Are links from your affiliates valuable in this regard?

1) Mr. Whitaker — Howdy! I think ANY affiliate links would help. If the links point directly to your domain, or Y! URLs, Y! redirects or not, I think there would be SEO benefits.

CJ.com? Not so much because they go through proxies and don’t look like links to search engine robots.

Right now I’m looking into SEO-friendly Yahoo! Store affiliate programs/networks. Anyone know any programs we should know about?

One quick question… where the heck is my link in your story. Names are great but a little link goes a long way.

2) Surf City Tom — See? You get it. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Your link is forthcoming.

If you’ve ever talked to Rob in person or on the phone about Yahoo Store strategies, it’s like trying to drink from a firehose!

3) Clean Air Gardening — Thanks, Lars! I like to talk about this stuff!

Sad thing is that Yahoo! Store-centric Internet marketing is pretty much all I think about almost all the time nowdays!

Just tonight my girlfriend was giving me a hard time about how excited I get about advanced operators for search engines, (”What’s so cool about the SITE: operator?”), but as you will see in a moment…

Tom, If we let Rob link to everyone he knows, then every other word in his posts would be a link likely.

4) Paul — Well, maybe if they bought multiple copies of my book.

OK, how ’bout this IDEA: I think Y! should have a Y! Merchants’ Association where we CROSS PROMOTE each others’ stores, not just trade links. I mean, other than a pretty much bullet-proof platform, toll-free customer support, and an army of dedicated CSRs what do we get for our revshare $$$?

Say we all pick 20 noncompetitive but somehow related stores and integrate links within our CAPTIONS where it makes sense. I do that already on some of our stores. Not swapping links, per se, but for example, saying we carry one muzzle, but our friends at Morrco.com have 27 different varieties…

For example, a quick search on Yahoo for site:stores.yahoo.net dog reveals about 23,700 pages of folks selling stuff for dogs.

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0geu5sEdudGwQ0BgbVXNyoA?p=site%3Astores.yahoo.net+dog&y=Search&fr=yfp-t-501
And these are just the folks NOT using the 301 redirect! (Shame!)

It would be pretty easy for Y! to set up a marketplace of 5-Star or established merchants and each have a list of the 10 things THEY want promoted.

5) Scott — Thanks, dude! Just channeling a little redneck magic. Give me a holler, sometime.

As a beginner in this thing, I do have one question – is it really true that low quality links could actually hurt the ranking?

6) Dog Clothing Company folks — Thanks! Disclaimer: This is just my opinion here, but I think that if a majority of links to a site are “low quality” (whatever that means!) they certainly won’t help that site. What percentage of your links have to be high quality to earn you “trust” from Google? I would say more than half.

Quick do’s and don’ts: Do get buy a link in the Yahoo! directory ($299 a year). Do submit your site ONCE to the proper category in the DMOZ.org, but don’t sweat it if you don’t get in at first. Sponsor forums and affinity sites. That’ll get you some links. Participate in forums and answer questions. Ask everyone you know who has a related site if they’ll link to you.

Don’t start a huge reciprocal link campaign where you swap links with everyone and everyone. Don’t buy links where you’re paying more for the link than the direct traffic would be worth. Don’t get links from sites that link to porn, pills, or casinos.

Mr. Matt Cutts across the street over at Google has always said that what OTHER sites do can’t
hurt you, so if you believe that (and I pretty much do), I think you’ll be okay if your site has some low quality links.

Always be getting those links!

Rob Snell

The links from these vendors are especially valuable because they are among the most relevant types of links you can get. Think of all of the people who link to the manufacturer as the authority on a certain product. Well, if that manufacturer then links to you, you start becoming an authority as well. At least that is how Google works… Google looks at these relationships (who links to the people who link to the people who link to you). Don’t get me wrong – in the link game quantity is important, but quality and relevance is paramount. When “quantity” converges with “quality” seo rankings go through the roof.

To the questions above – naked links matter, but all links are not equal. Some links matter more than others and for different reasons. Evaluate who links to the site that will link to you. Evaluate their site content. Evaluate HOW they link to you. All of those factors should be considered when answering the question – are “affiliate links valuable.”

Tom
If we let Rob link to everyone he knows, then every other word in his posts would be a link likely.

Lars
Glad to hear this tip was useful. I asked Rob to write it up knowing that it sounded like a novel starting place for link building and given that off-page factors are very important.

Paul

Seem obvious now, but if it was, then why didn’t I ever think of it before?

If you’ve ever talked to Rob in person or on the phone about Yahoo Store strategies, it’s like trying to drink from a firehose!

He can take one glance at your site and tell you 15 things to do off the top of his head. (Meanwhile, you’re busy trying to write them all down before they go into one ear and out the other and are lost forever.)