Marketing Pilgrim

I don’t recall if I’ve ever actually met Eric Ward, but I’ve been reading his stuff for years. So, shame on me for only just subscribing to his RSS feed - might have something to do with the fact that he just added MP to his blogroll (thanks Eric!).

Anyway, two posts caught my eye today, both worth the quick read.

First, Eric explores the hype surrounding “link baiting”. I share Eric’s thoughts on link baiting - great marketers have been doing this stuff for years, but it’s cool now that it has a “name”. Eric also has a warning to share:

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with link baiting. It’s the term and the tactics I don’t like. If you are creating Link Bait for no other reason than to attract links in hopes of also attracting search engine rankings improvement via those links…well, good luck. That’s what EVERYONE is doing. And those types of links wont help you long if at all.

Second, Eric explains that not all “.edu” links are created equal.

A link from a student homepage or school paper web site isn’t as valuable as a link from a professor’s page, or better yet, the University library site. Why? because it’s easy for those who are into black hat stuff to buy links from students, wheras a librarian isn’t likely to be bought.

I’d also add that, in many cases, a “.com” link is more valuable than most of the “.edu” links you get from a student’s homepage.

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