9 comments » Top 5 reasons why I hate chiclets on your real estate blogEven the best of bloggers succumb to the occasional chicklet or two, but 10, 20 little icons in your sidebar or footer, it's a little excessive, don't you think?
It's true, I hate your chiclets almost as much as I hate your blogroll... and not surprisingly, for almost the exact same reasons... the reciprocal linking, the ego stroking (AKA industry circle jerk), lack of usefulness to visitors and large on-page link count. Now, don't get all sensitive, you can be reformed. Even the best of bloggers succumb to the occasional chicklet or two, but 10, 20 little icons in your sidebar or footer, it's a little excessive, don't you think? What is a chicklet? A small icon adjacent to a blog post, article or web page to indicate the availability of an RSS feed, however sometimes they can be directory badges (reciprocal links) and other website awards and affiliations. Why do I hate your chiclets? 1.
Reciprocal linking: most chiclets are nothing
more than a cute little reciprocal link.
Outside of the chiclets for feeds, your general directory and award chiclets
typically require links back to the directory or award site. Not exactly something Google looks favorably
upon.
What are useful chiclets:
Social Bookmarks like Digg, Technorati, Del.ici.us, Reddit,
StumbleUpon, etc. We like the "share this" tool for social bookmarks. Related PostsStop Word ListGoogle is NOT the Evil Empire stealing content from real estate blogs Top 5 On-page Search Engine Optimization Tips for Real Estate Blogs Google Slaps Real Estate Blogs in Latest PageRank Update Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: How to Research Keywords http://www.rsspieces.com/001C61 
Posted on February 09, 2008 19:15:34
Comment from: Derek Burress [Visitor]  · http://www.derekburress.comI can see a blog using one (only one) if their blogging platform doesn't keep stats, but most blogs these days (unlike in the old days when people were using free websites) have a stats page somewhere. You can also join many of the directories and have your site listed, add the chicklet so that the site can verify the account and then remove the chicklet and still be listed. You will not move in rank or anything with the chicklet removed, but you'll still be listed in the directory unless the site's policy change or something.
 Permalink February 09, 2008 21:42:12Comment from: Dee Copeland [Visitor] · http://www.TexasRealtyBlog.comThanks for this article. I didn't realize I even had chiclets on my site because I'd set some of them up a while ago. I removed about 5 of them. I need to see how to add technorati ones. Permalink February 10, 2008 10:32:40Comment from: Daniel Bates [Visitor] · http://www.mymcclellanville.netYou inspired me. I just cut back from a 14 chiclet a day habit to 4 chiclets a day. Is there a Chiclets Anonymous I can enroll in somewhere? Permalink February 11, 2008 06:48:12Comment from: Derek Burress [Visitor] · http://www.derekburress.comMary: I read with fear your comment about the 120 allowed links as I like to use my website as sort of a bookmark and use my regular FireFox bookmark for sites I need off hand (such as school resources, etc.) So basically all the real estate blogs, all the news stuff gets put on my blog. While I am not using my site very much at the current moment, I do have a lot of links on it. With that thoght, I figured I best better be careful as I may just need my site for some sort of use in the future. Now I am a thinking man and something seemed kind of fishy with that 120 link limit. Take for instance Greg Swann's site. Greg has something like 24 contributors on his sidebar. That's 24 links but he also has a huge blogroll as well. That's about 50 links right there. Then he has a second blogroll where he list's his contributor's site a second time - that's around 75 links on one page. Click on one of the articles on the bloodhound and there is around 12 or 13 comments each having links to the author of the comment. That's another 13 links. While I am not very good at math, I am estimating he has around 85 or so links on one page. Take those 85 links he has on that page and then figure in the 10 or so the author usually adds into the actual article and you have around 95 links on a single page. With some of the articles on Bloodhound, there is more links than that. Add in the camera links and the links to his son's site, and I am sure you're close to 120 or so links in some of the articles. With the Medal competion links, he would be well over the 120 link limit. Something's fishy about the 120 link statement. Please explain in details how Greg gets away with it while the rest gets penalized.
Permalink February 11, 2008 19:00:00Comment from: Guest [Visitor] · http://www.rsspieces.com Derek,
Its simple, Greg has an old, authoritative domain- he can get away with more a most sites. Heck, I get away with more than 120 links, but a new site with little authority just can't do it. You need to have a domain that is older than 2 years and at least a PR5 to get away with it and its still a good rule to be careful with it. Even with an old doamin, you will see fewer deep crawls. Plus, there are a bunch of tricks that i would rather not mention becasue they are somewhat gray hat and a girl's got to keep some stuff to herself. Permalink February 11, 2008 20:20:03Comment from: Derek [Visitor] · http://www.derekburress.comYou sure about that? Reason being is because Greg's site is less than 2 years old. Permalink February 12, 2008 19:27:31Comment from: Guest [Visitor] · http://www.rsspieces.comDerek, Perhaps you should look up a whois entry before you say that, Greg's domain was purchased in 03. He has an old authoritative doamin. That would place that domain at 5 years old- old enough to get away with more than most.
Permalink February 14, 2008 08:19:45Comment from: JB [Visitor] · http://www.jbprealtygroup.comAre you making any distinction between internal links and outbound links? What do you think about the following scenario? * Your blog is hosted from within your web site. For example your web site is JohnDoe.com and your blog is JohnDoe.com/Blog. * So JohnDoe.com/Blog IS your blog home page. * On your blog home page you have the 15 most recent posts showing up. * On each of your posts you have a default footer that has 50 internal links referring readers to detailed pages within your web site. These are not outbound links as they would be if your blog were hosted on Blogger and then pointed to your web site. The above scenario played out would lead to 750 links on one page (your blog home page). Almost all would be internal links though. Any thoughts on this?
Permalink February 14, 2008 12:20:38Comment from: Derek [Visitor] · http://www.derekburress.comI tried the whois.net site but didn't see the link at the bottom for "more details." I did find this interview which was where I got the less than two year date: http://realestatetomato.typepad.com/the_real_estate_tomato/2006/12/straight_from_t.html Either way, the date is still a bit confusing as Greg's archieves go back even further than that to 2005. Permalink February 14, 2008 18:23:28Comment on this article This post has 1 feedback awaiting moderation... |
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