Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

**Bethers** · 02-09-2007, 03:59 AM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

The idea is to have information and articles that will make sites of importance want to link to you. As for who you link to - you want to pick sites and articles that you believe will be of interest to your own visitors. And the sites you're talking about above won't give a reciprocal link. But you can get links from .orgs if you belong to any organizations who will list member websites (Chamber of Commerce, some city sites, Rotary clubs, Lion's Clubs, etc) But it will require membership. And some will, some will not put links to members websites. All are different.

Resources pages aren't as important as they used to be for seo - but they can bring you traffic - so doing them right is important to get the right traffic.

**motoxxx** · 02-09-2007, 10:16 AM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

The biggest advantage to doing a Resources page is to expand the size of your site. If you place your own articles in pages that you create inside of your own template you end up adding more relevant pages to your own site. If your internal site language is well structured you develope more pages for your own site and those pages all contain links (hopefully!) back to your own websites most important pages. This increases the importance to the search engines of your most important pages sort of like getting other backlinks into your most important pages. The main difference is that you are the one creating and adding the backlinks so they dn't carry as much weight but they do add up. The other thing that happens when this is done correctly is that you are hopefully adding good quality content to your site and this makes you more of an authority site. Everyone loves authority sites. Surfers and SEs alike!

I use the term "Resources Page" because by placing the links to my own pages containing my own articles on this page along with out going links to other relevant resources you can really plug your site into whatever your industry is. This makes the page (and hopefully the site!) a valuable resource for your users and the search engines love that!

gov and .edu backlinks are very tough to get. They are usually only granted to sites that are a valuable resource tons of people (alumni from a University for example) or if the site is a fantastic resource that some governing body has found more useful than itself...and we all know how often that happens! See if some of the message boards in some of the universities will allow you to put a link in your sig and make some posts. I tried that a while ago and I got booted for it....

**planet777** · 02-09-2007, 06:14 PM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Hey Bethers & Moto,

tks for all the info! Will have to check out the alternatives for .gov and .edu... I used to belong to Toastmasters, I suppose that's a long shot for getting a backlink, or similar... lol.

Seems to me the FIRST step is to create one's site as a genuine resource site that ppl would naturally visit (if they knew about it) coz it has gt content. SO, my big question is the mechanics of making a Resources page - and a Links page.

As Moto said, in essence my page is a one page sales letter. It has some reasonable info I guess in the home page, but the real meat has to come from the book I'm offering, plus the articles etc. So...

1) the Links page. Would it be good to put, you know, link #1, health&nutrition.com - with blurb attached? (the proviso being I dont link to any site that I havent personally checked out and believe in that is good for me and clients) And then link #2, with blurb etc? ("Go here for excellent advice on diet and nutrition") After a while I may have 100's of sites, which would be good I guess? (whether or not they linked back to me, lol)

Related question: with the hyperlinked URL's, do I just put www.health&nutrition.com (a fiction site, I hope, just for sake of illustration!!) - and that's it? I'm asking because some sites ask you to put a bit of html code into your site and I'm still battling to understand how this works. Do you copy the html off the site, then use the html insert box thing (located as the top left icon in BV) and paste it in there, or do you do something else?

Hope the above question is clear, lol :-

2) the Resources page. I can write my own health and diet articles (i've been using the same article over and over when submitting to article directories) but I can write more of my OWN content. There is also obviously a plethora (good word ey? lol!) - there is obviously a TON of content out there that I can use, of course giving all due credit with references and sites they come from etc. So no problem with that. But again, the mechanics of this...

My Resources page is a link off my home page. ON that page then I have what, article #1 with a hyperlink back to where it came off of, let's say www.greatarticles.com? or should I reproduce the article in toto on one of MY OWN pages, with a hyperlink at the end of the article, saying "if you want to see the article in its original posting, go here"

I'm not sure how this works in the guts of the site, so to speak. How do I structure my own "internal site structure" in the best way? Do all the internal articles link back to the home page? or some other page? (the Resources 'home' page, for eg) Where in BV does one link back?

I guess I would structure my articles and resources along the four lines of Health, Diet, Nutrition and Weight loss? In the end I could also have 100's of articles - all relevant and interesting and helpful - all over my site!

I just dont quiiite know how to do it and want to do it RIGHT - first time. I remember in a previous post (or was it email) Moto saying about the right site structure.

So sorry if you have already answered some of these questions but I'm trying to get it right and appreciate the help!! :-

Oh, interesting that Moto said he got booted for trying to get on the message boards at universities ... I have been trying to join weightloss forums and support groups but nowhere that I see are you allowed to attach your URL! (unlike in Vodahost!!) And if I approach these sites and ask if I can post something to offer the book free in exchange for testimonials etc, I just get ignored... so it's a whole palaver as they say... lol :-

PS the good news is that the bots are spidering my site every 3-4 days! Google, MSN, Inktomi Slurp (is that Yahoo??) and Ask Jeeves. So i must be doing SOMETHING right? lol. The question is... what?? ha ha. :-

Anyway, tks for all the help and cheers 4 now,

Will

**motoxxx** · 02-10-2007, 09:45 PM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Inktomi Slurp is Yahoo.

Use your links page only for links that you have done recipricollink exchanges with. The added html that some people want you to add to their link on your site is usually a bit of a description of the site that the link goes to the and the included descriptive anchor text.

Use your resources page to place outgoing links to other great resources site but the majority of the links on your resource page should be links that go to other pages of your site that you create that contain either articles you wrote or borrowed with permission. Always give a link back to whoever was the original article writer if you borrow content. It is good web etiquete to do so. You should also make sue that your links on the resources page contain descriptive anchor text and a brief site description. Just like the ones that are placed on your links page do.

You'll get there Will. Really study what me an Bethers have explained to you in this thread and wrap your brain around the concept. What this will do is allow you to keep your one page sales letter format for your main page but expand the back side of your website to uspport the main page with solid relevant internaly linking structure.

**planet777** · 02-12-2007, 07:52 PM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Hey Moto,

tks!! I think i'm starting to get there... just sorting out hyperlink issues on another thread...

Qu: why is a links page ONLY for reciprocal ppl? I have a number of links to sites that I respect, but who havent linked back to me, prob. coz I didnt ask! (thought it was a bit forward, esp. since they have NO links to anyone!)

From what I understand, if you link TO someone, even if it's not reciprocated, it can help you, but not nearly as much as the ideal: getting a link FROM a heavyweight site to you. Commente? :-

Yeah, the majority of links would go from my Resources page TO other pages WITHIN my site ... giving all credit and due reference, etc. So I'm getting there, lol.

Reaaaly basic qu. but what is anchor text? Is it, as if on a page: "Health Nut 'An introduction to healthy living'" - would the stuff in single inverted commas be the anchor text? Is it descriptive of the hyperlink/URL in question?

Why has Yahoo got such a crazy name for their bot?? It sounds like a pool cleaner!! haha......

Tks Moto,

cheers

Will

**motoxxx** · 02-14-2007, 03:37 AM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Yahoos bot came with the purchase of another company called Inktomi a while back, They just never changes the name Slurp is another bot that came with the same aquisition. I may be wrong on this but that is the way I remember it.

Your understanding of anchor text is corrent. If you look at the links in my sig, those are considered anchor text.

You are correct that linking out TO someone can help you a bit but not as much as getting links from someone. If you are linking out to someone the SEs see this as you are directing your vistors to something else you find useful and this can indeed help you.

**planet777** · 02-15-2007, 05:22 PM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Hey Moto,

tks... how anyone could name anything but a fast food chain DRINK, something like SLURP is beyond me! LOL! :-

Question: I noticed that one of the people that I took an article off of, his website is 'heavy' - PR of 7. I was wondering if I should ask them to reciprocally link? Or wait till my PR is at least a bit higher?

Coz, I've found that if I approach the 'heavy' sites, they don't reply. They probably take one look at my PR and duck!! lol.

Tks,

Will

**motoxxx** · 02-16-2007, 01:45 AM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Most likely they are ducking Will. By placing a very low PR site on their site that can lower their status. Allthough I doubt a page with a PR7 would be hurt very much by doing so.

Slurp is called Slurp becasue of the way it Slurps up the info from the servers.

**Bethers** · 02-16-2007, 04:53 AM

Re: Optimising for .gov and .edu sites?

Actually, many sites don't do reciprocal linking at all -unless you are offering them a reason that they would want to link to you - like an article, etc that they would find worthy. And most of the big sites won't decide on linking to you based on your pr - as they know that is only ONE criteria for it and no, a low pr site link will NOT lower their status. That's a complete untruth. The only types of sites that a link from yours can hurt you - are sites that are blacklisted or banned. And incoming links from banned or blacklisted sites won't normally hurt because the se's recognize that you can't control who chooses to link TO you.

Reciprocal linking is no longer going to give you the same prestige it once did - as the idea of linking - was that sites picked other sites to link TO because they would be worthy to their own visitors. People discovered this and link trading was begun. This is one reason why one way links are so much more valuable. But even they are losing some ground if they don't show as being related - closely related.

I'm not saying to not link trade - but do it for the traffic that you can get from it - don't spend all this time on it for the se's - cuz it's not going to do what you want.

Now, if you want to get quality inbound links - NOT TRADES - with some of these high pr sites - then you have to find something you can offer them that will make them want to put a link to you on their site - and that something will have to help THEIR visitors.