedia for quality articles and stories. That’s why Wikipedia ranks high in search engines. Some webmasters think about editing an article on Wikipedia related to their market niche hoping to obtain a backlink. Not a bad idea. However, to get accepted, your article must be well written, quality, open-minded and it must not contain any promotional or sales material. With all that said, if you are not very skilled in writing, consider changing your mind towards Wikipedia.
Abusing Video Sites
The websites sharing video files may be a good teaser for webmasters looking for backlinks. People come to such websites, watch the video they are interested in and share their thoughts in comments. But be careful. People hate when somebody chucks in their conversation with an off-topic comment. If you suggest a website that has nothing in common with the discussed video, you may hurt yourself. Potential website visitors may hate it in advance if they find it on most video sharing sites.
Spamming Forums and Blogs
Forums and blogs are being created to unify people interested in the same topic where they can chat, share their thoughts and opinions. Unfortunately, forum and blog spam is not uncommon now. If you run a forum or blog, you are likely to get so-called posts and comments that give nothing to the readers but are full of pure links. To protect against spam, bloggers often use anti-spam plug-ins such as Akismet which detects suspicious comments and moves them to the Spam folder on the blog. Using this method to build links you create a bad reputation to your website and company. In addition, because of several spam posts or comments you may end by being banned on the specific forum or blog and you may not be allowed to submit good comments or posts.
Adding Pending or Low Quality Sites to Web Directories
Submitting the website to the appropriate category in popular web directories is one of the common link building tactics. However, one of reasons the website is rejected from the directory is a poor, low quality website content. Do not submit carelessly done websites in the hope to get a link. Take time to develop a quality website thinking primarily about the end user and not about a search engine. After all, it’s not a search engine but human visitors who will browse the site, read the content, and click the links. Here you will find directory submission best practices
Spamming Other Webmasters
Contacting other websites owners for link exchange is not a bad idea. In fact, there is a good chance to get solid links this way if the link exchange is equivalent, the websites have a common theme and if you approach a website owner personally in a well written message. Sending an automatic email to random webmasters with irrelevant link exchange requests does no good for you or your website.
Creating Link Pages
Some time ago generic link pages were very popular. Those pages gave absolutely nothing to the users because they contained only pure links (often irrelevant) to other websites with no other content. The search engines consider link pages as an attempt to artificially build incoming links and increase the PageRank. So, if you were thinking about such a way of exchanging links, better forget it and consider placing links on web pages with content relevant to your niche.
The best results can be achieved with the links placed within the page content. Side-wide links and links placed in the page footer are not so valuable because they are mostly paid links. The search engines used to devalue a link if something would suggest that you have bought the link (the words like "advertisements", "sponsors", "supporters", etc. near your link). If you still decide to buy links, at least make sure you are not buying tons of links with the same anchor text. With all that said, I would recommend blog commenting, guest blogging and creation and submission of unique articles as good methods to get inbound links within the web page content.
Well, I described just a few shady link building methods that can hurt your website if they are not used properly. I just wanted you to know these tactics exist and might be used by your competitors. However, if you think they are ethically wrong, do not engage into such practices and focus on good link building methods that produce not quick but valuable long-term results.
Please, share your thoughts in comments.
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Absolutely agree with all. About “Creating Link Pages” - currently Google “zeroize” (made 0) Page Rank for all pages like links, links.html links.htm or all other pages were are link to other sites. So, it is a waste of time.
Great Post! I am just starting to build my online business and it’s difficult for me to know what’s acceptable and what isn’t. I guess a lot of it comes down to common sense. Still, for someone like me who is trying to get a lot of links fast, it’s often tempting to take shortcuts and be shady. Not tempting enough, though.
EXcellent points and thank you for publishing this list. Anyone practising the shady techniques you mention will suffer for it, because Google sniffs this sort of thing out and you lose rankings, not gain. Knowing when you’re on thin ice isn’t really difficult. Just ask yourself, is this action I am contemplating going to imrpove the reader’s experience or simply annoy them? In other words, are you adding valued content or simply adding to the buzz of spam that we’re all so tired of seeing. White hat is best if you plan to be around for the long haul.
Dont forget to mention a real shady link building technique in your next installment, relating to blog trackbacks for blackhat seo coders, this really pisses the bloggers off.
Thank you for creating the Fast Blog Finder software. I can tell you that it is fun and easy to use.
Just like the gentleman above, I need to review appropriate link finding etiquette frequently.
Even though I’ve been doing this for a while, it is important to be reminded about what is acceptable and what isn’t.
I see tons of comment spam show up on my blogs and forums; It is frustrating and annoying. So, I’m glad that there is a voice of reason out there in the jungle of link spamming madness.
Thank you and keep up the good work!
Dave
Hi Julia, thank you for the valuable information. You mention “creation and submission of unique articles as good methods to get inbound links within the web page content”
My question is:
Do you publish the article on your website first, and than, you submit it to article directory with the link, or do you publish it i article directories only?
Great post Julia,
I completely agree with your final recommendationson blog commenting, guest blogging and unique article submission as good methods to get inbound links. I mignt also include social bookmarking.
I’ve begun to notice more trackack spam trying to make it’s way onto a few of my blogs as well.
Thanks for the excellent information!
George
I used to do heavy one-way link building and reciprocal link building. These techniques stopped working about a couple of years ago. It is now almost a total waste of time to do this. The se algo is easy. If it sees 100’s of links on a page, all going to different ip’s (outside the site) well, easy to say that is a link page of no value.
There are ethical link building tactics that are worth the effort and will be around for the long term. I 2nd the idea of doing them since the return on investment is there.
Hmmmmmm…..definitely a good post. Well atleast we cant find fault with anything mentioned. That said, there is nothing new here. Even a novice knows that ‘value’ of things that are of value, and knows that things of value (content etc) are in great demand.
My argument here is: Best value items are heavenly in origins……what about us imperfect mortals who find it difficult to come up with content/comments/posts of ‘utopian’ value? Surely there is a place somewhere for us! It will be interesting to know if this strikes a ‘me-too’ chord.
Vijay
This is a great, great post!
@Alex - What about blogrolls? I know they’re usually site wide, but has anybody noticed them being zeroed?
@Jenny - don’t publish them on your site, use completely unique articles to avoid duplicate content issues (at least that’s my $.02
Lastly, I think it’s OK to build links through forums but if you do with signature links (where allowed by TOS), but only if you contribute something valuable to the conversation.
Cheers.
Fantastic article. It’s the truth. I still get requests to have my site added to some “links.html” and wow - they never get a link. No spamming is basically the rule of thumb. Whether they be video sites, wikipedia, blogs, guestbooks, forums, whatever.
We highly disagree with you. Its not just black and white hat marketing. There are quite a lot of difference with it. And: NO SINGLE PERSON can do the linking that is necessary through article marketing, forum marketing and others alike. While it is a good idea to post useful articles and write helpful content and WE DO THAT… using methods that automate postings on Forums, Blogs, Comments, etc. etc. etc. is NECESSARY. Even with your great fast blog finder you need a team of people posting to get the desired results.
Face it: one person alone will not get the results they are looking for. You need to leverage yourself and using automated systems that support your efforts. And… to be honest a lot of people are talking about “black hat methods” without even knowing what they are and without having tried and used any software and script that support your link building.
What Is Black Hat?
For some “black hat” means some Internet geeks are stealing digital products online and share them for free (not a good idea!). For others it is “unethical” strategies that that advantage over loop holes in technical processes online that help people to make money on the Internet.
Whatever you think “black hat” is, here is our definition of it:
Using smart Internet Technology to automate processes that help individuals to build money making systems online - IN A WAY THE AVERAGE-JOE WOULD NOT EXPECT THEM.
We dont wan’t to get too much into details here, but an example would be to run a network of sites that feel and look “handmade” even they are not that will gain people’s trust to buy something on those sites. “Being Black Hat” involves persuasive psychology combined with smart technology.
Our mission here is help you find those strategies.
Hi Julia
This was a very insightful article. I especially liked the distinction not only what to do and what not to do but the clear directions you give on HOW to do it when you do it… Thank you
mike
Personlly I consider that guest blogging and creation and submission of unique articles are the best methods for creating quality natural and relevant incoming links to a website.I think articles should be unique and posted just in article directories.Your article is great.Thanks for posting.
Hi Julia,
Again a well thought and well written article from your hand - thank you. I have now accepted the fact, that linkbuilding is very important when it comes to search engine ranking - but building connections takes a long time. And that’s very frustrating when you are relatively new in the game - you want so much to have the attention of search engines, that it is very tempting to take a short cut.
However; I say to my self, that it will take at least a year to build acceptable rankings on my topics - considering sandbox effect and the weight of incoming links. In the mean time I try to have a good time developing my websites to be of high quality. I think that, that’s a winning strategy in the long run. Thanks again.
Thanks for your great program FastBlogFinder, now comment in blogs is more quickly… And now thanks for this ‘grey hat’ building links review.
Jenny I prefer send a summary or a rewrite article to the article directory, leaving the original in my blog and without duplicate content penalty.
Jessy
Excellent Post
See i have a question Commenting on blogs will in decrease web site value?
I am doing it to get back links ….
Thanks for the information and advice Julia, I have take note of the content, its very valuable, specially liked “People hate when somebody chucks in their conversation with an off-topic comment” … I totally agree, I hate it also.
Thanks again!
There are also Social Bookmarking Sites to consider, although many of them implement the nofollow tag and they aren’t keen on people self promoting…
Once more you have given a very valuable information. After creating a link page, I get mails from my link partners that the links did not show up in their link detecting softwares. I did not use the nofollow tag. Probably we did something wrong.
Hi Julia,
Always enjoy reading your posts, and I thin you make some excellent points here. Just wondering what your thoughts are on automated link building software such as Article Submitter and Bookmarking Demon? I’ve read lots about both, good and bad.
Ray
@Alex - the fact that Google would punish links.html or any other file name for a web page is ludicrous and plain faulty logic.
@blackhatempire - interesting trying to make a spin on shady practises and justifying it that there is no other way of getting a good ranking. I disagree with you and apparently so does Google since your web site is pr0. :/
@Julia - Good article, even if it was more main stream this time around, it does help to read a common sense article to re-assert it. Thanks!
I totally agree with your article. Anyone who has spent much time in this business knows that every couple of years you have to totally revamp your web site, or blog. Also you need to change the way you market your sites or be left behind.
Essentially you need to embark on a program of continuous learning when you become an internet marketer. It is a great job, but it does take lots of time and needs plenty of patience. Only a few make the millions the rest however can make very good incomes on the net if they keep up with current good practices on the net.
I have totally abandoned my previous linking methods and rely on social bookmarking these days. Who knows what will be the accepted methods in two years time. I know that even now the days of video marketing is becoming more competitive and the search engines are taking note of people making one video and uploading it to 30 or 40 sites. They are seeing it as spam.
I do know that at this stage if you use the social bookmarking sites correctly you can drive lots of traffic to your niches without too much effort. The key is to automate as much as possible, which I have done very successfully and if done judiciously, you can get away without being labeled a bookmark spammer and getting your sites banned.
Hello all,
This was a great post, giving some information and confirming many more. I’m new to backlinking but logic tells me that is needs to be a win-win. So a win for me to get the backlink, but should be a win for the blog owner and add some value to that blog. An insightful and hopefully productive comment would be that win. If I was a blog owner, I would want my efforts respected. I can’t see spamming as a win in anyway, and many blog owners are finding it burdensome to monitor all the blogs. A few spammers and blogs are switched to NoFollow. Where is the win in that?
Re. Jenny’s comment about article content - I read that before posting articles on directories, to have that article posted on your website, so that your website gets credit for the content. I’m not sure I understand the logic in that or if even it is true. Anyone?
Great post and fantastic comments. Enjoyed it all
Hi Julia
A great articlethat gives some good advice. I do have a question or comment:
When one looks at really high page ranked websites, one sees a great many links to it, some earned by articles and blog postings but also a lot from link exchanging. If its true that the number of links determine your PR a search engine rank, then how in the world can you avoid link exchanging? Its like opposing forces, we in the middle of a tug of war.
Why are people leaving their wanky comments about what a great post this is? I don’t get it. You’ve said nothing new. And you’ve completely ignored one of the shadiest link-building methods around - trackback spamming. For those who don’t know, these are programs that trawl the net using keywords to find blogs where they can automatically leave a “trackback comment” - which counts as a legitimate link. Normally a “trackback” means you’re talking on your blog about the same subject so it’s a reciprocal link. But the trackback spammers fool their target into thinking they are talking about and linking to that targeted blog when they’re not - so the PageRank juice flows only to the spammer. Trackback spammers trawl thousands of sites daily but limit themselves to say fifty or less trackbacks - that way they stay under Google’s radar. Whilst increasing their links and (Larry)PageRank. You’ll note Google doesn’t have much to say about it. That’s probably because there’s not much they can do about it.
Great discussion! Sounds mostly like an “Amen chorus” happening.
What perked up my ears was Julia’s mention of writing web content for humans rather than the search engine robots.
It’s easy to pick out sites done using the formulaic approach….not to mention annoying. We really can’t forget that while it may help PR, the search engines aren’t the ones clicking the “Buy Now” button.
So even if you’re leveraging or automating your link-building, please use relevant, original and thoughtful material as the basis for it.
in regards to Wikipededia, you could invent a new term, that relates to your business and leverage an article at wikipedia. Most other links are no follow. Digital point is a good forum to work with- provided you make 20 plus posts and build up your account so that you can use a signature block. You can then create many keyword based links in every post.
Paul
Very interesting perspective. I’ve heard that blog site-wide links are being devalued but yet when I study the backlinks of top 10 sites, that’s exactly what I find. So, is this article discussing what the next Google phase will be because any site with 50,000 backlinks can’t accomplish that without leveraging site-wide links. In my shoes now promoting a new site, I was going to pursue relevant niche related high PR link exchanges. These sites use a resource page to store their links, but it’s clear to me that the links should be “sprinkled” through their site in relevant content to have any value.
What does everyone else think?
Thanks
Steve
I question one part of this otherwise excellent article. You say “If there is any doubt, the search engine can consider the links as spammy and lower the website in ranking.” If this was true it would be easy for someone to devalue a competitor’s website. I think spammy links add little or no value but cannot actually reduce search positions or page rank.
hi,
I have have purchased G-Lock Fast directory submitter and its working nice and its showing good report to my submission to directories. my site was listed to around 300 directories and still its on process. Even i downloaded Fast blog finder and tried for some keywords, this is also showing very good related blogs. i will purchase this products.
thanks for the above info and great tools to get more popolorize a website.
Isn’t this potentially over-dramatic and misleading?
Whilst I agree that it is important to understand the best value links, all research indicates that you cannot be penalised in any way by search engines for an INBOUND link, otherwise competitors would have tools at their disposal to trash your business.
Linking out is different and and you should avoid linking to sites of dubious merit, but the scope of Fast Blog Finder is soleley devoted to obtaining IBLs anyway.
I do agree that you should only ever post articles/comments etc.. that are well written and add to a discussion, but I don’t believe that you will ever be punished by the search engines if it is poor quality or even spammy … you may just not get the link juice that you hoped for and are wasting your own time contributing on that site.
For Jenny,
It is advisable to put the original document on your own blog/website first and if it is put on a blog immediately ping it, to ensure that its recorded where the original document was put in place first. ( ping it - http://www.pingomatic.com if ur blog does not automatically do this )
Putting it in the article directories a few days later, with a resource link back to the original will let Google & others know where the original is and will serve to hopefully get the original document showing up in serps INSTEAD of the ezine version of the same in the article directory — unless of course your intent is really to get traffic for the article directory - lol.
Thank you: Wade, Jessy and Trevor for answering my question. If I was confused before asking, now i really don’t know what to do
I like Jessy’s answer (”I prefer send a summary or a rewrite article to the article directory, leaving the original in my blog and without duplicate content penalty”) but this means more work to me.
Wade - if i only publish the article on the article site, i just get the link back. Does it worth it to write an entire article only so i can get a link?
Trevor - your answer is mostly in my favor (publish it first on my blog, ping it and few days later - publish the same article on article site), but will my brand new blog page will show in serps before the established, high pr, article-site page?
@ Jenny. Short answer is “no” - your blog page will be blown out of the water by the high PR ezine story. You are better off writing a different version - just “top and tail” it - rewrite the intro and the last para. And maybe use a different heading but with the same keywords. So have one read “Car Shipping To Europe Made Easy” - “car shipping” the keywords. And “Is Car Shipping to Europe Easy?” or something like that. Email me the story if you like and if I find it interesting I’ll blog about it and link to you. I’m back to PR3 from a 5 (for some reason known only to Big Brother Google) but I get any post indexed in about 5 minutes - I have good backlinks.
@Jessy
You refer to duplicate content penalty. According to Google, there is absolutely no such thing as a duplicate content penalty. There is a video interview with Matt Cutts (of Google) that emphatically states that there is no penalizing for someone using duplicated or syndicated content. I wish I could find that video link to share.
During that interview he did talk to Google using techniques to establish original provenance and making sure that we as authors should ensure that syndicated material holds authorship details.
Where I suspect that we get convinced of duplicate penalties is when we see one site ranking higher than an other for effectively the same page …. but isn’t that just the natural order of things? All things being equal, a site with higher PR will always be regarded as more authoritative. The answer is why we are all here today … build more inbound links and increase our authority and PR.
@ David, you’re wrong - there is a “duplicate content penalty” but it all boils down to intent. If Google thinks you are deliberately trying to manipulate it WILL penalise your pageRank or at worst de-index you. From the horses mouth -
“Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to block the version on their sites with robots.txt.
Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don’t follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.
If you find that another site is duplicating your content by scraping (misappropriating and republishing) it, it’s unlikely that this will negatively impact your site’s ranking in Google search results pages. If you do spot a case that’s particularly frustrating, you are welcome to file a DMCA request to claim ownership of the content and request removal of the other site from Google’s index.”
@Malcolm
I appreciate the quote, but I don’t think that you can absolutely say that I am wrong. The quotes appear to support what I said if I can pick out the following:
(a) “Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search”, and
(b) “If you find that another site is duplicating … it’s unlikely that this will negatively impact your site’s ranking in Google search results pages.”
Nowhere in the full quote does it actually say that there IS a duplicate penalty, wheras Matt Cutts did say that Google does not operate a duplicate content penalty and that WAS captured on video.
What I will concede though is that people are arguing a lot over that video and whether lower rankings = penalty effect or not and I guess you and I are in that exchange..
back @ David, I would take everything Matt Cutts says with a grain of salt. For instance he was quoted three weeks ago as saying Google should penalise for “fake news stories” (i.e. “link bait”) whilst engaging in it himself with his April Fools “I’ve been hacked” post.
But he said this back in February - “…I would be mindful that taking all your articles and submitting them for syndication all over the place can make it more difficult to determine how much the site wrote its own content vs. just used syndicated content. My advice would be 1) to avoid over-syndicating the articles that you write, and 2) if you do syndicate content, make sure that you include a link to the original content. That will help ensure that the original content has more PageRank, which will aid in picking the best documents in our index.”
So yeah…he doesn’t come out and say “we have this thing called Duplicate Content Penalty” but rather “if we think you’re trying to manipulate SERPS by posting duplicate content, we’ll have a close look at you”(read “penalise”). And that bit about “make sure you include a link to the original content” is a doozy as there’s nothing to stop someone running a syndicated article (ezine) without the link. And then where do you stand? You think Google is going to go out of its way to make sure who wrote the original story? I wouldn’t hold your breath.
But the bottom line is still Google can do whatever the hell they like. And that’s a worry. Bit like the PageRank kerfuffle recently - if Google “thought” you were selling links they slammed you. No “please explain” - just shot at dawn.
Sorry…I can’t let this go. David says “All things being equal, a site with higher PR will always be regarded as more authoritative.” and that’s definitely not the case. I’ve read it on a Google page…perhaps Google Webmaster… where they say PageRank alone doesn’t determine your position in their Search results. They used this analogy - if the subject is The American Civil War and TIME magazine (PR
has a page on it whereas another lower PR site has pages and pages of solid research and good writing, they’ll defer to that site rather than the TIME story. And that makes sense. But surely you’ve seen that yourself or even experienced it yourself with your own stuff? Quality content and quality backlinks are what count. Not PageRank alone. I wouldn’t be looking at “build(ing) more inbound links” but building better quality inbound links. Link farms will supply all the links you want but ultimately they won’t help you much.
Paul: Inventing your own word or phrase will definitely get you points for unique! That is one idea I am going to toss around for a while.
Good post overall.
I have several blogs, one or two of them have PR2 and up and never used any black hat stuff. I didn’t even have a team working around the clock, as Mr. Black Hat suggested I would need.
@Malcolm - I would not say that Matt’s April fools joke was a fake news story, it was a joke and most people figured it out because it was on april first.
And he is Google’s face to the world, I find most of his stuff very interesting but I don’t go around reading more into what he says than what is more or less self evident. But each to his own I guess.
@Paul - I like that - making up my own company and/or industry term to get a wiki page. Of course, if everyone does it, that is a lot of odd terms.
Google sniffs this sort of thing out and you lose rankings, not gain. Knowing when you’re on thin ice isn’t really difficult. Just ask yourself, is this action I am contemplating going to imrpove the reader’s experience or simply annoy them? In other words, are you adding valued content or simply adding to the buzz of spam that we’re all so tired of seeing.
that bit about “make sure you include a link to the original content” is a doozy as there’s nothing to stop someone running a syndicated article (ezine) without the link. And then where do you stand? You think Google is going to go out of its way to make sure who wrote the original story? I wouldn’t hold your breath.
There doesnt seem like there are any quick fixes anymore! We got rid of all of our links pages a while back and stopped exchanging links, started to use forums and blogs but that looks like they are not as great any more! We have done articles - but they are “soooo” time consuming, done directory submissions, etc etc.
We are just so fed up with this race to be higher than our competitors - there is only so much you can write about and only so much content you can put on a website without it being irrelevant or going over the same things.
SEO has become a tedious and boring part of the net.
The problem of other blog owner they just take off the link on the comment, and record it a spam, some other blog commenting individuals also give a great post, not monotonous phrase. I like your article and it is very educational.
The only thing i think left out in this tutorial is link baiting.
Some of the most popular methods to consider might be:
wordpress themes (thousands of footer sitewide backlinks with no nofollow but do not usually contain kewords)
icon sets (eg: famfam icons)
sexy girls wearing a ubuntu / firefox t-shit. - I’m sure we’ve all seen these pages, they usually hit page 1 and dig and bring in lots of links… then page could then after 6 months be 301′d to some alternative page.
As long as you add some text about the links on links pages saying why you are linking to them, I think it is an ok way to get and give links. The emphasis being on ensuring you add content to the links page saying why though. Cheers for the article and your thoughts on getting links.
At the end of the day, it what really counts is adding quality, and being relevant. Google is number one because they want to make sure that the offer the best experience they can to their customers.
If you can give people exactly what they are looking for, you win. And as long as you provide comments, and sites that are along those lines, then you are good to go.
I’ve read so many different opinions on the link building that I have just begin to ignore them. The best thing to do is try it yourself and test it out. Testing is the key to knowing for sure if something really works or if it doesn’t.
Great stuff! I like to think that commenting is way up there. I mean - just consider posting a new blog post at least every day and then search Google for your keyword + the word “commentluv” + the word “keywordluv”. Now check out the Google Search results to find one or two interesting blog posts and post a comment. Sometimes commentluv does not work but then still you get a free text link to your blog that currently runs a related blog post on the main page. Now I hope you have an attractive sticky blog signup box on your site to capture the traffic. You can give away free links to your Top Commenters as well as host a competition where you give the top commenter of the month a link on an article you write and submit to hundreds or thousands of directories and other blogs.
If you like the blog posts that much that you decided to comment on them - rate them. Most blogs (like this one) uses a button of their favorite rating service (web 2.0). Obviously you like the site so give them a thumbs up!
Or you can use the Facebook sharing system which is just rocking in the top ranks! I like this one best as it makes use of a real personal recommendation that is sent on the visitor’s behalf to (mostly) personal friends and I guess you did not know this: it gets delivered into facebook’s email inbox!
I think a good strategy with wikipedia is to find a unique link on your website that you can add to an existing article. I have had good traffic results from the few links I have been able to add there.
connors last blog post.. U.B. Funkeys - Vroom
Are Wikipedia links not no follow? I found a message to that effect when I added one a few days ago.