There seems to be a lively debate centred on content for-links as a link building strategy and on the apparent loss of rankings a particular site who are alleged to be using this approach.
We have been explicitly named in some posts and are therefore responding to, hopefully, help to set the record straight. We apologise in advance for the length of this post! Can we also thank the many people who have responded in a balanced way in other posts – it is reassuring to know that not everyone is driven by a crushing competitive agenda or simple malice.
KEY POINTS FOR ANYONE IN A RUSH!
- Chris Young is NOT associated with our search businesses
- We specifically avoid creating a co-operative network - any technology and databases used are simply for efficiency
- We NEVER pay for links or content-for-link partners
- We cannot confirm or deny any specific client associations for legal reasons
THE DETAILS
WHO IS INVOLVED?
First of all, we cannot confirm that we have any relationship with sites named in some of the other posts. We are contractually excluded from publically discussing the identities of some clients which, as most of you know, is not uncommon in our industry. This response is neither a confirmation nor a denial of a relationship - we promise we are not being evasive - that’s the best we can do on that front according to the lawyers – sorry! We would also point out that per the section at the end of this post, there are other firms using a very similar approach.
Secondly, we can confirm that Content Now LLP is Co-Owned by UK Offer Media Limited (Kieron Donoghue, MD) and Search Sciences LLP (Simon Snelling, CEO). We provide a range of solutions for clients including content-driven linking campaigns.
Thirdly, Chris Young is a close friend of Simon’s but he has absolutely no involvement with the running of our search businesses — so please direct everything at us!!
DO WE CREATE CO-OPERATIVE NETWORKS?
No. We entirely agree that co-operative networks are harmful. It would seem that our use of technology in parts of the process has been completely misinterpreted by some people as intending to create such a network.
Quite the opposite.
As an example, we exclude ALL clients from linking with each other under any of our campaigns although many would be highly relevant for each other. This is the opposite to the approach taken by many firms who ruthlessly raid their own databases for potential link partners.
ALL potential link partners are identified from public sources, including the main search engines, based entirely upon their relevance for the client in question. Period. The information we hold in our systems is used for the management of conversations with potential and live link partners. It is not used to target them. We have specifically built our systems and procedures to avoid such a network, recognising that such networks are a problem elsewhere in the SEO industry.
DO WE USE BLACK HAT TECHNIQUES?
No we do not. We can only assume that the use of a client-hosted response page that links to one of our systems has been entirely misunderstood. The response page is simply there as an option for potential - and existing - link partners to use for sending messages (we all know how flaky email can be sometimes) and to provide FAQ and more detailed information on various elements of the approach and campaign. It also allows partners to obtain and to provide information which goes directly into our systems, helping with accuracy and efficiency. Once again, it is absolutely not used to create a co-op network.
We make no bones about the fact that we keep our brand visibility at a low profile during conversations with link partners. Any of you who have ever actually run a linking campaign will recognise that the activities of unscrupulous firms, many of them located off-shore, have made an approach by an SEO firm almost meaningless – how is a poor site owner supposed to distinguish from a genuine and ethical offer versus a spammy co-op network – or worse – contact harvesting exercise?
This is absolutely the ONLY reason we minimise our involvement.
We work extremely hard to stick to best practice and we stand tall by our work. In fact, any of you who have ever had a linking dialogue with any of our client campaigns beyond the initial email will know that we state that we are managing the campaign responses at the foot of the email.
We will address the issues specifically surrounding the ethics of content-for-links in a further section below.
ARE SITES GETTING BANNED AS A RESULT OF THE APPROACH?
The only comments that we are able to make on specific cases (see restrictions in “WHO IS INVOLVED?” above) are 1) there are now a number of posts suggesting that there are other factors at play here possibly relating to a new version of the site in question. 2) we have had NO reports of ranking penalties for clients, many of who have been running content-driven campaigns for some time. Actually quite the contrary – all of our established clients are flourishing for relevant search terms.
PAYMENT FOR LINKS
We do not pay for links. Period.
We have turned away clients who wanted us to run paid linking campaigns. Any time a potential link partner responds requiring payment, we will add them to our exclusions system – we know of thousands of sites that require payment for links and we never contact them again.
CONTENT FOR LINKS – IS IT ETHICAL?
Ask 20 SEO specialists regards linking in general and you’ll get 21 ‘best practice’ approaches. Whilst the search engines rightly penalise overly aggressive tactics; co-op networks; off-theme linking paid links and so forth, there is widespread acceptance that link popularity remains a significant factor in achieving decent search engine rankings.
Perhaps in an ideal world, all sites would be so amazingly stuffed with brilliant link bait that the right links would miraculously appear – how nice would that be? We complete recognise the benefits of social media optimisation, link baiting etc. and practise in these areas. However, in 2009, there remains a healthy market demand for the direct approach to creating relationships with relevant link partners through legitimate means.
There is widespread debate as to the validity of reciprocal linking (which incidentally we also practice carefully based upon relevance). Paying for links is quite rightly against Google TOS and is unethical – primarily because the motivation is wrong which effects relevancy and because it creates an unequal playing field wherein those sites with the deepest pockets win.
Linking must therefore be about the fair exchange of value. For some clients this may be some form of reciprocal or three way type linking; for others it may involve offering relevant content in return for a link.
The point here is relevant. The client and link partner will be in a relevant space for each other. The content will be specifically researched and hand written by our own (UK based) writing team or in some cases the client’s own editorial team around a relevant theme specifically agreed with the link partner. No-one is ever coerced and all link partners have the absolute right to approve, modify or reject the content created for them at any time.
We never make any attempt to disguise the fact that the link is the objective – link partners understand this. From the link partner’s perspective, content is often something that they struggle to produce in their own right. Don’t assume, as has been suggested elsewhere, that this is some massive SEO firm preying on a bunch of unsuspecting one man bands. On the contrary, many of the content-for-links partners are full sized businesses who recognise the importance of content but just don’t have the time or resource – made worse by the current economic climate.
SO WILL THE PARTNER BENEFIT FROM THE CONTENT?
The best answer any honest SEO firm can give to almost any SEO question, given that none of us control the search engine algorithms, is that to the best of our knowledge they should. We don’t think there will be too many people arguing that relevant content isn’t helpful for SEO. The content is unique, written specifically for the link partner on a subject relevant to their site. There is one simple undisguised HTML link to the client’s site included towards the end of the content. To the best of our knowledge and based upon over 10 years of link building experience, once the search engines have indexed the content, the link partner is likely to see the benefits long before the engines attribute ranking benefit for the client from the link – it varies tremendously but the search engines understandably view new links with caution and attribute value to them only over a period of time.
Actually, we regularly receive requests from link partners for more content; some become content clients (or linking clients); others have even pinged us simply to thank us and to tell us they were ranking for the content.
ARE WE PERFECT?
No of course not. The odd bit of sub-standard content may make it out there. A few partners may not be perfectly on-theme. Our processes involve humans throughout and as we all know, none of us are perfect! Any errors brought to our attention are promptly corrected and we are constantly striving to improve systems and processes. We have a decent, very hard working team and we are deeply proud of them. Just as importantly we have a lot of happy clients with good rankings, as we hope do the ethical and fair SEO bloggers among you!
IS IT US?
Aside from the comments above regards client confidentiality, we are well aware that our approach has been copied by a number of webmasters and, indeed we are told possibly some other SEO firms. This means that emails of a similar structure may well have come from other firms or individual webmasters – just to add to the confusion!
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
There is probably tons more to say but this post is far too long already. We realise that some of you will have questions and we will do our best to answer them but please bear with us if responses are slow – pressure of work as usual!
Have a great weekend.
Thanks and kind regards – Simon & Kieron
Kieron Donoghue & Simon Snelling
Partners and Co-Founders, Content Now LLP
Post from Kieron’s Blog
Content for Links
Original post by Kieron
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