Pillar Content vs Link Trains
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Let’s explore the “link trains” phenomenon (if we can call this like that), and please share your experiences and thoughts!
The Facts
Some people/bloggers i know who participated in the technorati link train or other linkbaiting stuff didn’t really see an increase in traffic nor comments, except the usual “i faved you, will you fave me?” kinda replies on the link-train post (a little annoying i think). But seems those link trains are a nice way to find out about other blogs (or else you would never have heard of them….) But, how many of the people that you faved (and that faved you back) actually subscribed to your RSS Feed or wrote an interesting comment on your blog (meaning: adding something valuable to the discussion), checked out your archives, and linked to your posts (except the link-train post)?
Easy, Fast And Surely Not Time-Consuming
I downloaded DoshDosh OPML file (*edit: Mr Gary Lee started the link train, but at that time i didn’t know, so i grabbed DoshDoshs’ OPML file, since Maki started a reciprocal experiment between his blog and his readers, and that’s what inspired Mr. Gary Lee to start the link train), so i added this list to my technorati, and voila, i faved 1380 blogs, and it took me less 2 minutes, and some of them faved me back (credits to Andy Beard for letting people know about this, and i sure agree with Andy: “I avoid memes unless I can add some kind of message to it.“). I didn’t see an increase in visitors or comments really, although my blog was added to a good number of lists/blogs.
What’s Up Now?
Now the new link train is the mybloglog one started by Shawn Knight. I’m also wondering if this one is worth joining (but, on a side note, i’d like to thank the people that included my blog in their link train posts, it’s always nice to see our numbers increase)… But. do you really want to spend hours adding people to your mybloglog community? Bloggers always talk about how beneficial it is to partner with “relevant” blogs and how it helps with SEO. Why not focus on writing interesting posts, relevant content and worth reading articles, that your readers could actually benefit? And attract “natural” traffic, people linking to your articles and posts simply because you write kick-ass content! That, to me, has way more value that link-trains. Someone coming from Google, who searched for “copywriting tips” or “how to make money online” sure doesn’t care about the link trains.
On The Other Hand
If you write the best articles and the best posts, and no one reads them, what’s the use? Participating in link-trains is surely a good way to get some traffic and links back. And some people might actually find your blog useful and comment. But what are the chances of that happening? And is it really worth the time spent? Both “yes” and “no” are good answers i think. It all depends what you want to focus on. I’m a link whore, and i like to link to other blogs within my posts, if i find some posts that are relevant to the one i’m writing i’ll definitely link to it, so no real need to join in the technorati or mybloglog trains… my opinion is still 50/50 on the topic of link trains… How relevant is it to your readers? (well sure this post is not the most relevant one i wrote)
I agree with Nate on this: […] the real benefit to link trains are not the *amount* of traffic that it could potentially send your blog, but the opportunity to expose your blog to new people in the ’sphere […]
So, what’s your take on all this? Have you joined the technorati or mybloglog trains? Did you see an increase in traffic and comments (relevant comments that is)? Please share your experience with link trains, what you liked, and what you didn’t like.
Hey, aren’t link trains almost like those chain letters you recieve in your e-mail from your friends! Please foward this post to 10 of your friends and your secret crush will call you tonight!
;)
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27 Responses to “Pillar Content vs Link Trains”
Discussion Area - Share Your Thoughts
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Just to provide another perspective, I discovered your blog for the first time when Sean Dinner tagged you on his Technorati train post. I added you to my feedreader (where I read this post) and now I’ve felt compelled to leave a comment.
I usually avoid memes, but I participated in the Technorati one. Mostly because it was an excuse to link to some good blogs I read (that my own readers might be interested in).
Hi Kevin, thanx for replying, i’m happy to hear that you read my blog through RSS, it’s cool that you found my blog through Seans’ blog, he writes really nice posts, and rocks in graphic-design ;)
I totally agree with you, linking to relevant blogs and blogs you like is definitely a good way to share the link love (i try to do this when i write posts). But i’m a little more concerned about the content. it’s cool to spread the link love, but if there’s no pillar articles or worth reading content, what will make people wanna come back? Your blog definitely has no problem regarding content quality, i just checked out a couple of your posts and i’ll be back for more! :) But some blogs seems to focus way too much on link trains and not enough on content. I think it’s all about relevancy. Doshdosh is a good example, even if he participated in the technorati link train, the content is highly relevant and always “on topic”.
I know that my post may not please some people, while others will totally agree, i just thought i had to share my views and thoughts. And i’m happy you replied! :)
Jonathan,
Just to clarify something here. I did not start the Technorati Faves “Link Train”.. this was started by Gary Lee in his post, Share the Power of Technorati Faves.
Gary Lee was inspired by my experiment and started the Technorati faves link train.
My original arrangement (if you read my post) was purely reciprocal and was only between my readers and my blog. It wasn’t even a meme so to associate it with the link train is factually inaccurate.
Perhaps you could make some changes in your post to indicate that? :)
Thanks a lot!
Hi Maki, thank you very much for clarifying that, so many blogs are blogging about the technorati thing it gets confusing at some point, i will make changes right away :)
By the way, thanx for stopping by!
No problem, Jonathan. Thanks for making the changes.
I like how your blog looks and the articles look pretty good as well. I’ve just subscribed to your feed and I’m looking forward to more interesting stuff from you.
BTW.. if you’re talking about pillar articles, be sure to check out some of the posts on Dosh Dosh (under the ‘Popular Posts’ section in the center column) and let me know what you think. :)
A little off-topic, but noticed your blogroll was pretty long so this article by Andy Beard might also be of interest to you:
How a Blogroll can kill your Pagerank
No problem Maki, thanx for pointing it out! :)
I grabbed your feed also (i have no idea why i haven’t already, but i read your blog many times a week).
Regarding the blogroll thing, yeah i know it’s kinda messy, i’m working on setting up a directory, i downloaded this link directory plugin from eBrandMarketing, seems it will do the job just fine, but i’ve yet to take some time to customize it, and it seems to be doing some weird stuff on my CSS (sidebar looks weird).
Thanx for letting me know about this post by Andy!
Great post Jonathan. I must say that I’ve come across blogs that are proclaimed to be of great authority on Technorati because they got hundreds of links to them but when you visit them you get dissapointed. Not only is the content not great but the site seems to be getting rather low traffic. The only reason they rank so high is that they were able to join some huge link train or somehow joint blogrolls.
I think this is somewhat ruining things for the blogosphere in the sense that I find it very hard to figure out who are the pillar stones in my niche (religion). Well if anyone knows then please let me know!
Hi Church of Integrity, thanx for replying, and welcome to SWR, make yourself at home!
I read on Andy Beards’ blog something i found really interesting: technorati rank does not mean authority. It’s not because a site has thousands of people “favoriting” them that the site is in fact highly relevant to its niche or “on-topic”.
Well spam definitely ruins my e-mail inbox everyday when i open it. Don’t get me wrong, i think linktrains are real fine, but it’s to use with caution, some people lost rss subscribers for posting about link trains too often, which is definitely not good. A huge spike in traffic doesn’t necessarly mean more “authority”, it can be taken into account when checking stats, but it’s good not to base the level of authority on how many people faved a blog. Since obviously most of the technorati faves people get are in fact “fake faves” i have 1380 faves in my technorati, and honestly a lot of them are absolutely not relevant to what i’m looking for and what i wanna read, and i normally wouldn’t have faved them. I prefer honesty over stats. I’ll surely clean my faves and remove some. Oh well, it’s a game, sometimes you have join in to make friends i guess.
;)
As a new blogger, link trains have definitely helped boost my traffic… now the next thing is to make that traffic more sticky. I am not trying to make money. Just develop a fun community.
I like your blog and am happy you have joined GoldyWorld.
Hey Goldy, nice to see you on here, make yourself at home! :)
You’re right, new bloggers have advantage to participate in link trains, just need some nice content to make people want to come back. Not so sure for older blogs that already recieve a decent amount of traffic though. I’ve read a post on harpzon.com a while ago talking about “crap to content ratio” (though harpzon.com is for sale now) just gotta keep the quality and quantity of the “regular” postings up, and throw in a “link train” post from time to time, just not focus too much on linkbaiting (we can leave that to John Chow)
Jonathan,
Great post! I’m afraid that you may now be labeled as the student who stood up and was honest with the teacher, though… LOL
Seriously, though, I couldn’t agree with you more. If a meme adds value (think Simply Successful Secrets, Gotta Get Goals, Ultimate Guide to Productivity), then by all means, it is worth it to participate because it adds value across the board.
However, if a meme starts to look more like a MySpace project, best to leave that one alone! :)
As far as Technorati, long before the latest Technorati meme, I ran a promotion through my newsletter for people to add my blog to their faves in exchange for free ebooks. Even though I hit 200 people who added me as a favorite, and I was in the Top 50 at one point, I don’t think that it ever really brought me significant traffic.
The real measure of success with Technorati is how many blogs LINK to you, because, just like Google, Technorati sees a link as a vote of confidence. (p.s. - I am NOT suggesting we start that kind of a meme!)
Anyone can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that is how it works. Regardless of how it works, however, if any system can be successfully “gamed,” then that system loses it’s effectiveness.
Again, great post, Jonathan!
Hi Aaron! hehe well i don’t mind the label, i prefer being honest, even if some may not like this, i don’t feel lke “faking it”…and also this post, is to me some kind of experiment, and also to help me “get my thoughts together” or “on ppaper” so to speak).
Simply Successful Secrets, Gotta Get Goals and Guide To Productivity are awesome “memes” and i wanna participate in each and every meme that is similar to those, as they are relevant to my blog (the “smart” and “wealthy” part hehe).
So, for the technorati blog linking meme? you wanna start it, or i can do it if you want! (kidding) lol
:)
You know… sometimes I like a “fun” meme. Some of my favorite blogs are just windows into people’s lives, opinions and creativity. I could certainly do a blog about my professional area of expertise… but for me blogging is an outlet to forget that and maybe help others do the same for 30 minutes at a time.
Hey Goldy! I agree, you bring a good point, if you participate in a meme or tag game either to showcase other peoples’ work or to simple let people know about sites that interests you, link away! :) I’m a little more concerned when it comes to “gaming” technorati.
A good link train is fun once in a while. But only once in a while …
Otherwise, too much train, not enough track. :)
Shane, you summed up my thoughts :)
I participated a bit on Technorati train, but to be honest just for the heck of it. A nice meme is more worthwhile getting into and I did participate in “My last post” and “Why do I blog”, that was fun. As far as traffic is concerned I am still where I was…lol and thats cool too as long as I am enjoying what I am doing. Honestly I still need some coaching on how to increase traffic, sometimes I would say a thing like, aww what a waste, when i have made a good post and not many got to read it.
Cheers buddy and take care.
Hey Robin! yeah i think a meme that adds some value or that can be interesting to “regular visitors” coming from search engines are ok.
I really enjoyed your “why do i blog” post, it was relevant, it was you, and it wasn’t “fake” :)
I would go along with Memes and tag games as they add new flavor/ unique content to read about. Link trains are nothing more than just, a mess of links, since you are not linking to anything that is relevant to what you write normally. Though, it is all in the name of fun of course.
Hi lyndonmaxewell, totally agree, some memes are really interesting, i did join in on te “why do you blog” meme and a couple others, but mostly because it had something “special” and was not “link farms”, like you said it’s all in the name of fun, just gotta keep our readers’ level of enjoyment in mind too.
I started looking into all of this linking and I always forgot to write post or put up anything that is worth something to read.
I find it bad if I did gain rank and noticed that the new traffic came in and no one wanted to subscribe because my content was sub par.
Great post!
Hey Brett! Yeah kinda need the content to back it up. And also if you monetize your blog you want to optimize the ads placement. More traffic is alway a good thing, just gotta keep in mind the readers. And those link trains can easily get out of hand (which is why people start them i guess, and get more links) and end up as link farms, and blogs without content.
Thanx for replying Brett! :)
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Interesting article. I would have to say that content is a lot more important that link trains. I hate link trains as a reader, so I don’t subject my readers to them. I wrote a couple articles on my site on my views of link trains and how they should be “ended” lol.