Today I was adding some sites to the directory. I clicked on one, ScifiSource, "your source for science fiction on the web." The site is 90s-tastic, but whatever, a lot of sites still are nowadays. I clicked on "Featured Site" to get an idea of what kind of sites get added to the directory. The current featured site is "Carmen Argenziono Official Site," the "official site of Carmen Argenziono of Stargate SG-1." Okay, fine and dandy. I hover over the link to click on it ("Carmen Argenziono Official Site," right there in green), only to find that...it's not a link. Whuh?
Where's the link, yo?
After some poking around, I found it:
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Seriously?
Every site in the ScifiSource's directory has a title and a nice little blurb about the site. However, the actual link to a site is nothing more than a sparkly rocket ship .gif. No alt tag. Just a little rocket ship. An image of a rocket ship.
Clueless folks will just as soon submit their site, see it displayed, and think, "All right, I'm building links to my site! Links are important!", not realizing that an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines (not to mention confusing for users--I mean, who the hell would have known that the rocket ship is the thing you click on to get to the site?). I suppose you could argue that the link is still good for traffic (if users actually find the damn thing), but for link building purposes (and for usability's sake), it's useless.
Seriously?
Every site in the ScifiSource's directory has a title and a nice little blurb about the site. However, the actual link to a site is nothing more than a sparkly rocket ship .gif. No alt tag. Just a little rocket ship. An image of a rocket ship.
Clueless folks will just as soon submit their site, see it displayed, and think, "All right, I'm building links to my site! Links are important!", not realizing that an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines (not to mention confusing for users--I mean, who the hell would have known that the rocket ship is the thing you click on to get to the site?). I suppose you could argue that the link is still good for traffic (if users actually find the damn thing), but for link building purposes (and for usability's sake), it's useless.
A word of advice to any of you looking to build links via directory submission: make sure the link is actually valuable (text link or an image link with appropriate alt text, relevant anchor text, not redirected, not nofollowed, all that good stuff). Rocket links aren't valuable.
*Postscript*: Rand does point out that search engines should be able to pull relevant text around the link and use that as the anchor text, thus redeeming value to the link, but I still think it's pretty bad form (and poor SEO) to have rocket links. Rocket links bad, I say! Bad!
UPDATE FROM RAND: I added this in the comments, but it seems worth repeating up here:
Honestly, I think they're probably serving up great link quality because they only take sites that are highly relevant, they've got quality standards and they're certainly not doing it for the benefit of the search engines (which is exactly why search engines would want to count them!).
It may seem ironic, even counter-intuitive, but sometimes the best links are from the unlikliest of sources :)
<bad seo advice>
You're missing the point Rebecca - if you want to rank for rocketships then this is the way to do it! I just copy and paste a rocketship into google and hit search and it finds all the sites which have rocketships linking to them!
</bad seo advice>
Seriously - it does baffle me when sites miss really basic things like this. I mean who built the site and thought "I know, every time they want to visit a site they have to click on this little rocketship!"..... Actually - that's quite in keeping with 1998, along with animated gifs, cos back then they were well cool!
"Copy/Paste a rocketship into google" made me lol. (For real, out loud.)
Good work.
Yeah, I LOL'd also.
Good one Tom!
If we're turning LOL into a verb, I was LOLling too.
Thumbs up for Tom
Cheers guys - happy to bring some lols into the world :-)
Now it's a noun?? I'm getting confused here :D
Funny Tom!!
note to self: in order to get blog site featured on SEOmoz, use arcane linking methods and rocketships dripping with google pixie dust. do not - i repeat - do not use alt tags on graphics as this would be a dead giveaway that i might actually have a clue as to what i'm doing.
In other news...
Seattle, WA - At approximately 1:15pm pst, SCIFISOURCE website crashes after massive spike, almost tripling traffic to 45 hits within a one hour period. "Our Commodore 64 just isn't equipped to handle this kind of traffic", responded Dr. Jack Tramiel, when questioned about the outage.
FBI investigators are currently scouring the Seattle area for the cuplrits responsible for this heinous crime.
There is wide speculation that a young Asian woman is under intense FBI questioning. When initially asked if she was the mastermind behind this crime, it is reported that she simply responded "Mastermind? Whuh?, yo, seriously?"
Hahaha, Commodore 64 not equipped to handle 45 hits. I'm such a nerd that this sort of humor makes me laugh.
Yeah, your a geek, but I can beat you...
I not only laugh at commdore 64 jokes, but I am old enough to laugh at Vic 20 jokes.
(Vic 20 was the precursor to the new fancy smancy commodore 64)
I miss my vic20. Did you have a tape casette drive with yours? *pastes a big L on his own forehead*
ooh commodore 64's!!!! and then I decided to move up to an Amstrad and use to copy video game cassettes off my mates in an ordinary tape to tape recorders! and it actually worked!!!! ;p
Come on guys building a link directory isn't rocket science.
If you want to move off a site you have to click a vehicle that would get you there. Duh.
Rocket science. Love it.
We can add this to Nathania's Top Ten Pickup Lines for SEOs (https://www.seomoz.org/ugc/top-ten-pickup-lines-for-seos):
"Is that a clickable rocket on your web site - or are you just happy to see me?"
Oh thanks for that link vingold! I had not seen that one. How funny!
Brilliant, Vin - just brilliant.
Honestly, I think they're probably serving up great link quality because they only take sites that are highly relevant, they've got quality standards and they're certainly not doing it for the benefit of the search engines (which is exactly why search engines would want to count them!).
It may seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes the best links are from the unlikliest of sources :)
I have to say that's what I was thinking, but didn't want to squash the whole rocket-ship thing (which, let's admit, has led to some humour in the comments...).
Sorry Rand . . . but I am with Rebecca on this one. There are literally billions of pages (okay, without porn sites maybe only a billion) out there to garner links from, why the heck would you want to waste the time, energy, resources, etc. to get a link from a 'rocket ship' type of site. Sure it may have some link value but not as much link value as one that had your targetted keyphrase in the anchor text pointing to a landing page on your site that has content targetting the term as well.
Stick to your guns Rebecca . . . I think the links are lame too.
Actually imo the rocket link can pass considerable value due to cocitation, trust etc. What takes away any SEO value of a link in that directory is the site's architecture. Notice that the categories are not categories but search results and because of the use of javascript almost the entire site is not indexed. So most probably a link there would not be indexed and therefore have no SEO value. In addition to that the bad architecture probably means that the site is getting a lot less traffic compared to what it could get which obviously means a lot less traffic for listings.
PS: Great site BTW, I like it
And... is this not more or less what Target is currently being sued for?
GAH!
I am SO using "Rocket Links" as a euphamism for seriously smacktarded usability on a site that is otherwise trying to do the right thing with their traffic.
You wait, it'll get up there and as popular as LOLCats, mark my word.
Nice article! But I have one small problem... I have never really seen an ALT tag, is it <alt>?
Xfinx - go here:
https://www.seomoz.org/ugc/using-google-image-search-to-drive-traffic-to-your-site
It is a pretty good YOUmoz post written by Caydel. It mostly discusses using images as SEO, but his second bullet point discusses alt tags when using .
I hope this helps.
:-) The reason I wanted post this question, is because an Alt tag does not exist, it is an attribute. An alt tag is mentioned a lot on the internet but totally wrong. :-)
and that's why I'm not a programmer ;-)
I know xfinx, but it seems to be a generally accepted moniker by all us non-programmers. Does it bug programmers that much? If so, I can make the switch over to appease all you devs out there. :)
Well, its not so much 'bug' as 'give us a reason to snear at you' - "Rebecca doesn't even know its actually an attribute!".
If you went to your mechanic and said 'the round thingy on the bottom of my car doesn't look round anymore' because your tyre was flat, you wouldn't be surprised if he started talking in words of one syllable, would you?
The correct lingo makes you easier to deal with and stops you appearing like a fool :)
IMHO :)
Haha, fair enough! I will say, however, that I don't think switching to "alt attribute" will stop making me look like a fool. ;)
tsk, tsk - just because its an alt attribute, not an alt tag, is no reason to pick on them :)
Thanks for sound analysis. Sadly in the real estate industry we see directories that sell links to realtors all of the time because they don't check out how the directory is actually linking to their website. If it's too good of a deal...probably just isn't worth it :)
A couple of other directories you should consider:
1) https://www.directory.homestead.com - linked from a great PR7 site, focused on small businesses. But only accepts current HS customers. Disclosure: I work for this company.
2) https://www.homefindingbook.com/real-estate-directory - for real estate professionals only. Free but heavily edited.
Enjoy~
Ha I love the rocket idea. I think I'm going to redo my site and include the rockets!
I'm glad you've brought this up and that Rand had made an update regarding Links within pictures. I previously submitted my site to a couple of directories and found that they only provide the link within the picture.
My mind went round the bend, since I paid them for the link. $5 each. However, if Rand Thinks that the link can redeem itself by the relevance of the text around the picture, then I'm satisfied, and sweating less.
Thanks Rebecca.
Plz Becca!
Every space head knows you gota click on the rocket ship to get where you are goin!
Some really good points here. Unfortunately, it's hard to check out each and every directory you submit to to verify the links before hand. As we all know so well, directory submissions are a long, grueling task the way it is...
Rocket links are the new linkbait...nice.
I have often seen the clear relationship that exists between SEO and rocket ships.
Once Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim had an article, where I actually defended Microsoft using rocket ships. (see diagrams and first comment)
Do you think search engines give less value to sites that are as ugly as that one? If not, they should. There should be some secret algorithm that says "Oh my god, that is hideous, take off two points." (Yes I'm joking, mostly)
great post good stuff
Also, "https://http//carmenargenziano.net/" isn't loading for me, for some reason :P So even if the rocket link works out for you, an incorrect URL takes that one-step-forward and adds two-steps-backwards.
Just like MC Skat Cat!
I think the deeper question to this post is, "Why do you hate rockets so?"
My dad abandoned us when I was a kid, and the last memory I have of him is him climbing into a rocket ship, blasting off to avoid child support payments.
/kidding
Your dad was Major Tom!?
/cluelessness
This may be dumb but i am new to this. I have an affiliate program. are my banners on my partners sites going to help with link building? I do not have alt text in them. Should I? Should the alt text be my url www.dieselpro.net or just dieselpro.net or perhaps just a keyword. please advise.
Ok, who bought rocketlinks.com?
Haha. That's funny and surprising! Who would have thought a link directory would be so (how should I say this..) lousy?
Still, you have to give them credit. They even have featured sites that paid to be submitted to their pretty-much-useless directory. Hehe
Haha, that is funny. Rocket Links would almost sell itself too. :P