Backlinks and Google SEO

Hello,

I launched my website for my small business about 6 months ago and
thanks to the great education I've gained by lurking here (many thanks
to all the regular posters) I'm doing very well for my keyword searches
(Hawaii playground equipment) on MSN and Yahoo. I knew this going in,
but now I have first hand experience that Yahoo and MSN seem to be much
more concerned about content than Google is. I now need to concentrate
my marketing plan on addressing my relative obscurity in Google.

I know my back link quantity could be improved and unless someone else
could share another opinion, I am pretty sure this is why I am not
doing well on Google and I am doing well on MSN and Yahoo. I have only
submitted my site to relevant directories and other places where I
could gain relevant traffic (shouldn't this be the idea?). Since those
avenues are all pretty well exhausted, I've become convinced that I am
going to have to do "something else" to increase the links to my site
to increase my SEO for Google.

So here's what I have come up with:

1. Hire someone to sit at a desk and document all the back links to the
sites on the first 20-25 pages of my keyword search and submit my site
to them. The problem I see with this is the "reciprocal link"
requirement. I want to keep my site relevant and can't have a million
links that have nothing to do with my products and services.

2. Hire a SEO firm to do it for me. The downside of this is the lack
of control of who is linking to me and the cost involved.

3. Pay cash for links. The problem with this is cash and the fact that
I don't have an unlimited supply of it. I have a finite budget for
Internet marketing that doesn't allow me to pay $19.95 to $250.00 for a
link to my site.

4. Submit to the link farming services and cross my fingers. Until
now, I've tried to do everything above board with my site and I see
this as kind of a sleazy solution. However, looking at the sites ahead
of me, I am pretty sure they've used this avenue to gain SEO and I am
not sure I can amass the numbers I need with a more legit approach.

Lastly, and off topic to my question...I think the fact that legit
businesses being forced to focus their Internet marketing plan in this
way is eventually going to be the downfall of Google.

If you have a moment, here's my site:
http://www.islandrecreation.net

On 10 Jan 2005 12:04:08 -0800, "troar" <TheRaideronaRock (AT) aol (DOT) com>
wrote:

[snip]

I know my back link quantity could be improved and unless someone else
could share another opinion, I am pretty sure this is why I am not
doing well on Google and I am doing well on MSN and Yahoo.

Quantity or quality of backlinks in terms of Google thoughts - which
brings into play some thoughts about PR?

Some directories do not pass along or share PR even though they may be
helpful in sharing traffic your way.

I help out on a site that only has around 30 backlinks. It ranks
decently compared to similar sites targetting the same keywords - so
quantity is not the issue in my opinion as sometimes the site I help
out on can land, for certain phrases or terms in Google, ahead of
sites that claims having 3 to 5 times more backlinks. [I am using
Yahoo's glimpse into backlinks versus Google's random sampling
method].

You are not limited to the options you listed - although I agree with
you that reciprocal linking thoughts can be handled selectively on
which sites you choose to reciprocate with.

You just need to discern the difference in how Google handles the
link popularity thoughts [hence their PR system being a side thought
in relation to backlinks] in comparison to Yahoo and MSN's handling.

Carol

3. Pay cash for links. The problem with this is cash and the fact that
I don't have an unlimited supply of it. I have a finite budget for
Internet marketing that doesn't allow me to pay $19.95 to $250.00 for a
link to my site.

If you can down this route, I can offer:

250 backlinks for $100 p/m from my a PR6 site
350 backlinks for $150 p/m from another PR6 site
600 backlinks for $200 p/m from both of the above sites

email yonnermark [at] gmail [dott] com for more info

This is tempting but isn't this considered link farming?