Is linkbaiting a new word for an old technique?
Linkbaiting is a relatively new term in the SEO world that's been on fire over the last year or so. One of the arguments that I have heard a lot lately is that linkbaiting is nothing new; it just has a buzzword attached to it now. Well that's partially true, the idea of creating remarkable content (credit: Andy Hagans) for the purpose of attracting links is by no means anything new. It's been around since before most people even knew what SEO was or realized why they needed it. So, the question remains, why is linkbaiting all of a sudden so popular and effective? Two words: social media.
Linkbaiting was never popular before because it was never as effective as it is now, or as effective as it is going to get. Up until a couple years ago, you were considered lucky if your remarkable content naturally attracted more than a handful of links, of course mileage varied depending on a number of factors. This means that the effort that went into creating the content wasn't always worth the reward. Now we are seeing pieces of linkbait that attract 1000-2000 links or more in a single blow. Needless to say this is what makes it so much more effective today.
Here we are at the end of 2006; we now have over 50 million bloggers and 100 million people using MySpace at any given time. These are people that are hungry to find good content and naturally link to it. It's not only the bloggers and people using social networks that we can credit either, it is the new social mediums that have sprouted up such as digg, delicious and StumbleUpon that make it easier to get content in front of tons of eyeballs.
The combination of things that makes up social media, such as blogs, social bookmarking sites and social news sites is why linkbaiting is so hot right now and deserves its own buzzword. If anyone wants to argue that linkbaiting is nothing new and that they've been doing it since '95, show me a piece of linkbait from back then that naturally attracted over a thousand links and I'll have no choice but to agree with you.
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Reader Comments (6)
- Mike Papageorge, December 10, 2006
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As a term, I could swear I'd read it in WebmasterWorld and the like a long time ago (searching WMW, though refutes this).
In any case, in the last paragraph you are essentially defining linkbait by the number of links it attracts. That's pretty much wrong, IMO, given that there are many sectors where getting 1000s of links will be very difficult, no matter how remarkable the content.
Amongst the myriad of reasons that people write remarkable content on the web, traffic is always a big one. Always has been. "Content is King" etc. etc.
Linkbait, as it is called today :-), does indeed get more links, but how long until you think the search engines catch on to these events (a linkbating, if you will) and blunt the impact? (if they haven't already?)
I think the best thing to come out of the social media phenom WRt content isn't so much the amount of links (tho they are nice), but the amount of publicity that can come from a linkbating event. A well written piece of linkbait that actually succeeds in an industry will then increase readership and perhaps the authority level of the site in question, and that may be worth more (links, citiations etc) in the longrun then a couple thousand links from one event.
- Cameron Olthuis, December 10, 2006
- Mike Papageorge, December 10, 2006
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I think I understand you more now that I reread that first paragraph. It's the challenge you propose in the last that made me comment. The same stuff is being written, the response is just much more amplified these days, and in large part to social media, as you say.
WRT blunting the links, I think SE's have done this to some degree. Was there not some adjusting needed when blogs started getting popular? I seem to recall some hubub about blogs and the natural interlinking done between them required SE's to adapt link scores to some degree. I guess this is what I was getting at. Naturally built up links that occur over a long time period likely carry more weight in the SE's then 1000 in three days?
- SEO BoyBand, December 10, 2006
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When I read the title of this post, I ran over to comment "yes" immediately.
I gotta admit tho, you made a great case for the other side of the argument and even convinced me to change my opinion on the matter.
Nice post.
- Amrit Hallan, December 11, 2006
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Hi Cameron.
I would say the concept is old but the serious implementation is new. When I was designing websites I used to promote my website by writing free articles for other websites that in return put my link on their websites. Even now if you search for "amrit hallan" on Google you'll find many such articles by me, albeit quite old now (and the designing website is non-functional). The point I'm trying to make here is, it's all about getting people to link back to your website.
Linkbaiting in today's context is also important in terms of evaluating your linkback worth. The more people link to your page, the more money you can charge to put others' links on that page. In terms of business generated, I don't know how much business -- unless based on advertising -- can be generated from Digg traffic. Linkbaiting as of now is only available as a marketing tool to a few. It still has to go a long way before it is usable to a wider market.
- Cameron Olthuis, December 11, 2006
