I just came across an article from Newsweekly, while being almost a year old, is still incredibly relevant.

The article discusses a shoe store that hired a prominent Search Engine Marketer to optimize their website and received fantastic results from the white hat, ethical marketer known as Fishkin.

Then the techniques of a black hat SEO are discussed and back to Rand Fishkin for an example of a “gray hat” SEO technique that he used on a particular site which achieved positive results, was negatively affected by the Jagger Update, and has once again resurfaced in Google:

For example, for clients such as Seattle loan company Avatar Financial, Fishkin pays Internet ad companies to display text links across a network of sites such as The Miami Herald, betting that major search engines misinterpret these ad links as legitimate measures of popularity. Search engines say they are working on ways to discount these SEO shortcuts.

This article would definitely lead me to believe that although frowned upon by the likes of Google, purchasing text links can help.

According to Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who blogs frequently on the subject of SEO:

Rand, those paid links from the Harvard Crimson and elsewhere aren’t helping the site. In fact, it looks like you bought links from the same network that the other two sites at the site clinic were buying from. :) And I doubt Rand was expecting any direct PageRank impact from Avatar’s prweb.com press release. But what is helping is good content like the articles about non-conforming loans and the new blog on that site. That’s why when I see strong links from Yahoo’s directory, Dmoz, and Wikipedia to Avatar, I’m not very surprised.

So Matt says that those paid links have not helped Avatar to achieve their ranking - rather that ranking was achieved through the use of content, which in turn generated links from Yahoo, Dmoz and Wikipedia…

What to believe? For a long term strategy I would also choose content. Avatar content is gained through a blog as well as articles. There are over 30 articles in the directory of avatar.com/articles and over 500 blog posts in avatar.com/posts. One source of “content” that I stumbled upon has me thoroughly confused :-) How does CakePHP tie into hard money loans?

Last comment…the page titles have not been thoroughly optimized in that most of them start with the company name rather than a keyword rich phrase. The content articles however, do contain “hard money” in several of the titles.

Hard to determine exactly what is putting a site in a top position…but one thing is for sure, it involves lots of hard work!

We’ve been hearing for a while not to create a link farm environment on your website, don’t have a page called “links” where you exchange links with every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Well, Dental Plans sure has an interesting twist on this - it would appear (we can’t say for certain) that they have set up their linking page as a “Savings Portal”! It is extremely well done and really does not look like pages and pages of outbound links!

Unfortunately being listed there will not necessarily improve one’s incoming link situation due to the fact that:

• the page on which your link sits likely has a low PR
• The links are likely affiliate coded and therefore involve a redirect

It’s still worth a try from a traffic perspective - so long as you are tracking your referring sites using a web analytics tool :-)

I would like to publicly thank Jennifer for an amazing webcast on link building that just finished.

The webcast is being repeated tomorrow if you would like to get in on it! It is one hour in length and Jennifer talks about common sense ways to build links rather than the use of reciprocal link letters, etc.

The slides will be available tomorrow and I for one will review them! I downloaded her series of published articles and will print those out for a little offline reading too :-)

I have just come across (twice in 24 hours actually!) a free virtual class on link building that is being offered by Jennifer Laycock, author of “The Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing” and editor of Search Engine Guide.

Jennifer will talk about how to use link research and link analytics to build and manage an online reputation that drives more visitors to your site.

Attendees will also learn:

• Behavior-based link building techniques
• How to find and encourage valuable traffic (that might not show up on your top 10 lists)
• How to spot unexpected trends that identify new visitor sources
• How to spot the types of sites that send high quality visitors
• How to tailor future link building campaigns for optimum exposure
• Why it’s sometimes essential to respond when someone links to you

Known for her down-to-earth style of teaching, Laycock will inspire you with ideas without leaving your head spinning with techno-talk. Find out the tricks and tips that she shares with small business owners and learn how you can put them to use for any size site to improve your online reputation and to keep those customers flowing.

You’ll watch the live class online. The simultaneous audio feed lets you follow along with the discussion and ask questions in real time.

The virtual class is being offered through ClickTracks Web Analytics company on Monday July 10 or Tuesday July 11. See more details and sign up for the course.

While you are at it, you may want to check out Zero Dollars, a Little Talent and Thirty Days is a Search Engine Guide article series that follows entrepreneur and writer Jennifer Laycock as she tries to start a successful online business in just thirty days without spending a dime out of pocket.

You can download the compilation of the article series for free - if you like the book, Jennifer asks for a donation via PayPal, or a link to the carcasherdotcom seocontest milk bank fundraiser page.