What is more important for blogs?

[JAmieF]

Is better to have an extensive list of links on your blogroll or is it more important to be listed in different blog directories? Which has more weight when comes to SEO?

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Julia,

The Blog Party forum is one of my mods forums just about their biz or whatever Mikes wants to talk about.

So I moved this question to the general blog marketing and RSS forum.

The answer IMHO is that it's important to have both good incoming and outgoing links - however what's ost important for SEO purposes is incoming links and good targeted directories can help that.

But search engines don't really put lots of wieght on directory links so a more powerful strategy is to get inbound links from high PR blogs in your category. You do that by having GREAT content that other blogs in your industry will want to link to. You also do it by adding significant industry blogs to your blogroll, hoping they will link back. So now we're back to the importance of blogrolls!

What do you guys think? TELI? MIKE? STEPHEN? Where are our blog gurus?

[StephenR]

Originally Posted by JAmieF

Is better to have an extensive list of links on your blogroll or is it more important to be listed in different blog directories? Which has more weight when comes to SEO?

Hands down it is much more important to be listed in different blog directories. This especially pertains to Yahoo! search rankings as they give more more weight to directory listings.

I recommend you keep your outgoing links to a minimum and when possible keep them linked to your network of sites. Not too many network links though as the search engines frown upon this practice.

[Rob_TID]

Originally Posted by StephenR

I recommend you keep your outgoing links to a minimum and when possible keep them linked to your network of sites. Not too many network links though as the search engines frown upon this practice.

I used to think that too. But there is also a growing group of people who are throwing caution to the wind and doing A LOT of linking out. So a search for "Link Karma" and "Blog Tipping" in google to get a better idea about how they are doing that.

[sarahk]

I guess the difference is that you link out as necessary for your human visitors and you just don't worry about it - but you balance it with inbound links.

And review any links in comments thoroughly. I have a chap commenting on one post every day and pretty soon he'll be slapped but for now his site is good and his comments are relevant so I'm keeping an eye on him.

I'd be lost without Akismet though to detect and scrap the spammers.

[JAmieF]

Thanks everyone for all your points and thoughts. Is there a point where too many links in your blog roll is too much?

[scorpion68a]

I don't think that there is a point beyond which more links on your blogroll are too much. I agree that those links don't count when it comes about search engines, but they count a lot when it comes to "human engines" - if I were one of the top 100 bloggers and you would put a link to my blog, I'd visit yours for sure, to see what's in there for me. So, I imagine some of those big guys do this. Besides, even if they don't, good links on my site would give it an added value. As far as I understand, the world of web 2.0 is all about linking, sharing and socializing, isn't it?

[Teli]

Personally, the number of links in your blogroll depends on your niche and your visitors. At some point, your blogroll (if it's in the sidebar) may become so large that it's more of a distraction than useful tool to your visitors.

On a number of my blogs, I've taken it a step further and given my blogroll a separate page instead of having all the links appear in the sidebar, while on other blogs (my personal one comes to mind) I leave it in the sidebar.

As for link strategy, it's good to keep things balanced naturally. I'll say it again, the key is balance. Don't be stingy with the linky love because you're afraid of sharing the wealth -- it's actually the opposite. I've had pages get higher search engine placement in Google when I added a few quality outbound links.

Be mindful of who you add to your blogroll, make sure they have a site that not only search engines will love, but also your visitors. Provide appropriate links to other sites in your blog post, and try to avoid linking out to bad neighborhoods.

And make sure to seek out quality inbound links from directories as well as other blogs/websites.

My opinion only, and your mileage may vary.

~ Teli

And Sarah, I completely agree about Akismet - less than 2 months installed and it already trapped over 10,000 spam comment at my personal blog.

[its_me_shaners]

I think the Key part of the question here is, when it comes to SEO.
Inbound IS far more important. Remember its like the reality show survivor.
I've read both debates about getting your blog in directories. and to be quite honest I'm uncertain which side of the fence to sit on, on this. Does google treat directories like FFA's? Im not an algorithim mensa member. But on theother hand if some floats by your blog and posts it on their directory then you're in that boat... Its a strange and uncontrollable factor you cant control who links to you. So if someone with a pharmacy or casino site links to you are you slammed by the big daddy G? who knows.
As for the blog roll, blogging is about sharing at least I maintain that idea. So I have lots of out going links and I do link out quite often. If I get lower rankings so what , really.... I write to inform and share. I dont create for the SE's I create for people. I dont pretend to know what the SE's like. I sometimes think they dont know what they like.
Just my .o2$