Forming A Link Directory Co-Op

[BungeeBones]

Hi all,

I had launched a real estate advertising site and when I had finished building it and began marketing it I realized I was beating my head against the wall. I did a Google search using the term "real estate" and was given 360 million results. That meant I would be site number 360 million and ONE.

I figured there just had to be a better way than trying to claw my way the serp! I investigated the pay Per Click and the link exchanges and the directories etc and they all had their problems. It was about then that I began the idea of developing BungeeBones.com which is a sort of webmaster co-operative link exchange that has some aspects of Pay Per Click to share revenue among the members and to compensate for differences among the various sites' abilities to contribute traffic.

The basic idea involves, in a manner similar to Adsense, placing code that delivers income generating links to webmaster's websites but instead of placing a few links there along the side of a page it delivers a whole webpage's worth of categories and links to the site. It is a form of subscription based directory that delivers a complete, human edited, link filled, and completely maintained directory to a webmaster for placement on their website. In exchange for the website "real estate" BungeeBones pays a form of "rent" by paying 50% commissions to the website for any paid link sales the site generates.

With the co-operation of webmasters in this manner the traffic generated increases the value of placing a paid link there and further helps generate the paid link sales.

It offers free links as well as paid links so if you want to visit it at bungeebones.com please take a minute and submit your link to the directory while you are there.

[TeraTree]

Interesting concept... submitted a link while i was there. Thanks!

[BungeeBones]

Are you TVGHosting :: Top Notch Service + Excellent Support.

[TeraTree]

Yes, until we launch TeraTree.com

[dpSubi1]

good idea. will try submitting my site.

[OldWelshGuy]

What you are doing is a classic link farm (sorry) If you are doing this for traffic only I suggest you block the pages from google.

[g00db0y]

good concept. My website is about web hosting information (PR 3). Do you still interested?

[BungeeBones]

Originally Posted by OldWelshGuy

What you are doing is a classic link farm (sorry) If you are doing this for traffic only I suggest you block the pages from google.

I realize we are getting into a vague "gray" area but I disagree with your remark that BungeeBones is a "link farm". I fully understand your concern, as I wrote an article in my blog quite some time ago about that very subject. Income Producing Link Exchange

Whether one tries to appease Google or not, to me, seems to be a matter of odds and probability of achieving a given SERP rating for a given category. In my post I mentioned my chosen keyword (real estate). It was a real estate advertising site. IT would have been starting out at 360 million and one. If I beat out 99.9999999 % of the competition I would be on the first page. Take a point off the last decimal and I would be in the top 20. Quite frankly, I would have better odds investing in the lotto.

But the thing that really bothers me is the vagueness of their definition of what constitutes "link farms". Is it really just a case of fear mongering?

My goal with BungeeBones is to make it such a high quality directory as to actually be used by the search engines as they do with DMOZ. The entire reason they value links in their algorithms is because of the human review factor anyway. BungeeBones is and always will be human reviewed links only. PLUS, I incorporated features for other webmasters to review websites also as well as the public.

Don't assume I don't know the typical SEO response to my argument, which is to simply "niche" my site by aiming at a less popular keyword. I understand the principle that it is real easy to rank #1 for a keyword such as "purchasing real estate on a Tuesday" or some other bizarre thing. But when one is in a keyword dominated by multinational corporations then the chance of the "average Joe" getting to the top is slim to none.

Ultimately, though, it is up to the webmaster that hosts the subscription directory on their own site whether to stop Google or not. Personally I don't have a problem with that and there is no policy against it but every webmaster that submits their link in the directory loses when they do.

[OldWelshGuy]

VERY aggressive answer BB, I assume nothing and to be honest am a little offended at your posting it. You say 'the typical SEO response' Not sure what a typical SEO is, but I would not like to think of myself as a typical SEO.

I have been in web marketing since 1995 Four years BEFORE Google existed, I was one of the first people to buy a .co.uk domain, I have grown up with the search engines from lycos altavista hotbot etc, and know them inside out and IF I am reading what you say your system does, then it WILL eventually bring the whole network into a bad neighbourhood ban and EVERY SINGLE SITE in the network will get banned. Now that might be a day, a week, a month, a year five years, who knows,? BUT eventually it WILL happen, and the very fact that you are operating in Real Estate means it will happen sooner rrather than later, because people will report the sites as spam to google via spam report, that is how it works (But I am sure you know that).

This is what I am basing my posts on though, so please feel free to corret my thinking if I have it wrong.
1. A site joins the network and is added to the directory.
2. They add the code, and the directory appears on their site
3. Others join the network and do the same, and they together with everyone who joined before them AND after them is added to their site in a nice neat directory structure.

It was called a 'link farm' originally NOT by search engines, but by the people like myself who discussed search engine marketing amongst ourselves. It is called a link farm because you plant a single link, and the crop results in hundreds or thousands of links for that one little action of planting the code on your page.

Please correct me if I am wrong as I would NOT want to bad mouth your product wrongly, that is not my style.
is that right?
because if it is it is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT the literal meaning of the original link farm that was black balled around 1999.