Last week Jim Boykin wrote yet another article critical of Link Baiting, insisting that stealthy, steady link building by a Link Ninja was a much more effective strategy. While traditional link building is a necessary evil, I feel it is my sworn duty to make a case for the awesome power of a scurvy crew of Bait Pirates!
In this case, we'll examine the swarthy deeds of pillage and plunder undertaken by the crew of Drivl and witness the copious amounts of Link Booty they've amassed.
For those of you who've been paying attention, you may have noticed that Drivl has been mentioned on SEOmoz quite a few times in recent days. It's time to come clean: we write for Drivl. There, consider us transparent. It's a fun, satirical, snarky and occasionally crude site that we've been charged with building traffic for. Be warned that any "professional" image you may have of us will likely be destroyed upon viewing Drivl. Keep in mind that we're writing to achieve a certain voice and dynamic with the site. In a sense I suppose that makes us Privateers more than Pirates, but close enough.
How's this relate to Bait Pirates vs. Link Ninjas? Well, when we were handed Drivl by our client at the end of October, it had about 90 inbound links and an average of 50 visitors per day (after about a year online). In the three months since we took it over and relaunched the site, we've gained over 19,000 inbound links and average around 5,500 daily unique visitors. Here's the catch: we've done this without any traditional link building. Not one karate chop, roundhouse kick, tiger uppercut, ninja star or blade tornado. It was all piracy, BAIT PIRACY! Many a tankard o' grog hath been drunk, and many a fine cannonade hath been fired in our voyage through Digg-infested seas.
This was completely intentional. About a week into the project, we made a conscientious decision to forgo any link building in order to test the success of an all-bait, all-the-time strategy. Suffice to say, we've been quite amazed by the results. In addition, we've played with writing articles specifically to bait for specific, high-traffic keywords with pretty impressive success. For instance, one Drivl article (slightly NSFW) ranked 11th at Google for 'nudity' (358,000 searches/mo) and 5th for 'celebrity nudity' (19,700 searches/mo) after just three days online.
One could argue that these results indicate savvy Bait Piracy can be more effective in gaining links, even targeted and high-quality links, than Link Ninjitsu. Again, I'm not completely discounting the value of traditional link building--we still do it and consider it an integral part of an SEO campaign--but I do think it's possible and perhaps even advisable to use Bait Piracy to acquire organic links in bulk, and use Link Ninjitsu techniques to acquire highly specific, competitive links from specific domains.
I'd be interested to hear any numbers any of you have for Bait vs. Build campaigns and any thoughts you have about the effectiveness of Bait Pirates vs. Link Ninjas in spite of or in light of those numbers and/or the numbers we've seen with Drivl.
More and more, with the revolution that is Social Media Marketing, I have been driven to walk the plank of the bait pirate. The numbers for Drivl are proof that once again, the SEO tides are turning and as usual you have to evolve or go the way of the dinosaur.
Great article, and congratulations on the sucess of the site. I would love to see a case study, though, in an industry that is staid, boring, and populated by people who spell del.icio.us without "dots". The industry I primarily work in promoting has potential, but is not cutting edge Web 2.0 savvy, and doesn't really understand the whole social marketing scene (something I am actually in the process of trying to introduce our current customers to in an effort to jump start it). The only really good example I have found so far is the "Does it blend?" videos on YouTube (if it blends marbles, it must make a good margarita). Does anyone have any experience in this area?
Very cool case study. I had stumbled upon Drivl a few months ago and am enjoying the content very much. :)
Cool, informative, funny articles are definitely the way to go, in any industry. If your site is all about those types of articles, then more power to you.
Followup ...
May the link Ninja needs to be known in the community they are contributing posts about.
I don't think that Boykin was arguing against linkbaiting. Instead my read of his post is that he was presenting the idea that linkbaiting and linkninjaing are two different things.
The most important in my mind is.... The ninja will get links into the exact pages that you are trying to compete with - for maximum ranking benefit. If you are in compeition for the term "Diamond Rings", which would you rather have? A) Ten hot links directly into your Diamond Rings page landing page from other pages on the web that are authoritative for that topic, or, 2) 1000 links into another page on your site about farting? If you are in the diamond biz, which one will do you the most good?
I think you may be missing the point a bit. I'm not arguing that the particular bent of content on Drivl is appropriate for all niches.
However, if an incredibly popular search within the diamond ring industry is, let's say, 'engagement rings' then a clever piece of linkbait (cool, java-fied, interactive diamond selection guide, perhaps?) could possibly gain traction and draw 1000 nicely anchored links to a page specifically targeted at terms such as 'engagement rings.'
Its quite clear that link bait is the right way for volume link building. Unfortunately in other countries, outside the US, link baiting is not that easy, without certain web 2.0 infraestrutures like high traffic local diggs and the like...
Exactly - Most of French digg-like offers REDIRECTS and no direct link power... Without even mentionning the fact they drive 50-100x less traffic for a homepage hit... The best french Platform, Scoopeo, will get you 800-1000 visits over 3 days, and that is a GREAT, global audience oriented scoop.
OK...let's break out the swords - Ninjas vs. Mozzers! ;)
Umm Jim, that would be Ninja's vs. Pirates ;)
Someone please translate this whole post into pirate speak :P
Yeah, I'm in the same boat at johnw - when you're managing and writing for a business blog without sexy content, it can be tricky.
Also, if you have any examples to point to, that would be great.
Really?
OK this is 30 seconds worth of brain storming
Autos: Collection of crazy personalized plates or a contest where people submit plates they find and the community rates them for the winner.
Foreclosure: Report on how the stress of foreclosure leads some to murder and research some stats on how many you can find in the news.
Travel: Craziest vacation videos contest
Those probably aren't even that good but if you take some time to brainstorm the possibilities for EVERY AND ALL industries is limitless.
Arrr.... Throw in the Anchor text, matey. It's time to walk the plank.
guys let's be helpful here ...
lol... I've thought about this post a lot and I am convinced that the most successful approach is to use both methods. Are you out to win or are you farting around?
well, according to me, i think that link bait is better than building links. It is tough and needs research but this would certainly help us to gain natural inks easily.
Link building is not that better...............:)
lol... Hey Jim, are you working on linkbait today?? Linking Dirty - Blackhat and Dirty
I definitely agree with Amabaie ...
Ive created some posts in an effort to a) have people read and comment and b) link to.
My blog is definitely new and unknown so my attempts with link baiting have not worked.
Most of the things that have brought us significant amounts of traffic have been picked up by people without our help. We submitted some of our content to Digg, but some of the most successful Digg days have come as a result of posts that others have submitted instead of us.
This post is about ninjas and pirates, AND SEO
This makes it officially TBPE
The Best Post Ever
Haha, I'm glad we delivered :)
Aww, thanks.
Explain pls how the links you are getting from your bait pirating are targeted? What more are you doing than playing Drivl into social and seopimping its pages and articles?
On more than one occasion we've created a piece of content in an effort to rank for specific keywords and it's worked very well.
The links we get for those posts are getting us ranked for the targeted terms.
This was actually far easier than I'd expected. Some of our more... *cough* popular terms are quite competitive, yet (in most cases) we're ranking well for them.
Google is to blame for Bait Pirates being so effective. Their domain authority knob is turned up way to high.
I now will officially be using the phrase Bait Pirates as the default term for linkbaiters just as Jim has forced me to use the term Link Ninja for link builders.
I can't wait till I go to work tommorrow and have a chat about bait pirates. This is gonna be fun ;)
ok ill bite - what is the long term goal of drivel.com? There is no visible monetization on the site. Is the goal to create a huge community of underemployed young adults and sell it to a cellphone company :)
Shh, don't give away our plan!
It's to give Rebecca a place to vent so that she doesn't write provocative posts on SEOmoz.
Yeah, it's working well.
Links aside linkbaiting has also done wonders for the drivl brand. As well as being featured on all the major social sites (digg, delicious, reddit, netscape, stumbleupon), we were featured on many closed-systems as well like slashdot, boingboing, and even spiegel magazine.
I'm oriented to the link ninja style but that is a very compelling argument. When would you spend more time on link ninja efforts and when would you spend more effort on link baiting matey?
Argggh.
Dave
By the way, SEOmoz blog readers, let's not get giggly about the moniker "bait pirates" and associate it with some other form of pirate...
I'd also like to add that we only wrote a couple of articles specifically for link bait purposes. A lot of the other articles we've written got mentioned on various sites and received a lot of link love simply because the content was good.
While your success with Drivl is certainly impressive, I'm thinking that the bigger difference is in the market you operate in rather than whether baiting or building works better.
In the SEO industry, for example, there are thousands of bloggers anxiously waiting for the next stunt an A Lister puts out. How many other industries are like that? A handful at most.
I think if your viewpoint is very insular, it really might appear that link baiting is a far better tool. And, as I mentioned, in some industries it certainly is the case. I think it's much harder to pull off in other industries.
Dudes and dudettes, this is inspiring. I am going to relaunch theBallsRoom.com and start writing about farting more often.
I can't see how this can work for companies selling mass products, looking for SERP enhancement on keywords like Try AUTOS, MORTGAGES, FORECLOSURES, TRAVEL, VOIP. It's great when you're simply trying to relatively niche content, not product.
I'm sure for people in certain high-value areas of web-commerce, the search term 'NUDITY' is extremely important. In fact, 'NUDITY' is searched almost six times as much as 'MORTGAGE'.
As such, I don't think you can really say we only managed to rank for a small, niche term with no competition.
Crazy. Every single market has some form of scandle, funny stuff, or things you can create viral content around.
It's all about being creative.
DingDingDingDingDing! We have a winner!
It takes more than just being creative. It takes an army of bloggers and webmasters ready to post about the latest "scandle, funny stuff, or things".
You'd be foolish to believe that every single market has that.
Most of those markets, though, you'll do very well with a handful of very well placed links.
>>and received a lot of link love simply because the content was good.
What's the difference between that and the other stuff you produced, Rebecca? You shoot yourself in the foot with statements like that.
OK, I get what you likely mean. You created some targeted content and promoted the hell out of it, and other stuff you did just took off on it's own.
It's all still "good content" though, right?
How did I shoot myself in the foot? Articles like the Mythbusters chart were intended as link bait--we planned it, built it, wrote it, implemented it, etc. Lots of other articles, however, are whatever Jane, Scott, Matt, or myself think up one night and feel like writing. Lots of times I'll be sitting at home and make a joke about something, and then think, "I should write about this on Drivl," so I do, and sometimes it gets featured on other sites.
Yes, it's all good content, but there's a difference between planned link bait and simply offering consistently good stuff.
I knew what you meant I guess. It just came across as "we did some linkbaiting, and created some good content too."
That is a cool case study. I too think the knob is too high for trust. Whichever one is more effective is to be determined but I would much rather be a Link Ninja than a Bait Pirate or a Master Baiter. (stole that from quadzilla)
I dunno..."link bait", otherwise known simply as content worth linking to, is key for getting high quality linsk, but you still have to have some way of getting the word out, and that requires getting off the pirate ship and overturning a few carts in the marketplace. Hire some Ninjas, hire some clowns, hire the three little pigs...but until people find your content, it's pretty hard to get them to build links that lead others to find it.
I'm not trying to be filthy-minded or anything, but before you try and coin a new term, you should make sure it doesn't sound too similar to "butt pirate". As for the argument, I agree that both are needed. A "link ninja" isn't going to get you out of the sandbox like a *cough* "bait pirate," which is also much better at generating buzz on the internet - as Oatmeal points out.
NOTE: Looks like I was beat to the punch by your Rebecca. Sorry guys!
The similarity you mention is well-recognized and semi-intentional. We just wanted to see how long it would take before someone e-snickered about it despite the very first comment posted by Rebecca.
Besides, in the immortal words of Seinfeld, "not that there's anything wrong with that."