Friday I received a very interesting Email from Jordan Bass of nRelate. His Email was a pitch on why I should use nRelate instead of Link Within to offer readers related content when they read articles on my blog. At first I was a little taken back by the approach but the very first thing he mentioned was something I didn’t know:
I noticed you are running Linkwithin on your site and many publishers do not know that on each click, Linkwithin first sends readers through their own site and then back to your site, which negatively affects your SEO, making your site more difficult for readers to find on Google (article on this below).
So I decided to check to see if this claim was true though I didn’t use my history as his Email went on to suggest, I just right clicked the link and pasted it into notepad. While the URL renders properly when you hover over one of the links, when it is copied you get a different output and it turns out Jordan is correct.
but when I right click the URL that is highlighted in the picture and paste the actual link into notepad, this is where it really goes:
Now I understand that Jordan wants me to use nRelate because I might allow adds that they (and I) would get paid for (sorry Jordan, I have zero plans to put ads on my blog). But what about LinkWithin, why would they want to hurt my SEO? How are they cashing in on that traffic? Turns out they aren’t the only way I can tell that they benefit is by the back links which I suppose places them in a strong position when/if they roll out a advertising product (I would love to hear a more official SEO analysis of this effect beyond the obvious). According to the LinkWithin site they plan to add revenue sharing features in the future, but they will be optional:
There are two real alternatives to Linkwithin that I could find. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) and nRelate. I’ve used YARPP before and I am not warm and fuzzy about nRelate based on a number of people in the very blog post that Jordan referred me to have commented that it doesn’t always render the thumbnails, etc. I don’t actually mind a plugin publisher getting some benefit out of me using their free plugin, but I want it to be reasonable and above board. I am not strongly convinced either way that this is quite as big of a deal as Jordan would like me to think it is.
Mind Helping me Out?
What would you do if you were me? Do you even use the related posts options? Do you think anyone is actually clicking those links? Hard core SEO types, what is your take? Is this being blown out of proportion by their competitor?
Joe, I see the related links get generated on my blog whenever I post on a given topic, and I don’t read them as I post my original copy. But I do admit, I view the related links on other people’s blog posts (and of course get lost in blog heaven-asking myself ‘How did I get here?’ Good idea to check the code to see that your SEO is being shortchanged by the existing service. It seems whichever way you turn someone is trying to take away your currency — whether it’s ad revenue or your search engine rank. I say you should find a partner to build a similar service. Let me know when you do!
@MichelleDamico thank you it’s nice to hear that from a user perspective. That is what every blog owner wants (people to get lost reading a number of articles on their blog!). I am not going to rush to remove it, but it will be interesting to see what others think about it. Thanks for your comment Michelle 🙂
@dannybrown thanks for sharing that. Played with @jugnoo more today, setup a coupon, pretty sweet bells and whistles in there 🙂
@hackmanj Great to hear mate – lots of very cool @JugnooMe stuff coming in next 6-8 weeks 🙂
@DannyBrown @JugnooMe keep me posted! I’d be happy to check out the new stuff… Episode summary hits my blog tomorrow morning btw.
@hackmanj @JugnooMe For sure mate – Skype screen share next week?
@DannyBrown @JugnooMe sure, if you’ve got something to test out I am game.
@DannyBrown started working through the task list on @JugnooMe got to say when you add @bufferapp support it’s on! 🙂
@hackmanj @JugnooMe @bufferapp Less than 2 weeks sir 🙂
A related posts page element is very useful. But why turn something so valuable to your website over to a third-party for their benefit. You do not need a service or a partner. DIY, for the best for a WP based site, why not use YARPP with thumbnails?
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