Is It Hype? The Race for Google Page Rank

Everyone wants high PR (Google Page Rank). But does it mean anything, or is it a bunch of hype?

Personally, I feel that getting a lot of traffic to my web sites is more important than PR; on the other hand, if I want traffic from the most popular search engine on Earth, than I'm going to need higher page rank to get noticed.

Even if page rank was totally irrelevant and didn't create traffic, I think it's still a good thing. Why? It keeps us on our toes.

If it weren't for Google's periodic page rank updates, I doubt that we webmasters would find the time to get links to our sites. We'd eventually find something else to do instead of writing articles, submitting to directories, exchanging links and constantly promoting our sites.

So, even if page rank was meaningless in terms of site traffic, it's a good thing. Google gives us the kick in you-know-what that we might need in order to spend some time promoting.

Reciprocal Linking - Is It Hype?

Back when us "oldies" were creating web sites, we were indoctrinated with how important it was to get reciprocal linking so that our sites would have relevance in the search engines. Nowadays, we oldies and "newbies" alike are being told that reciprocal linking does not have much merit and that we should be pursuing one-way links.

In my humble opinion, reciprocal linking still works ... BUT, and that's a big but ... if you're going to exchange links with other sites, you need to take a look at the site that you're going to link with. These are some of my own observations:

• The site that you are linking with needs to be indexed in the big three; i.e., Google, Yahoo and MSN. If it's not indexed, there might be something wrong with it and you're sending your page rank power and traffic down a black hole.
• The site needs to be relevant to your site. For example, if you have a health related site, you shouldn't be exchanging links with gambling sites or dog training sites. In my humble experience, reciprocal linking with related sites has definitely made a difference in the backlinks that are reported by the search engines.
• The links page on the site that you are hooking up with should also be indexed, particularly by Google. If the links page has page rank, that's even better.
• Don't bother exchanging with link farms. Even if your linking partner's primary content appears to have relevancy to your site, if his or her link page has a whole bunch of stuff with thousands of links to all kinds of unrelated sites, your reciprocal link will not hold much weight.

If you keep 'em clean, reciprocal linking can be beneficial. If not, it's all a bunch of hype.

Big Daddy - Is It Hype?

A couple of months ago, an Internet friend referred me to a service called "Big Daddy," a free search engine where you get $50 in free paid per click ads. Just to be nice, I signed up to give her a referral but did not take it too seriously.

Once signed up, you get your own search portal as well as the free PPC ads. If you conduct searches, you can get paid a dollar or more into your PPC account. Referrals give you even more PPC dollars. By the way, these PPC dollars cannot be cashed in. You have to buy keywords with them.

Maybe it was because I signed up when the service was just starting, or maybe it's a darn good service. I "bought" a bunch of keywords with my free PPC balance and was absolutely shocked to discover a few weeks later that I was actually receiving traffic to the web sites that I was advertising through Big Daddy's search portal.

Because it was generating traffic, I started conducting searches on my portal relentlessly, building up my PPC balance to the point that I could "buy" top ads on keyword pages. For a free service, all I can say is that my traffic exploded with 75 clicks or more a week that, according to my server logs, were specifically coming from the Big Daddy search portal.

So, if you've been hearing a lot of hype about the Big Daddy search portal, it's worth checking out. After all, it's free and you have nothing to lose.