I’ve been doing a whole lot of work on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation – the business of ensuring your website is optimised for search engines) at work in the last 12 months. Like all web marketers, I knew a bit about SEO and probably felt I knew a lot. Since last summer I’ve made it my business to learn as much as I can about white-hat SEO tactics (the ‘best practices’), as well as black-hat tactics (the naughty stuff, but purely so I knew what NOT to do).
One thing that has slowly dawned on me, to my own detriment it must be said, is that ‘link love’ – or the power that links form other websites have to yours, is a key element in website optimisation. As much as your site is optimised, keyword rich, accessible, etc etc – you need links for the search engines to rank you highly – especially when it comes to competitive terms.
So content rich, keyword heavy, respected sites like AP News should be loving the fact that people link to them. Or so you’d imagine. And you’d imagine wrong. Full credit to the Washington post on their strategy to counter the litigation crazy AP News.
Some people really don’t get web marketing. They’ll learn in time…