2.
Oh my god; another presentation about link building. What? From a white hat guy too?

4.
Who the heck am I? <ul><li>Andrew Girdwood </li></ul><ul><li>Head of Search at bigmouthmedia </li></ul><ul><li>… but also an affiliate  </li></ul><ul><li>Supposed to put soft sales text in here </li></ul><ul><li>Talk about how capable we are </li></ul><ul><li>Talk about how large our European footprint is </li></ul><ul><li>Talk about how we’ve never lost a football match to an affiliate network </li></ul>

5.
Types of Links

6.
Types of links <ul><li>The ones you make </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Some count </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Some don’t </li></ul></ul><ul><li>The ones you get given </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Some count </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Some don’t </li></ul></ul><ul><li>The ones Google hates </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Some count until Google catches them </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Others count against from you the outset </li></ul></ul>

7.
Oh Google, what are you doing now?

8.
Goodbye directory links? <ul><li>On the 2 nd of October Google made an important change to their webmaster guidelines. Google stopped recommending directory submissions. </li></ul><ul><li>A single line of text was removed. It read; “Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.” </li></ul>

9.
JohnMu to the rescue! Again. <ul><li>Google’s JohnMu helps frame the situation for us. Writing in Google Groups he said; </li></ul><ul><ul><li>“ I wouldn't necessarily assume that we're devaluing Yahoo's links, I just think it's not one of the things we really need to recommend. If people think that a directory is going to bring them lots of visitors (I had a visitor from the DMOZ once), then it's obviously fine to get listed there. It's not something that people have to do though :-).” </li></ul></ul>

10.
John Who? What did Matt Cutts say? <ul><li>Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site. </li></ul><ul><li>What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn't speak well to the quality of the directory. </li></ul><ul><li>If there is a fee, what's the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site. </li></ul>

11.
Do I think directories are dead? <ul><li>I think easy directories are dead. </li></ul><ul><li>Quality directories will still be beneficial. </li></ul><ul><li>What does this mean to affiliates? </li></ul><ul><li>Most directories prefer to link to homepages. </li></ul><ul><li>This makes it easier for a small site about a specific product to benefit from directory links than it for a large retailer to directory link to product pages. </li></ul>

12.
He’s going to talk about paid links!

13.
Report Paid Links! <ul><li>Level the playing field </li></ul><ul><li>Earn kudos for your Webmaster Console login </li></ul><ul><li>Help underline the value of affiliate marketing and commissions </li></ul>

14.
Spotting Paid Links

15.
Yahoo Pipes – Link Watch

16.
Making your own Link

17.
Should it work?

18.
Articles and PRs

19.
Submission to editorially controlled sites

20.
Crash Course <ul><li>Social profile pages </li></ul><ul><li>Activity stream sites </li></ul><ul><li>Syndicated RSS feeds </li></ul><ul><li>Comments and forum citations </li></ul><ul><li>HTML gadgets and widgets </li></ul><ul><li>Memes and virals </li></ul><ul><li>Bios and profile pages for conferences and expos </li></ul><ul><li>Press interviews </li></ul>

21.
Can you make other people link to you?

22.
Be a suck up (virtual networking) <ul><li>Many of the most popular affiliate and search blogs became popular because the author is a good networker; </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Leave comments </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Ask questions via Twitter, etc </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Give you reason to get involved in their blog </li></ul></ul><ul><li>You don’t need a blog to do this; </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Shop sites have reviews and editorials </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Travel and Finance sites can cite resources </li></ul></ul>

23.
Offer soft incentives

24.
Become hated (virtual networking)

25.
Be quick. Have a target audience. <ul><li>Who’s most likely to blog about you? </li></ul><ul><li>Write something that’ll interest them </li></ul><ul><ul><li>More risky; contact them and see if you can get some friendly communication going </li></ul></ul>

26.
Give your URL to the linkers

27.
Twitter Credits! <ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpwillis/283144228/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigstyave/367353091/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/restlessglobetrotter/2166068194/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/425231402/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/iainb/162799808/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhammza/1381101959/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlunar/298456969/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/lon/275039534/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.flickr.com/photos/gustavog/4557105/ </li></ul>

28.
Thank you! <ul><li>Andrew Girdwood </li></ul><ul><li>[email_address] </li></ul><ul><li>Twitter: AndrewGirdwood </li></ul><ul><li>FriendFeed: AndrewGirdwood </li></ul><ul><li>Blog: blog.arhg.net </li></ul>