Lars Kougal (the guy behind mywordpress.com and linklaunder.com) presented SEO Booster Lite WordPress plugin couple of months ago and it showed an interesting SEO concept. In fact I included the plugin in Top 10 WordPress Hidden Gems list.
Being a fan of SEO concepts, I thought Lars's idea - listing the Google page 2 search queries landing on your site, on your blog sidebar in hope of strengthening them so they are pushed on page 1, thus creating more traffic - was pretty smart.
According to WordPress.org stats some 7,000 people downloaded the plugin and have been using it on their blogs. Lars also released the PRO version of the plugin, paid of course, with some extra options.
Unfortunately in the latest version of the plugin, Lars has decided to insert a link to his own site at the end of the widget, which the user can not turn off (in the previous versions you could).
I'd say Lars is trying to either get the people pay for PRO version, or get massive amounts of backlinks from people who didn't notice the extra link or didn't care about it.
Lars has been smart too, and he didn't use the same anchor text but rather randomly pulled it off from keyword phrases like 'link building','search engine marketing','search engine optimization','WordPress SEO', 'WordPress Plugin' etc. (there are around 50 keywords all in all). He seems to be attacking multiple strong keywords, and using the existing and new user base of his WordPress plugin to do it.
Interestingly as a side effect, you can now in real time observe and measure the power of sidebar link building (through widgets or WordPress plugins) by monitoring rankings for mywordpress.com as the new link juice kicks in.
So is the quick way the right way?
What say you?
See also:
- Presenting SEO Super Comments Concept
- 5 cool WordPress plugins you never heard about
- SEO Super Comments
Posted in: SEO
TAGS:building wordpress, link building plugin, link building wordpress, link yourself wordpress plugin, linkback wordpress plugin, linkbuilding wordpress, paul roberts, what link building wordpress, wordpress internal link picture, wordpress link builder plugin, wordpress link building, wordpress link building plugin, wordpress link love plugin, wordpress linkback plugin, wordpress plugin building, wordpress plugin link content
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23 Comments
could you possibly give a link to Lars' method? will try out the plugin
It's look like a great tool. Since I'm a newcomer, I will give it a try first..
Anyway thanks for the recomendation.
If only there were a plugin you could use to modify the output of other plugins during the page creation phase. Oh wait, there is! :-)
A while back I released the Real Time Find and Replace plugin to remove links injected by other plugins. It lets me remove them without modifying the plugin code so that upgrades remain easy.
Interesting blog! I'll give it a try and let you know my thoughts. Btw, I had fun reading opinion by pros here. Thanks to all.
I have to re read thid blog as I didnt underst it very well, seems like good stuff, but there are things I have understand better
There a bunch of ways to link your sites to highr PR links. What this sites offers is one of them. Just reserach and find the best way suits you.
I try some link building plugin, but all do not work as my wish...
Wow, a lot of comments on a simple little change I made! :-)
First of all, thank you Vladimir for writing about my little plugin, I am a big fan, especially of your latest VERY clever plugin, SEO Super Comments (I wish I had thought of that idea).
I can see both sides of this argument, and since I made the change in the latest Lite version of SEO Booster, I guess what I decided to do is pretty obvious.
I was indeed rather frustrated by the lack of people who dropped by my site to say thank you, and the amount of people that actually left a comment was VERY low, and how many donations do you think I've had? - 1 - Just the one. Also, I could see the amount of people that left the link in the widget was VERY low.
(On a side-note, the backlink is only displayed once the correct settings for boosting serp page 2 searches kick in and start displaying anchored internal links, so the plugin does not get "unjustified" linkjuice, I felt that made it a lot more honest).
Seeing the amount of strong feelings on this subject, I will consider making the backlink optional again in future updates for the Lite version. But, in return, be honest.. Will you drop by my homepage to leave feedback or say thank you, and will you do it to the other authors of plugins you use on your blog(s)?
As for my random anchor text, I am building a range of plugins, and the keywords I chose are/will be suited for the domain and content. I actually also considered setting up a system for deeplinking to individual product pages for the individual plugins I am creating, but felt that could result in totally unrelated links on the individual blogs that use the plugin, although it could be good for SEO :-)
A few individual comments for other comments that caught my eye:
@greg: "I wouldn't want my blogs linking to a shady link building site." I do believe that comment is a bit harsh. Consider visiting the my blog first, please :-)
@Max: You have a very valid point about the different anchor texts, and I will also consider limiting the anchor text to only "mywordpress.com" for instance, but the main discussion is still about whether or not my choice to enforce backlinking. I will take your valid point into consideration. Please also note I did not choose to target pharmacy anchor texts :-)
Now that you have my attention and the debate is in full effect, you can help form the future of the plugin(s) I publish for free (there are a few in the works), does my point of view make sense? I am very interested in hearing your opinion.
Thank you again Vladimir for starting the debate, I am curious to see where the debate will end.
Nice to have you Lars. As a veteran plugin developer I can only tell you won't make it rich with donations lol. Amount of 'thank you' may vary depending on the public (and SEO crowd is not a very thankful one).
Some people were actually trying to convince me to sell SEO Super Comments (no lite version, just the finished polished product) but I just couldn't be bothered (I am not a salesman).
This triggers again the questions about plugins and plugin developers in WP world which still commercially continues to be ruled by designers and 'premium' themes.
Hi Lars,
I tried several times to register at linklauder's - but the password-function seems to be broken. Even a 20-character's password was marked as too short. Maybe my fault - but if not, what about repairing that function - and perhaps you'll get more comments? ;-D
Bye,
Stefan
I'm giving it a try. Anchor text or not. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks Vlad and fellow commenter
@Lindskog - no I didn't see the plugin. I'm not trying to criticize Lars - I'm trying to answer Vladimir's question if this is "the right way". Even though I haven't seen the pluing, and just taking Vladimirs words literally, I think my point is still on the money. Adjusting anchor text to 50 different keywords where many of them are not referencing the plugin nor the author and carrying irrelevant message makes it a "different" intent. That's it.
P.S. if you google, there is a lot of discussions mentioning "link intent". Funny, some one even called Google a "link intention police" :)
@Max - See - this is why I specifically said, do not make an ill-informed comment.
SEO Booster ONLY links to mywordpress.com which is Lars' home page, what Vladimir said above was that he uses different anchor texts but the link is straightforward and there is nothing shady about it.
Have you even looked at this plugin or did you just make an ill-informed comment? :)
@greg - that is totally taken out of context. Take a look at his plugin before making an ill-informed comment.
SEO Booster enhances the keywords that your visitors use to find your web site; helping YOU rank better for those links. The only link to Lars' site is just a single link - no different than what theme designers have in their footers.
@Lindskog you said - "The only link to Lars' site is just a single link - no different than what theme designers have in their footers."
They are different - most of the theme designers link to the author's sites or pages about themselves or their actual theme. It's author's reference link. They don't link to irrelevant content or other stuff that they're doing. I'm in a real estate field, so if I create a theme or a plugin I can put a link to my real estate business with anchor text "buy homes in Phoenix"? It doesn't work this way. A lot of people that like the plugins that they use (or themes) have no problem referencing the source pages/sites, just like posting badges of their hosting companies or software providers (including powered by WordPress). Lars's links promote his other directions of his business, which may be sought as irrelevant to the plugin or the content of the site where the links hosted.
It sounds like the only person who gets link building this 'link building' plugin is the author. I wouldn't want my blogs linking to a shady link building site.
I think it is perfectly ok for free plugins to have a link back to their web site; just like free theme designs link back to their site.
... and if you truly don't like the link back to Lars' site, then spend the money and purchase a license; you can use it on as many sites as you own and the paid version not only does not link back to mywordpress.com but also comes with additional goodies and options and is well worth its low price.
Looks like a very interesting plugin - I'll give it a try. Thanks.
A couple of my plugins have links to the plugin home page, using the plugin name as the anchor text. His random anchor text is intriguing because it should help increase his ranking a lot - but I've also read the Matt Cutts post that Max pointed out and it could be risky.
Also, there'll be some people who won't be happy with such anchor text on their blog.
Of course, the plugin is open source, so it's possible to edit the plugin and remove the link. It's bad form to do that sort of thing, but legally fine. My plugins allow the link to be turned off, because personally I think the site owner should have the final choice...
I've been seeing these enforced links in a number of plugins lately. There's one guy who wrote some nice ebay and amazon plugins which are completely useless since he enforces rather large links to his site, to amazon and ebay, AND to the open source toolkits he used to build the plugins.
SEO Booster and LinkToMe (I think that's the one) are my biggest pet peeves, because I WANT to use them. I actually wonder if enforcing link love like that isn't a violation of the GPL or the WordPress Plugin Codex's terms or something. In a way, you ARE paying for the product with traffic and PR, and that equals money.
There's a trend in plugin design now towards monetizing by any means possible. I'm not against it in the backend (admin screens, paypal donations, etc), but when my site starts to become a salesletter for someone else's stuff without my permission I -do- have a problem.
You don't see laundry detergent watermarking your clothes with product logos, do you?
It was my understanding that if you bought the premium version of the plugin, there is no linkback. If that's the case, you should buy the premium version and there is no issue. That laundry detergent analogy is not fair, since (as far as I know) you didn't get the detergent for free.
You say there is a trend where plugin devs are trying to monetize by any means necessary, and you have a problem with it. Well I have a problem with people who download plugins, never even leave a thank you message, and expect these plugin authors to continue supporting them, for zero financial return. If there are two options of the same plugin, one with linkback and one without, where the one without costs you a few bucks, I am all for it. Or better yet, maybe you can learn how to build a plugin and release it free, without a linkback.
Well, you're the one who made this blog a great place to hang around, so don't sell yourself short ;)
The real treasure of this blog are it's readers and participants :)
There is nothing wrong with referencing the source/author with a link, or add a link to more information relative to the content of the widget/plugin as long as it makes sense. As it's been mentioned in Google's TOS and by Matt Cutts - it's all about the "intention". Many "copy'n paste" type of widgets have reference links to their provider and usually don't advertise anything else, beside the actual widget or content provided by it (we've seen types of links - "get bluh-bluh widget here" or "view more bluh content". Most of the APIs out there also require a branding logo with reference link to the source/provider, as well as relevant link to more information on the subject...
I haven't looked at the SEO Booster, but from your description Lars clearly is using links to his site to promote his services (not the plugin). The links are not referencing the plugin, nor link to supportive/additional info related to the content that plugin outputs. Personally, I think it's a mistake and be very costly in the long run...
Just my $0.02 :)
P.S. Thanks for the tips you're willing to share in your blog, Valdimir as well as for the great plugins!