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everything matters - but i nice author page linked to from the email outreach i think helps

Hi Nikolas, Sent you a PM. Would like to get more info on your project. Cheers, SEO 5

Thanks Sebastian.  I was starting to think nobody would answer this I've been thinking about it and was considering only going after links with DA higher than our own.  We currently have a DA of 39, so I'd be looking at stuff 40 and above. However, taking into account keyword difficulty does make sense and adjusting our minimums accordingly.

Hmm, OK thanks!  I'm a bit confused looking at Yahoo!'s directory.  Do you get to set the title and description, or do they just pull that all from your meta data.  They have a place to describe your listing, but it's not evident that it will actually serve as the description.

The blog is not just for linkbuilding, It will have articles for natural links, but will also be used as a way to communicate with current customers.

A bit disappointing....I am seeing a deeper more comprehensive link profile using Small SEO Tools backlink checker

you should be concerned, because your main keyword is also your domain name so you can get penalized for over optimization even if you are going for relevant links. If you are coffee.com get people to link to you with "www.coffee.com" "http://www.coffee.com" and "coffee.com" as well as other variations. Too many instances of "coffee" and you could get hit with an over optimization penalty since your domain name is coffee and that is one more major factor where they keyword is linking up perfectly.

You're welcome. Anything else I could help with? (If not could you mark this as answered, please?). Thanks, Martin

_Just wait for the big [upcoming] penguin update and I hope that these sites will be torched. You are not along who is seeing worthless sites ranking high in competitive terms. There are hundreds and thousands sites with spammy link profiles still ranking high. Hopefully, they will get caught by algo updates soon. _

_Ok, here I am assuming that you are sending mails to high quality sites with the hope of getting your website listed legitimately there and you hope that this initiative will drive some traffic and add credibility to your brand. I do not take it a worrying trend because you are not spamming the web with exact matched anchor text or trolling gov sites with comment spams. However, if the Gov sites are asking to return the favor in exchange of some kind of link back, in that case, it could be something to worry about. Now, if you are still worried, you can simply use rel nofollow tag against the link. _

I am not a BBB fan. Here are some excerpts from an earlier thread, beginning with a post from me There is a decidedly less sunny view of the Better Business Bureau. It has been the subject of many journalistic exposes. Critics say it supresses consumer complaints for cash, acts as a shill for its paying members, and operates a pay for play scheme. The basic accusation is that it is a bad guy posing as a good guy. Wolfgang Puck and the Boston Ritz Carlton Hotel got failing grades. So did Disney World -- until it became a paying member. The Connecticut Attorney General opened an investgation at one point. See the ABC News 20/20 expose http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw After a highly unflattering series of columns in the New York Times, The BBB tried to defend itself here http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/your-money/10haggler.html The BBB may have high domain authority. But whether it is wise for businesses to be associated with such an organization is quite another matter. i agree with a previous poster: local Chamber of Commerce directories are the way to go [image: ?ui=2&ik=5076cc97d9&view=att&th=137344f8f9416707&attid=0.1.2&disp=emb&zw&atsh=1]**Aaron Schinke **| July 5th, 2011 I have heard some of these horror stories as well. However I don't think the vast majority of people have. So, even if the BBB just passes the perception of trust along with the link juice it's probably worht it. Perception is reality. <a rel="nofollow">###### 2</a> <a rel="nofollow">###### 0</a> ReplyPermalink <a name="137344f8f9416707_jtc147147"> </a>[image: ?ui=2&ik=5076cc97d9&view=att&th=137344f8f9416707&attid=0.1.3&disp=emb&zw&atsh=1]**BathroomGetaways **| July 11th, 2011 I think part of the reason they get a bad rep is because just because you're not a member, doesn't mean you won't get turned in.  For instance, we had a hosting client that turned us in because we HAD to raise her hosting rates and she didn't feel she should have to pay (not very bright person was she).  So she complained to the BBB, despite the fact we're not a member.  We got a letter, we let them know how we resolved the issue, and they considered the matter CLOSED, and said we did everything we could do satisfy her. So my guess with many of the companies that have had the "pay for play" complaint, isn't that they were necessarily being strong-armed into paying to join, but that before they joined, they weren't resolving complaints because they probably didn't fully realize they had to. I agree the BBB walks the gray line, but lets not forget that 20/20 and other news outlets love to latch on to stories like that about big company or org messing with the little guy, and they are probably worse from a "bad standpoint" (20/20 and news outlets that is) than the BBB could ever dream of being. The media are whore's that will air anything they can.  The BBB, while not awesome, does provide a valuable service to both businesses and consumers.  What's the news media really do other than stir the pot for ratings? <a rel="nofollow"></a> But of course I'd be willing to reconsider my previous post. Perhaps the BBB would care to avail itself of my complaints resolution services? My fees are very reasonable. And everybody wins! This is a joke. I'm not serious. But the BBB is. Which is a problem. <a name="137344f8f9416707_jtc146406"> </a>[image: ?ui=2&ik=5076cc97d9&view=att&th=137344f8f9416707&attid=0.1.6&disp=emb&zw&atsh=1]**Djjinx13 **| July 1st, 2011 Hmmm I think the point of the post was in direct referece to the search engine marketing implications of BBB which is not only a powerful backlink, but as another poster pointed out it appears its "brand" gets a Google human "trust" bump which is understandable as Google always states they are about the user not the fringe opinons (not blasting your opinion.) Just stating that in consumers eyes the BBB is trustworthy ( i understand that is you point that it should not be) but once again the point I believe is the SEM benefits. Now in the future if consumers begin to gain your views that "trust" metric will begin to fall... But that is not today!!! and Today it appears in local search asepect a BBB link is good in consumers eyes and search enigne eyes so i see no reason if ROI justifies it one would not get it. once again just my opinion Edited by Djjinx13 on July 1st, 2011 at 6:16 am<a rel="nofollow"></a>

If you have overgrown My Blog Guest, I do recommend you try going straight to high-profile bloggers directly. MBG is good for a start as well as for scaling: you try your hand at guest blogging meeting people who are there exactly to receive guest articles. You can learn to meet other people's requirements, brainstorm interesting topics, etc. It's easier in terms of hearing back and getting your article placed. The truth is, high-traffic blogs don't use platforms because they receive hundreds of guest post pitches weekly. They hardly need more. So if you want to go to the next level, use Marks' suggestions below and go to Google.

Samuel To avoid duplicate titles/descriptions for category pages you should noindex subpages - these are pages like /category/category-name/page/3/ -Dan

Thanks!

As long as you are doing well in the serps and you really don't have other options, I don't see why you would change anything just to please others in an upcoming, uncertain... outreach campaign You could change the titre temporarily (for a few days) just long enough to do your outreach, but I am not fond of changes when it comes to Google...

Thanks so much for your help here, please let me know when you post your article up so I can have a look through. Best wishes Daniel

Awesome answer David. Thanks so much for the advice, I'll steer clear of backlink plugins.

Tend to agree - it's hard to speak in generalities, but 4000 links from one site are likely to get devalued. Even if it's a great site and relevant links, multiple links from the same domain count less and less as you go. Getting 4000 links even from the New York Times wouldn't be nearly the same as getting 4000 links from different sites (probably not even the same as 40 decent sites). At worst, it could start to look manipulative and result in a penalty, but that's pretty uncommon based on just one site.