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Internet ROI |
How to make Profit and get Return - on - Investment from the Internet |
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Overview
By definition the web suggests links from sites to sites, also giving rise the term 'surfer'. Googles rise to number one position search engine
inadvertently brought another opportunity to get return on investment from web endeavors. This one is only just ethical. Only Google declares it
otherwise. If Site A links to Site B, Google decided that was a vote for site B. It invented a system to give prominence to sites that have lots
of links pointing to it - PageRank, named after one of the founders - Larry Page. Having high PageRank means that Google will return the page higher
in search engine retrievals, thus providing potential customers. A sites PageRank has become the number one obsession of webmasters. Now, it has
become especially important to get sites to link to you. If Site A already has good PageRank and links to Site B, then Google see it as a weighted
vote for Site B resulting in higher PageRank for Site B.Thus a huge market has arisen in links. Since it means currency for sites to link to sites, why not buy the links from other sites? It essentially translates to customers, so the conclusion was obvious, though Google almost certainly didn't foresee this when building the PageRank algorithm. Now the web has many sites that broker link purchases, and this provides an opportnity for the web developer.
A word of warning though. The market for links is potentially lucrative - but if Google stumble accross a site that sells links or that has links that they can determine have been bought, they may decide to ban the site from their index - a living death for any site, since Google are the main search engine. The punishment varies and is haphazard. The youthfullness of Google shows through in irrational decisions that are sometimes errors. Not all bought or sold links are equally treated. Their rise to power accross the internet is yet to give rise to a commensurate responsibility.
Don't deduce however that marketing in links is unethical. Its only that Google have themselves decided not to favor such a market.
How to sell Links
Investigate a link auction site like LinkAdage.com. They will find link partners for an auctioned price. The successful sites have one thing as a clear
and outstanding factor - high PageRank. Most of the sites wishing to buy links are not so much interested in buying traffic, although that may be the
end goal. They're interested in hightening their PageRank. Links from sites with good PageRank (PR) are valued.It's an auction, so the price varies, but the pricing is currently (Sept 2004) approximately $10 per month for one PR5 text link (that is, a text link appearing somewhere on the PR5 site hyperlinking to your site). For a PR6 link theprice may be $25 per month or so. A PR7 site can charge perhaps $50 per month. PR8 links are expensive - they may be over $300 per month, but are difficult to get. A PR9 is especially difficult to get, the pricing is easily over $1000 per month, and PR10 sites need a re-mortgage to get a link from - and they're already making too much to be bothered about selling links since there's only a handful of PR10 sites in the world. PR7 sites are the main marketing sites for links and where occasional good prices can be obtained.
This means that to be able to sell links from your ste, you need to have a PR (PageRank) of at least 5 or 6. The number of sold links on a page cannot exceed 10 or so. To make a living with selling links therefore, at least 20 PR5 sites are needed. Or 10 PR6 sites. Or 4 or 5 PR7 sites. Or one PR8 site. A PR9 site would bring some wealth and anyone with a PR10 site is already living in Palo Alto, California - but they are sites such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo (each of whom could be said to master a third of the web each).
Getting a good PageRank is the first step to profit from this means. Some of that is an accident, some is long-servitude, but most is strategy - and is covered in the next section.
Getting Links from other Sites
This is the most tedious part of developing a web site. Some temporary benefit can be had through link purchases, but that obviously eats away at the
profitability. It may however be a wise and acceptable cost, for a period of time. Google would like the process of getting PageRank (PR) to be
totally organic. As sites see your site, if they think it's worthwhile they'll voluntarily link to it, resulting in a vote for the site. In view of todays
costs of producing a website, and that it's no longer a hobbyist domain, as when Google started to cut their teeth on the internet, this is highly
impractical. You must therefore get sites to link to you. There's no real shortcut to this. And it's nothing but a pain. Find the sites you want to link
to you, email them (webmaster@..., admin@..., etc.) and request that they link to your site. But why would they? Often a reciprocal link is the answer.
Even if you have no PR yet, other sites recognize that you probably will get some, and that your link to them may be quite valuable. So they may
agree to the reciprocal link. Typically only 5% or so of sites ever bother to respond. There are other hurdles as well as described in the next section.
There are tools available to help this (look for Arelis for example), but canned messages are easy to spot and easily binned, in favor of personalised
emails that appeal to the webmaster.Of course, your site should be worth linking to. Even if the whole purpose is profit, the site should contain content about something, otherwise no site will link to you. If you're selling administrative intelligence (or temp secretaries!) then an essay about the value of the service may be the attraction visitors need. And the search engines will have content to parse.
Since links from other sites are the means of Google determining the site's PageRank, a start can also be made on free directories for the industry you are in. Many of these simply ask you to submit your URL. To get started seems daunting - but little by little the site is linked to - once there is some critical mass it's easy, since sites will be happy to have a reciprocal link from a site that has some PageRank.
Exercising Caution
When exchanging links or purchasing links be careful of some unethical tricks and issues with sites that link. Forums exist (webmasterworld.com being
one high profile forum example) that warn of traps and issues. The most common problem is re-directed links. For the site to provide credit as far
as Google is concerned, the link needs to be direct. This means that when the mouse hoves over the link, the bottom status bar should show the
URL of your site. But further, when the click is actually made the URL should still show in the same bottom status bar. A trick is to have Java Script
show the site's URL but for the click to be directed through a function that takes an id and then sends a visitor to your site. This is indeed a link,
but is useless for any PageRank 'credit'. MarketBanker is an example of unethical behaviour with links. The advantage is that all the links they sell
from other sites - all point to their ownsite, thus providing excellent PageRank credit for them, not for the one purchasing the link. Avoid
MarketBanker and other link brokers that are unethical in similar ways.Although a site may have good PR, this is a changing score constantly. Every month or so Google updates it's PageRank score. Links that were from sites with good PageRank may reduce in PageRank scoring due to Googles changing algorithms or some perceived issue they have withthe site. So if links were purchased those stes should be regularly checked for continued PR and decisions made accordingly.
Similarly, Google may decide to retain the PR for a site that has many incoming links, but because they have determined links are being sold from the site, they may prevent any PR credit being passed to other sites. If this is the case, the site may as well have a PR of zero. Don't buy any links from the site.
More unethical behaviour in cyberspace is sites that agree to exchange links - then once the links are in place, later removing yours on the premise that once the agreement is made site owners won't check it. When this happens, the site is clearly unethical. Don't try to sort it out, just remove their link and don't deal with them.
Where sites have a reasonable PR, their link to you may be attractive. But they may well place your link on a page with less PR than their main page. In many cases this is reasonable, since they don't want to clutter their main page with links to other sites. But the link should be on a page that itself has a link from their main page. If the main page has a link to a link page, then the link page has another link to a further page - the PR value becomes diluted. This may not be unethical, just a consequence of their site design, but try to get the link on as high a PR valued page as possible.
Tricks abound, and because of a desire for wealth through whatever means possible, ethical or otherwise, a constant watch is needed to avoid being the victim of a scam. As long as links are the means of measuring the status of a site, marketing in links is both possible as a means of profit - but fraught with traps for newcomers to the black art.
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