Free Internet Web Directories are not a new thing; they have for a long time constituted a simple way for webmasters to increase their site’s search engine rankings.

Certain directories, however, are to be avoided; particularly the ones who ask for reciprocal links …

A number of Zlionauts, wanting to improve their ranking, have linked their Zlio Shops to Web Directories that demand reciprocal links in exchange. When getting out of hand, however, it can turn your Zlio Shop into something like that:

This, of course, strongly disturbs your Zlio Shop’s performance and tends to make your visitors flee the site. Furthermore, the practice of placing advertisement links on your Zlio Shop is forbidden, as mentioned in Zlio’s terms of use.

In order to avoid such situations, Zlio has decided to limit the creation of external links to five per Zlio Shop. Therefore it will from now on be possible to add external links only to your Shop’s footer, and only with a limit of five.

Every Zlio Shop not respecting these terms will be deleted without prior notice.

Nevertheless, to link one’s Shop to free Web Directories is always possible, and actually recommended. There are many quality Directories out there, although some of them may be hard to find.

Here is some advice on how to link your Shop to Web Directories:

1. In a text file, prepare all the important information relating to your Shop (title , description, keywords) in a way that will allow you to easily cut and paste this information into the required fields within the directories.

2. We suggest you avoid directories demanding a reciprocal link to your Shop. This type of partnership will not aid your shop in any way, and will simply jam your pages with unuseful logos and banners. The creation of direct links to such directories is in any case limited to five links.

3. Before submitting a store to a web directory, you should verify that it points directly to your Shop’s URL, and not to a redirection site, such as www.directory.net/redirect.php?site=shop.zlio.net. Only links pointing directly to your site will be picked up by the Search Engines.

4. Using a “directory of directories” allows you to compile an impressive list of quality directories which you can link your Zlio Shop to. An example for such a site is http://www.web-directories.ws

5. Look for directories that specialize in the topic of your Zlio Shop. For example, if your Shop specializes in home decor, type “home decor directory” into your Search Engine in order to find directories specializing in this topic.

6. Always keep an updated list of your web directory submissions, in order to avoid signing up twice with the same directory.

Some of you noticed a very strong fall of visits in your shops. The zlio.com field currently undergoes a selective penalty (partial sandbox) on the Google search engine. That results in a downgrading of some of your shops in the research results.

Shoprolls in question?

We suspect the shoproll to be the cause of this penalty. Indeed, too many links exchanges can lead to the conclusion that shops are regarded as strong links by the Google algorithms.
We thus decided to apply the attribute “nofollow” to the HTML tags links pointing towards other shops. Those will not be taken into account by the search engines. But your visitors will always be able to click on it. We hope that this measure will improve the situation.

What shall you do?

Keep on taking care of your shops normally
The best way not to be penalized is to keep a normal activity within your shops. Keep on maintaining it, updating it by adding products and improving the contents of your products factsheets.

Do not insert links toward directories.
1. Avoid as much as possible massive subscriptions in directories. Prefer links exchanges with trustworthy sites.
2. Carefully select your links exchanges: they must always be close to your themes set.
3. We advise you to remove to the maximum (see all) the links towards directories. They rarely generate traffic and can penalize the whole of the network.

Make your shop unique!
1. Improve your product factsheets by adding content to it: display your opinion, push your visitors to give theirs. Do you own the product? Write an opinion, even a quick one! The more your original contents will be important, the more you will have chances to be well listed.
2. If necessary, personalize the name of the product and always try to expand the product description.
3. Several descriptions are suggested for a single product. At the time of addition, in the tab “Describe the product”, a drop-down menu offers you sometimes other sources. Do not hesitate to modify them and adapt them to the spirit of your shop.

One shop = One theme
Always comply with this rule. It is strongly advised to have a precise set of themes for your shop. If you wish to diversify: create a new shop!

When will it get back to normal?

We are unfortunately unable to communicate any deadlines. The problem can be solved within few hours, few weeks as it can be solved within several months in certain cases.
We are doing everything we can to restore the situation as soon as possible.

To be visible on the Internet, it is necessary to appear among the first results of search engines. Nevertheless, all keywords are not worth the same. Getting a better rank on “mp3” search will be more difficult than on “digital player with color screen”.

Choosing the right keywords is therefore key, particularly in the choice of your web pages content, your backlinks, the buying of sponsored links, etc..

What are the choice criteria?

For example, a web site that speaks about travels to Morocco could choose the keywords « travel », « Morocco », « tourism », « travel Morocco », etc….

Let´s take the same example as in the previous section, keywords composed of several words could be: « Morocco Tourism», « Marrakech holidays accommodation », « Moroccan atlas trek», etc….

For example, starting with the keyword « Marrakech holidays accommodation », you will target « Marrakech holidays accommodation» as well as « Marrakech accommodation », and « Marrakech holidays ».

For example, the keyword “table” is too vague. The Internet user will get web sites on the selling of furniture as well as cooking recipes or on the design across the centuries. Therefore, the Internet users that arrive on your web site with this keyword do not necessarily come to your website to buy. By specifying a keyword like “outdoor pine table”, you will get better results.

The keyword « mp3 PLAYER » is very sought after… but you need important means to hope to get a good ranking on that keyword. On the contrary, it is much easier to find a ranking on “air-conditioning system joint”, but is it really a keyword much queried?

Backlinks in GnoZtiK

The GnoZtiK program (http://www.gnoztik.com) offers, in the Backlink tab (website side), a list of webpages with which you can exchange links to increase your Seach Engine Optimization (SEO). This list is sorted in decreasing order of relevancy. In particular, the program takes into account the theme of the website and its pagerank:

• The more relevant the website’s theme, the higher it’ll appear on the list.
• The higher the website’s pagerank, the higher it’ll appear on the list. However, you should avoid exchanging a backlink with a page whose pagerank is marked with he sign – this highlights pages with pageranks much higher to yours (often considered as suspicious by Google).

Finally in the contact column, you can click on the email icon to create an email to help you convince the webmaster of that website to exchange backlinks with you. All you need to do is to find that website’s contact form or contact email address, copy and paste the message and send it.

The backlink text

1. It needs to include strategic keywords

It is about keywords on which your want to position your page.

If your shop is about soccer:

Avoid “Chinese cuisine”, though you might be well positioned on “Chinese cuisine”, the visitors who will reach your page by typing that sequence in Google are very likely to leave it just as quickly.

Prefer “soccer t-shirt” , because you may be well positioned on ” soccer t-shirt”, and the visitors who will reach your page by typing that sequence in a search engine are very likely to stay on your web site.

2. It needs to be composed of 2 or 3 words

A 3-word sequence allows you to catch more requests.

If your shop is about real estate, I suggest “rent flat Pari”s. You may be well positioned on ” rent flat Paris “, but also on ” rent flat” and ” flat Paris “, which increases your chances of being found on search engines.

3. It should not have spelling mistakes.

If your shop is about real estate, avoid ” rnt flt Pais” , you may be well positioned on “rnt flt Pais”, but since nobody types that sequence in a search engine, it is useless !

4. Avoid having the same text in all your backlinks.

You normally receive a backlink when a webmaster likes your webpage. The text he/she encloses in the backlink is his/her own initiative. Therefore there is low probability that all the webmasters use the same text in the link they create towards your page. So the same text in all your backlinks looks very suspicious to search engines and can play against you.

If you’ve followed our friends at Gnoztk’s advice so far, you’d probably like to know How can I find good backlinks ? Here’s a few tips :

1. It needs to be a hard-coded link, not a redirection nor a javascript.

You need to avoid, Your shop in 5 minutes

Suggested, Your shop in 5 minutes

The directories often offer javascript or redirection links. This is an additional reason not to spend much time.

2. It needs to be a link without the “rel=nofollow” attribute.

Its purpose is to tell the search engines that the link should not be considered like a real backlink. Numerous blogs use that technique to avoid being spammed by comments which unique goal is to be backlinks. It is placed by the webmaster, therefore you must ask for it when you make your backlink request.

False backlink, Your shop in 5 minutes

Real backlink, Your shop in 5 minutes

3. It needs to be a backlink located in the content of the page. Target the top of the page. Avoid the bottom of the page.

4. Avoid asking backlinks that all points to the same page of your website (e.g. your webpage)

Increase the links towards different pages of your website, this looks more natural to search engines and it increases the chances for your site to be found.

Here’s the next tip from our friends Gnoztik. Good luck optimizing your shop !

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Now that you know what a backlink is, you need to know that not all backlinks were created equal ! To get a good Seach Engine Optimization for your shop, you need to have quality backlinks.

The page hosting the backlink

1. Needs to be indexed by the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, …).

If it is not the case, the backlink is useless and will not be counted as such since it does not exist for search engines. To check it, the procedure is the same for all search engines, i.e. the URL of the sought page needs to be entered.

The following page http://www.gnoztik.com/seo-faq.htm is indexed in Google, as shown by clicking here.

On the other hand the page http://www.gnoztik.com/seo-faeq.htm (which does not exist) is not indexed by Google, as shown by clicking here.

2. It needs to have a maximum of 100 outcoming links. (20 outcoming links are recommended). It needs to be a backlink only for a maximum of 100 pages. Above that limit, the link is diluted and looses all its value for the search engines.

3. The page with the backlink and the page that is being pointed by the backlink need to have similar themes.

It is useless to have a backlink coming from a webpage discussing Chinese food in a webpage about motorbikes. However, a webpage about road safety or mechanical sports is relevant.

4. The page with the backlink needs to have a pagerank slightly greater (by 1 to 2, maximum 3) than your page, otherwise Google will probably find it suspicious.

We can draw our first conclusion from what has just been explained: the backlinks offered by directories are most of the time useless because their number of outcoming links is too high and their theme is not focused enough.

See you next week with more tips !

* SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Tired of being among the last entries on search engines’ lists ? Feeling like boosting your visits and commissions ? Zlio, and its partner Gnoztik present a series of lessons allowing you to understand and enhance your visibility on search engine’s listings and towards its millions of users. Each week, you will find here a guide explaining different techniques to improve your ranking.

Today, our first lesson is about the mysterious “backlinks” ! Enjoy and feel free to comment.

What’s a backlink ?

Definition of a hypertext link (also called hyperlink)

A hypertext link is a text in a web page on which you can click to go to another web page.
For example, in the following page http://www.my-website.com, when I click on the “Go to Google” link, I get the page http://www.google.com

This is the source code of the 1st page, … < a href = " http://www.google.com "> go to Google < / a > …

• href contains the url (address) of the targeted web page,
• the text displayed is contained between the tags < a ...> and < /a>

To get the source code of a web page with Internet Explorer, click on Display/Source. Once the source code displayed, to get the hypertexts links with Internet Explorer, click on Edition/Search… A dialog box pops up. Fill it with “a href” then validate.

What is a backlink ?

It’s a hypertext link !!! In Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the backlink term is the same thing (or about) as the term hypertext link in HTML.

When a web page (source) is linking to a second page (destination) of another website, the first one is a backlink for the second one. In the previous example, the web page http://www.my-website.com is a backlink for the web page http://www.google.com.

If 10 web pages link to a web page, this one has 10 backlinks. Adding the number of backlinks of each web page of a website, we get the number of backlinks of the website.

How can I get the backlinks of a web page ?

With Google, to get the number of backlinks of the web page http://www.fedex.com/Tracking, you just need to search link:http://www.fedex.com/Tracking (click here to see the result).
Caution, Google also takes in account the internal links (coming from the same website).

With Yahoo!, to get the number of backlinks of the web page http://www.zlio.com (notice it’s only the homepage), you need to type link:http://www.zlio.com (click here to see the result).
Yahoo! also allows you to get all the backlinks of a website by typing, linkdomain:http://www.zlio.com (click here to get the result). Notice that the number of returned results for the two searches is not the same.

Why should I have backlinks ?

The backlinks make you more visible over the Internet. What’s the point to have a website, when nobody visits it ?

The more you will have backlinks, the more ways to access your website you will open. In other words, the more backlinks you have, the more visitors you get.

The 3 main search engines (Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live) have 85% of the search market over the web.
To determine the rank of a web page for a keyword, they are mostly influenced by the number of backlinks it has. Each backlink is considered as a vote. The more backlinks it has, the most popular it is over the web, the better its rank will be.

Be careful, all the backlinks do not worth the same. Some are more important than others. We will give more details in a further article.

The backlinks with GnoZtiK

The GnoZtiK software provides automaticaly the number of backlinks of all the pages of the Google chart.

The number of backlinks of your web page is shown in the status bar.

In the “Chart” tab of your audits (on the website side), GnoZtiK displays a graphic called “Backlink median”. It shows, for each page of results in Google (from the 1 st to the 10 th ), the mean number of backlinks of the results in the page. A horizontal orange line indicates the number of your backlinks. It is preferable to have this line near the level of the 1 st column (page of the 10 best results in Google).

In the “Url” tab of your audits (on the website side), GnoZtiK provides the number of backlinks of your web page (786 in this example) and between brackets the mean number of backlinks of the whole Google chart (230 in the example). It is recommended to have the number of your backlinks higher than the mean number between brackets.

Next week : How to find good backlinks ?