When Google first announced their Panda algorithm update, the entire SEO world held their breath to see just what was going to be 'punished'. Now that the dust has settled and the algorithm has worked its magic on a majority of the rankings, the web is buzzing with the ramifications the update has brought on. Aside from a few websites being unfairly punished (and Google making amends) the biggest beef is that scraper sites such as the Huffington Post and Drudge Report are outranking the individuals who originally created the content. This development is rather large as it leaves the ethically challenged scraper sites to benefit from monetized positions in the SERPs while the real authors are left to suffer through less traffic despite the suthenticity of their reporting.
In some cases I personally find this to be abhorrent as those who dare drop into a Libya or Somalia to describe a hellish warscape should likely be the ones rewarded by advertisers and not Arianna Huffington, but alas , that isn;t how the web works. The bigger question is, should a smaller site work to create great infographics, content, and article marketing if a bigger fish can just re-post it to their own page with minimal credit to the author? I do believe Google is likely to fix this as it tends to fly in the face of their corporate ethos, but for the time being the daily results are real, and I would estimate infuriating to smaller media outlets looking to compete with the larger sites by beating them to the punch on stories. If Google's updates have removed a major incentive to these organizations to pound the pavement, than in theory the entire web is going to lose out on a lot of great content.
As a link building specialist myself, this new update and the corresponding rise in scraper sites has given pause to my article marketing efforts. If those articles can be usurped by these bigger sites, and furthermore not include my bio box, than there is little incentive for me to aid another website with great content I will never be able to realize any true value from. I doubt it will stay this way for long, I have however looked to adding inbeds to the actual content, either an inforgraphic or quiz etc.
However, the best way to avoid this scraping and still receive the gold standard of links (an inbound link from the body of an article with good anchor text). By contacting the more respected industry journals and magazines, you can create an opportunity to be a guest blogger (if your content is good). Do not present this as an idea unless it is something you really believe in and are prepared for a professional periodical to take you seriously. This is a time consuming practice, but it does avoid scraping and furthermore provides a strong boost back to your site which would likely take you longer t ogain through three way exchanges and more.
Now since Google is also beginning to incorporate the social media networks into their search results this can be an icredibly quick way to disseminate links which flow directly to the source (if you set up your networks correctly).
What are some ways that you guys are creating strong inbound links from strong sources?
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