I’ll be speaking on Wednesday the 24th from 3:45 – 4:45 on “Link Building – Methods and Risk, Free to Paid”

It will be similar to the the presentation that I gave in London last month which seemed to be received pretty well.

I was looking over the party schedule last week…and it didn’t look like much of a party schedule… Bing is sponsoring a cocktail hour on Tuesday from  5:45 – 6:45 at the expo hall…and on Wednesday night from 6-7 at the Bridges Bar at the Hilton there’s the  “White Hat Black Hat: Unconferenced”…which should be interesting…if you can hear what’s being said (I’ve been to some of these “sessions” in bars, where if you’re not in the “inner circle” you can’t hear anything being said)…

and that was about it for “parties” going on… just didn’t seem right….Seems like we were missing a good ole night party…and a chance to help a charity…

So…I figured they needed another party…and hey,  we can also help a charity in the process.  Since this is pretty last minute (one week away) we’re going to keep this pretty simple… don’t even think  we’ll do drawings, or have a mic…and instead of the normal $50 to get in, we’re going to lower it to $30.

For $30 you get in, and you can drink all the Beer, Wine, or Soda that you’d like (between 8 and 10), and We Build Pages will pay for it. We’ll also have a bunch of Hors D’oeuvres for everyone. After 10:00 you have to buy your own drinks.

Every penny of everyones $30 entrance fee will be going to Common Ground, whom are based out of NYC and who’s mission is to end homelessness.

We’re limited to only 100 tickets, so this will sell out for sure. At the end of my presentation on Wed I’ll announce where you can get your tickets (we’ll hook up with someone who has an exhibit booth and sell tickets for an hour at that booth…not sure where yet)

Here’s our flyer for the Charity Party at SES NYC 2010 on Wed March 24th.

Hurley’s
232 W. 48th Street
212-765-8981

The party will be upstairs. I hope to see you there!

I’m Feeling Lucky,
Jim

I was lucky in that I had a 1 hours time slot all to myself, rather than the usual 10-15 minutes that one normally gets when you’re on a panel with others.

I’ve often felt that at conferences where a speaker only gets 10-15 minutes, that you tend to get an “introduction” to a topic…when often, what I’m seeking, is not an “introduction”, but “Here’s what’s important, here’s why, here’s what to do, and here’s how to do it”….at least with an hour I can get a ways beyond “introduction” and more into the “dirt” of the topic. At Hostingcon, SEO Class, and Internet Marketing Ninjas I often had an hour or more of talking time….and I always preferred that over 10-15 minutes of talking time…sheeet…when it comes to links, I can talk all day and all night….

For my talk, I split my time between “Link buying – methods and risks”, and “Trust Bait for Links”. I also talked about some of my ideas on how trust flows through sites, and  my values of different types of links. I also showed how content can get great links, and some ways to do this.   It was great to go a bit deeper into my topic of love (link building)…and I could have talked for hours if they’d of let me.

But in any case, I had a great time, met some great folks, and I can’t wait to get back to the UK again. I also had some nice things said on twitter about my presentation that I thought I’d share (and use for a selling point for those future conferences which I’m seeking to speak on)

philipmorgan:  I think @avinashkaushik and Jim Boykin @webuildpages stole the show at #ses - really enjoyed both, some awesome tips shared by both.

MartinHayman: Enjoyed SES but was gutted that JimBoykin had to rush at the enddue to lack of time… great link building advice… wanted more.

davedewar: @RelevancyStream Came across just how much @jimboykin loves his job!

JessicaWHealy: RT @evolutionuk: #SESKEY I think we all could had done with another hour with jim from @webuildpages.

evolutionuk:  #SESKEY I think we all could had done with another hour with jim from @webuildpages.

JessicaWHealy:RT @RedwebSearch:@webuildpages Best presentation of ses2010 so far! #seskey

I noticed that at SES London (feb 16-19) and SES NYC (march 22-26) that there were few organic panels…and no link building panels…what a shame..what a shame… so… I bought a session…  for London and NYC…and my session is:

Link Building – Methods and Risks with Jim Boykin
This isn’t your grandma’s link building session. Jim has been an industry leader in the area of link building for over 10 years as the founder and CEO of We Build Pages (www.webuildpages.com). Jim also won the search engine journal’s “Best Link Building Blog” in 2006 and 2007 (Jim rarely blogs anymore). Jim has seen and done it all when it comes to link building, and he knows which links effect search engine rankings, and the types of risks involved in certain types of link building. If higher search engine rankings are a major focus of yours, this is a “must attend” session.

Speaker:
Jim Boykin, CEO and Link Building Ninja, We Build Pages Internet Marketing Services

I have 1 hour…where I plan to blow the mind of everyone in attendance.  I can’t wait.

I went to a marketing party….. (can’t stop singing).

February:
SES London – February 16-19
Confirmed: Speaking on Link Building Methods and Risks.

March:
SES, New York – March 22-26,
Confirmed: Speaking on Link Building Methods and Risks.

April:
Ad:tech- Paris – April 7-8
or SMX – Toronto – April 8-9
or Pubcon – Dallas April 13-15
or ad:tech – San Fran april 19-21
or eMA – San Fran 21-22
or SMX Sydney – April 22-23

May:
SMX Advanced London – May 17-18
or SearchExchange – North carolina May 17-19

June:
SMX Advanced Seattle – June 8-9, 2010
or Affiliate Convention Denver ~ June 21-22

July:
Vacation ? Egypt, Africa, Cruise?

August:
SES San Francisco Aug 16-20  – Confirmed Going.

September:
ad:tech London sept 21-22

October:
SMX East – NYC – October 4-6

November:
ad:tech – New York – Nov 3-5
or Pubcon Vegas Nov ?

======

If you want me to speak at your marketing conference, please email my first name at webuildpages.com.

Here’s a few speaking testimonials:

SEOMoz – Favorite Tidbits from PubCon 2009
This was seriously one of my favorite sessions. The speakers (including Rand) had a ton of great information but the one that really stood out to me was Jim Boykin of We Build Pages. He gave away some really great tips…

SEO Disco – Pubcon Feedback
Jim’s presentation was, by far, my favorite because he was very up front and told it how it is. Since he speaks at so many conferences, he makes it a point to present new information every time. I thoroughly enjoyed the candid nature and honesty of his presentation. He gave us a “behind-the-scenes” look into his actual link building processes. A lot of his methods are similar to what I have already been doing… but it is nice to have this type of confirmation from an industry expert. This information is priceless for the beginning SEOer and I hope they left with some good notes. Needless to say, I did indeed take-away a few great points from Jim’s presentation.

Peter Davis – Thanks Jim Boykin
The presentation by Jim Boykin was head and shoulders above the rest… .All the other presentations, in that session as well as in others, were very much more general and more focused on what not to do with your link building campaign. Jim’s presentation was very focused, and he gave concrete examples of a method that he uses for link building. If you ever have an opportunity to attend a conference where Jim is presenting, be sure to schedule yourself to be there to see him. If you’re looking for a firm that does link building too, you should consider giving him your business.

Mike Grehan – Webmasterworld wrap up.
Jim’s presentation was jam packed with actionable do it now data which I thought was just great. And really well presented.

On my linkedin Profile Page
If you’ve ever heard Jim speak at a conference there’s no doubt he’s on the leading edge of the Search Marketing arena. He delivers top notch advice, ideas, and strategies, without needing to resort to trickery or selling “snake oil”. He should be on every company’s short list of people to talk to.
Michael Gray, Owner, Atlas Web Group Inc. and SEO Blogger Graywolf

Scott contacted us about obtaining our services, and in our contact form we ask “How did you hear about us?” and his response was “your seminar in Chicago (Hostingcon 2007) — it was worth the entire trip!”
Scott R

===========

I love traveling, and I love speaking about SEO and Link Building.

I’m lucky that I get to do both.

I went to a marketing party to reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share new techniques and talk of links again
When I got to the marketing party, they all knew my name
No one recognized me, my hat color wasn’t the same.

But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t buy links anymore, so you got to go long tail.

SEO’s came from miles around, everyone was there
Giovanna brought her SEOBook, there was tweeting in the air
And over in the corner, much to my suprise
Mr Sullivan in yellow shoes wearing a Rand disguise.

But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t buy links anymore, so you got to go long tail.

Talked all night about link building, thought that’s why they’d came
No one believed I’m not link buying, even though I’ve changed.
I said Hello to Stuntdubl, he used to work for me
When I started talking about old site buying, he said it was time to leave

But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t buy links anymore, so you got to go long tail.

Someone opend up a conference door and out stepped Matty C. Goode
Writing down SEO operators of interest, like he thinks he should.
If you gotta go to SEO Parties, I wish you lotts luck
But if SEO were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.

On Tuesday I’ll be Moderating the “Hot Topics and Trends in the Affiliate Space” panel.

Speakers:
Steve Schaffer, Publisher, Offers.com
Elisabeth Archambault, Freelance Affiliate Marketer, Wedding-Resources
Rae Hoffman, CEO, Outspoken Media
Jerry West, President, SEORevolution

On Wednesday I’ll be moderating the “Interactive Site Reviews: Focus on Links” panel

Speakers:
Todd Malicoat, Independent Marketing Consultant, Meta4creations, LLC
Aaron Wall, Author, SEO Book
David Klein, CEO, Purpose Inc
Dixon Jones, Managing Director, Receptional LTD

The Focus on Links panel reminds me of this old song I wrote about showing your sites to Mr. Cutts.

And also on Wednesday I’ll be speaking on the SEO/SEM Tools

Moderator: Kate Morris
Speakers:
Jon Henshaw, Product Manager, Raven Internet Marketing Tools
Jim Boykin, CEO, We Build Pages
Aaron Kronis, Director of SEO, Wpromote Inc.
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOMoz

It’s been a long time since I spoke at an SEO conference (Besides SEO Class)…in fact it’s been 2 years….2 years ago at Pubcon I was on the “How to Buy Links with Little Risk” panel… Even 2 years ago the name of the panel seemed to scare me a bit….even at that time, buying links was a risk…and being on a panel whereby admitting that “yes, I buy links” seemed like a great way to paint a target on me (since I bought links back then)…I basically stood up and said, “Stay under the Radar, and Don’t piss off Google”… that was really the only advice I had back then…it was hard to give some of my real thoughts knowing that there were several google engineers in the room including Mr. Cutts.

And wow…. It was also almost exactly a year ago that we stopped buying links. I’m actually amazed to this day the types of links that our ninjas are able to get w/o paying a cent….Tomorrow I’m doing an hour and a half interview with Stuntdubl on MarketingMotive called “White Hat Link Building for the New Millennium” …can ya believe it??

For part of that interview I’m going to talk to Todd about the last 2 link building clients that Todd sent to us, and we’ll talk about how we were able to achieve these links in just a few weeks:

Both these clients are on our 10 links per month package and so far they’ve received:

Site 1:
out of 30 links so far for that client in the first 3 months:
12 edu’s
7 other colleges
1 org
1 k12
1 gov (library of congress)

Site 2:
so far we have 19 links in just over a month.
out of 19 links:
7 are edu’s
3 are schools that aren’t edu’s
5 are orgs (3 of those are schools)
2 are police websites
1 is a gov from NASA

That’s pretty dang good if I do say so myself…these are certainly links that I’d never have been able to buy….but with the right content, and writing to the right people, it’s amazing the links one can get.

———————

So I’ll be at Pubcon Mon -Wed…then I’m going to head out on the open road to Death Valley for a mini-vacation.

Chuck Price will also be at Pubcon with me…he’s got the morning shift, and I have the late shift.

….gosh, I miss blogging… but there’s something to be said for just quietly going about my business…but FYI,  I’m alive and doing wonderful….and yea, I’m still a link addict….just not shouting about it anymore.

Hope to see ya in Vegas,
Peace,
Jim

I was speaking with a client in a highly competitive industry yesterday. He’s a reformed link buyer – hasn’t bought a link in 7 months. The only problem is that all of his competitors are buying links and kicking his ass for some key phrases.

He wanted to know what could be done about this injustice. I told him to root for Microsoft to acquire Yahoo, and Bing to be a huge success. Until Google has a serious competitor in the search space, they will continue to be our internet overlords.

Wouldn’t it be great if Google had to treat SEO’s & webmasters like customers, rather than “Operators of Interest?”  I think it’s a pretty sad state when it is “excellent news” that Google now actually notifies a webmaster when they have processed a reconsideration request. Excellent news? More like BFD.

Here’s how I believe the reconsideration request should work:

• Webmaster fully and truthfully completes a reconsideration request Wizard  which walks the webmaster through the  Google webmaster guidelines & highlights common compliance issues
• Google Immediately acknowledges receipt of the request and has 10 business days to respond
• The response, at minimum, informs the webmaster what areas of his site do not conform to the guidelines and what penalty has been assessed.
• Google informs the webmaster that his penalty will be removed within X days/weeks/months after coming into compliance.

That, my friends, would be excellent news.

Wait a second……….. you didn’t come here to read my rant on Google – you want that Juicy PR9 link, right?  Well, as a reformed link buyer, I figured I should probably check out the link buying scene that my client was discussing. That led me to a popular forum, where I found this:

pr9 link selling 300$

Listed: Yesterday
Description: i’m selling hacked pr9 website. price 300$ i will guarantee you .
admin @ xxx. com  add me msn please.

Hmm… that looks kind of interesting. Not that I would do it myself, but interesting enough to add this Chap to my MSN and got an immediate response. He was happy to provide me with the url  (A government page) and even a discount. He would drop the price to $250 for 10+ links. Hmm… not bad, especially considering the following exchange, excerpted directly from my chat window:

XXX says:
where are u from
Chuck says:
us
XXX says:
nice
XXX says:
did you come in turkey ?
Chuck says:
no
XXX says:
ok
XXX says:
if you will buy pr9 backlink.. you will get a pr10.

Wow. I’ve been at this SEO thing for a few years now, but didn’t realize until today that buying a PR9 link would get me a PR 10!

So what do you think – will this guy get rich off his hacked PR9 pages? Would you buy one?

—————————————-

Disclaimer: We Build Pages does not condone buying links under any circumstances – let alone on hacked pages.

Jim’s note: When Chuck told me the title of this post I about fell over laughing so hard… oh what a terrible tease of a post title.

FYI, for those wondering, We Build Pages doesn’t buy or sell links anymore.  We can, however, sell you content that may attract some great links.

Thanks for participating!

hum…so Search Engine Optimization is “various techniques to achieve higher-than-deserved rankings“…but hey…I do believe I’ve heard those exact words used before by some search engine engineers, and I think I’ve read those exact words before in some patents.

I wish there were a “Rank Deserve Number” next to the urls in a search result page … This site deserves to be at this number..but the seo practices on the site are making it rank where you see it……. hey, you’re #3…but you only deserve to be #23….red flag!… hey, you’re #23, and you should be #3…better do more SEO!……or you deserve to be #11, and you are #11… so keep your SEO to that level….

So what if I were talking to my neighbor about his website, and after running some searches, I thought that he was ranking way below where I felt he deserved to be..

So what if I told my neighbor these 3 simple SEO tips…

1. Normally, If  you mention your targeted phrases a few times on a page (as opposed to just once, or not at all) you will rank higher for those phrases.

2. Normally, If you put your targeted phrases in your title tags you will rank higher for those phrases.

3. Normally, if you get other websites to link to your site, you will rank higher.

These are surely SEO technique to achieve higher rankings…now, if my neighbor took the above advice, and he went up in the rankings…did he  deserve that increase? What if he did this every day, all day, 40 hours a week for every week of the year… would he deserve that increase in rankings? What if he then started participating in blogs and forums of related sites, perhaps for the purpose of getting links,  by making blog comments that got links to his site?…. what if that increases his rankings, did he deserve that?…what if he was participating in blog comments and forums just for fun…and wasn’t thinking about the link juice… does he deserve ranking increases for things he did w/o knowing it would increase his rankings…what if he was having fun and maybe only thinking about link juice a little?

Do you only deserve an increase in rankings if you did things without link juice in mind? What if you thought about the link juice just a little bit? What if some PR guy comes up with an idea, and in the background their in house SEO/marketing guy is yelling  “Yes Yes” because he knows it could bring links?

See,there’s the kicker…Bob Jones from some PR department can make a decision like,  “Lets give away phones to people.”…or something like that…and if that gets them lots of links..hey, they weren’t thinking of link juice… but if it were Jim Boykin giving away phones or hot fudge..well,  you know….anyways…that’s another post….

I believe that there are many who do believe that Search Engine Optimization is just “various techniques to achieve higher-than-deserved rankings” …but doesn’t every site owner feel they deserve higher rankings?…and how can we know just what we deserve? And how much SEO do we do to only obtain “what we deserve”?

Pagerank sculpting is based on the formula from the original Pagerank patent from 1998, (PDF) that says the value of a backlinks is found via dividing the number of links on page by the value of a page (with a slight dampening factor).

The public news of Google passing value a different way than this old formula on internal links can be found from the Aimclearblog coverage of Danny’s Q and A with Matt at SMX:

Matt: If you have 10 links and 5 are nofollow, there is this assumption that the other 5 get page rank. That might have been partially true at one time, but that’s less effective these days. You’re not going to get a penalty, or get in trouble, there’s better uses of your time. If your using Nofollow to channel page rank around your site, it’s like a band aid, focus on designing your site  purposely to sculpt Pagerank.

…Initially if you had 10 links, and 5 were no followed, the other 5 would get the remaining page rank, it’s not that way these days. It bubbled up from the indexing team and  it could change in the future.

….Q: So there’s 10 links on home page, 5 pages Nofollowed, where is that link juice going?

Matt: You can think of it as evaporating.

Q: It’s actually hurting your site then?

Matt: Use it sparingly, use it for links you can’t vouch for, if you are a power user and there’s a page you don’t want (sign-in) that’s a fine page to use Nofollow on. The only thing I Nofollow on my blog is a subscribe link, which is not all that useful for the main web index.

Q: If there’s a Nofollow page from that main page, there’s evaporation?

Danny: When page rank came out, 10 links on the page each got 1/1oth of the link juice.

Matt: Page rank has changed over the years, academic papers on this are fantastic. Our models and the way we compute it and the way we determine is more sophisticated than when the original papers came out.

I for one am not surprised that a formula dating back to Google’s first patent in 1998 is defunct… pagerank, as outlined in 1998, is dead…has been dead…sculpting something based on that forumula is dead…. the only thing that’s not dead about that forumula, is the visiable toolbar they show people  (and only SEO’s tend to look at that green bar).

I think the nofollow just got outta hand where people started nofollowing pages a bit differently than how google envisioned they’d be used for (first for “helping reduce blog spam”…then for paid links…then SEO’s started to use it for “Pagerank Sculpting”) …and Matt now comes in and basically says “stop wasting your time…. we don’t pass value the old ways anymore.”

……..

ok…so let’s play a Jim Quiz Game here….You’ve got 3 urls to choose from here.. and I can give you backlinks on only 2 of these 3 urls … which 2 pages would you like a link from?

Page A: (FAKE URL) http://www.bobs-blog.com/water-pressure-whoknew.html
Pagerank 5
Number of links on that page: 10 internal, and 10 going to other sites. These 10 sites are “low to so-so” on the Trust Scale.
Backlinks to that page:  100 internal links….. no links to that page from any other site.

Page B: (FAKE URL) http://www.nasa.gov/science/Science-of-water-pressure/resources.html (FAKE URL)
Pagerank 1
Number of links on the page = 100 – most of these links are to high trusted sites
Backlinks to that page ~15
(5 other nasa.gov pages, another .gov link, 2 edu’s, few others…those pages  show either 0 pagerank, or pagerank 1’s. )

Pager C: (FAKE URL)  http://library.harvard.edu/science/water/water-pressure-facts.html
Pagerank 0 – but has google cache
Number of links on the page = 100 – most of these links are to high trusted sites.
Backlinks to page 3 (2 other internal edu pages, and a dot com…none have pagerank, but all 3 are cached)

If you could only get links from 2 of the above sites, which ones would you take?

…..if it were me…..I’d take choice B and C over choice A.

Choice A would be the obvious choice using the traditional logic of (PDF) the original pagerank patent from 1998 (higher pagerank, and more value going to your link since there’s only 10 other links on that page)… but is that green bar the real value of the page?  (by value I mean Ranking Value)…and how is Ranking Value passed out on a page?…and Matt’s words echo in my head

Page rank has changed over the years, academic papers on this are fantastic. Our models and the way we compute it and the way we determine is more sophisticated than when the original papers came out.

So what do I theorize that Google uses for it’s model of finding the value, and passing of value in links is these days?

I believe that Trust plays a big role in Google’s model. I’m a believer in Trust Value, or what some call TrustRank (here’s a great video of Rand explaining TrustRank) (and even though TrustRank isn’t Google’s patent, I do believe Google is using many of those basic ideas).

In the TrustRank Paper(PDF) they talk about Humans identifying 200 sites (or parts of websites (for example, one of the 200 sites might be the library section of stanford.edu)) that are truly pages that link to lots of other sites, and are highly trusted links (pages that haven’t been manipulated by SEO’s). The more closely linked you are to the original trusted sources, the higher your trust score is going to be.

….but many people still look at manipulating pagerank… when I don’t believe that pagerank (based on the original formulas) is the ranking answer any more… I put much more faith in Trust Value than I do in Toolbar Pagerank… problem is, you can’t see Trust Value in a toolbar…  you can only see Pagerank 1998 in the Toolbar.

What if there were instead of a Pagerank bar, a Google Trust Value Bar… and let’s say that every page on http://library.stanford.edu is a TrustRank 10, and everything they link to is a TrustRank 9, and everything they link to is a TrustRank 8…..and if we could see that Trust Value flow…. then everyone would be running around saying, Damn… I need some high trust value links… where can I get some phat links from sites like k12’s or gov’s or edu’s…. but it’s good of google to keep those types of pages a low pagerank, so the brokers won’t come in and ruin the trust of those pages.

That’s partly how I think of it… a page may be a PageRank of 1 and it might have 100 backlinks on it, but it may be a Trust Value of 9, and every link might get the same trust level… no matter if there’s 2 links on that page or 200 links on that page.

…And since they’re no Trust Value Bar, I’ll use my ninja senses to value the trust of a page and a site when evaluating the value of obtaining a link…but I won’t get distracted by the Pagerank, nor the number of links on the page.