Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Blog commenting is not a direct approach to a link. In other words majority of comments you make will allow you to place a link as your name (tip: use your name or company name), This is usually a no follow link which does not count for SEO. However, if you build relationships with other by commenting/contributing (adding value) on their posts (make them your friends) and interacting with them you can earn good quality links and mentions to your site/articles.

If you read an article and you disagree with it or want to add a bunch more value to it, you can write a post on your blog and in the comments of the article you want to contribute to you can leave that link. Although it's a no-follow link it adds value to the user and they are more likely to share it or link to it.

I would not recommend using social bookmarking services..

Someone asked this in the past and here's the endorsed answer: http://www.seomoz.org/q/social-bookmarking-2

I would highly recommend it and there are a handfull of opportunities available when utilized properly.

Three good articles.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-google-strategy

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/authorship-google-plus-link-building

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-plus-the-ultimate-you-sourced-search-engine

@EGOL lol/lmao..  @lifeQuotes I would focus on one site and add the SEOmoz blog feed to your RSS for some ideas : )

It's challenging but not impossible.

I would resubmit it : ) it's been 5 years.. A Directory link from DMOZ is very strong. Just make sure you place it in the correct category and follow their guidelines.

I clicked on the renters insurance tab however I don't see the 67 links. However I see the quick links to instant quotes which link to external sites like lifequotes.com.

I've never really heard of a microsite campaign however in my opinion yes it's bad because it's spread out.

I do know that having a URL structure of www.brandname/keyword allows you to build a brand rather than a bunch of micropages. Google wants to rank sites that will help their users.

Google is constantly updating their algo's there was a recent study on Wikipedia that a mozzer did and it showed that most people referencing wikipedia would use exact key phrases, I do however think that Google may treat wikipedia differently.. I recommend getting some branded links from quality sites : )

Here's how to check you back link profile...

Go to the SEOmoz OSE and type your URL after typing the URL click on the anchors tab.

I see,

However these are not exact match domains.

An exact match domain must be exact:

If I wanted to rank for cars and I had cars.com or cars.net those would be exact.

These are you links...

• Auto Insurance
• Business Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Health Insurance
• Home Insurance
• Renters Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Travel Insurance
• Long Term Care Insurance

These are your URLs:

online renters insurance - 210

Disability quotes - 480

consumer insurance guide - 58

life quotes - 301,000

renters insurance illinois - 46

e health insurance - 2,400

You have a gold URL out of all of these...

I would forget all the other URLs and invest all my time on lifequotes.com

You can still have lifequotes.com/auto-insurance and that counts as having the keyword in your URL. In fact Lifequote is your brand name in this case and all your anchored text which are [exact] will also look natural.

Hi Terry,

I took a look at your linking profile and it shows that your site does not habe enough Branded links/links to your URL...

Google expects a natural website profile to get between 50-70% branded/URL type keywords and the rest [exact]/Diverse long tail.

This is what penguin was designed for finding unnatural linking profiles.

I recommend building some branded links from relevant/ niche related sites. Create content that other users are going to want to link to naturally.

All have unique contact (about us, why us, benefits...).

Unique means exclusive one of a kind...

Type the URL you provided into: http://copyscape.com/ Seems like you have some duplicate content.

Also, I don't understand why you built soo many microsites.. You're better off having one quality website with all of the targeted keywords. It's easier to get ranking to a page that also has some Domain Authority.

AI agree with alice, I also like to add that the reasons for these updates is to fight search engine manipulation. SEOmoz is pro natural looking sites. These are guidelines however they are not rules.

If you look at a site like Zappos you can see that they do not follow the best practices for the report card however they are branded well and they built their site for users not bots.

I would recommend doing whatever it takes to find the contact information. Also take a look at these two articles they will help you:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/broken-link-building-guide-from-noob-to-novice

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/outreach-letters-for-link-building-real-examples-14902

It's probably a new domain that was 301 redirected from another site... Page Rank is passed to individual pages, therefore the PA can be higher then the DA. If my DA is 5 but NASA/CNN/ESPN links to one of my pages they pass their link juice to that page...

Yes it did become more complex and will continue to do so. However SEOmoz has always for the most part suggested building for the users within Googles guidelines.

I like to think of Google as the God of information and its rules as a bible that SEOs need to follow... Just like the bible everyone interpits it in their own way and tries to be good...

IT depends on your site design. I've seen a white board froda from Rand Fishkin on this and he mentions that it is great to create unique buttons for you social media links. i would put them around content that people like and want to share.

this should help:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/improving-social-subscription-calls-to-action-whiteboard-friday#comments

Sweet glad it worked out.

Yeah this makes sense, it's ok to have links within articles to other sites that help the users. However thousands of links appearing at once is playing rush and roulette with a fully loaded gun. IMO you are better off taking their content down then giving them thousands of followed links in one shot.

This is very tricky.. Giving them thousands of backlinks in one shot might raise a flag. However, are these links all anchored the same or would it look like natural links? (natural link profile = mostly URLs/brand mame some with exact/diverse anchor text.)

IMO they do deserve the credit for their work (do follow). However, doing all this in one shot with a thousand links is going to look like you sold them links/that they bought those links (NOT a natural progression). This may negatively influence both parties. I would recommend asking them if they are ok with a few links so it looks naturalt and let them pick the links they want. Also, let them know that by you giving them thousands of links in one shot can hurt their site...

Pretty sure http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com lets you do all that and they will give you a 30 day trial.. Try it out : )

First off a 301 redirect takes a few weeks (2-12) to fully work.

Second off you can send google a letter of reconsideration if you feel you were penalized. However I would give the 301 redirect a little boit of time to transfer your link juice. Also when you do a 301 i've heard that only 80% of your link juice will transfer. I like to contact my best links and have them link directly to the new site.