Article Three in the series Some Parasites Are Good For Their Host. Article One addressed our parasitic, but symbiotic, relationship with Search Engines; and how they could not survive without our “user generated content”. Article Two viewed our symbiotic parasitism (not sure how that word passed the spellchecker) with content submission sites.
If you are a webmaster, like me, you are a parasite! However, we are all mostly good parasites because we are beneficial to our host.
Our host for this article is forums, comments, and directory sites. Without us, forum sites would die! Most sites could do without comments, but if written for the robot our comments on another site can generate a little bit of link juice. Linking sites? How many times have you submitted your site to a business directory, or category directory, or what do you know about DMOZ?
Finding directories for your category is not hard. Any search will give you dozens of places. So adding links to directories needs no further explanation.
There is another of what I classify as “directory”. Free blog sites I suppose really do not belong in “directory”, but the way I use them they do! Plus a blog on a free blog site has more link juice than a plain directory for your category. For example, if you are unaware of WordPress.com you should familiarize yourself now. Create your free blog account, grab some content from your website, modify it slightly as not to be duplicate content, paste it to your blog with a link in your free blog article page to your website.
Voila! You have just created a one way link (backlink) to your site. Which Google still states, PageRank, is relevant to where your site places in ranking; but did you know PageRank is a separate value for every web page on your website?
Alexa, which if you have not heard of go back to Article One and begin again, is a ranking per domain name; but Google PageRank is a ranking per web page. Meaning repeat the steps on your free blog to add links to other significant pages of your site.
What abut DMOZ? DMOZ is the “holy grail” of directory sites. More than 100 search engine robots use DMOZ as their “jumping off point” to index the web. It’s rumored that even Googlebot will on occasion start at DMOZ. The story about DMOZ is it looks like Yahoo! did back in 1996. Hundreds of data jockeys manually indexing the Internet. However DMOZ begins with your site submission. Pssst, there is quite a black market in buying your DMOZ listing; although the volunteers are supposed to be “fair and balanced”. Hmm, I have heard that somewhere before.
One more point about DMOZ is how it touts itself as a volunteer group specializing in their own particular category and providing the best of the web. Sounds quite autocratic doesn’t it? A quick whois lookup for the domain will provide a different perspective. The site is owned by AOL. You know, the AOL that bought Timer Warner back about 10 years ago. On the surface DMOZ may be autocratic; but underneath it is pure corporate culture. So be a good parasite and try getting your website listed in DMOZ. You’ll be glad you did, as it will garner traffic to your site. Ask any searchbot.
About forums. For years I have been telling clients the 3Cs. When your site has all three you have a successful site. The first C is Content. The 2nd is Commerce. The 3rd is “Community”. The simplest form is a forum. < Can you say that 3 times fast? Just an exercise to help you reinforce in your mind the value of the 3rd C!
Forums are tough to start. It may take years to create a good go at it. For now, participate in forums in your category. If you sell motorcycle accessories, then find a forum filled with motorcycle enthusiasts and share a bit of your knowledge. You don’t need to “promote”; simply “provide”. Your forum signature is your advertisement, and widely accepted as not spam on most forums.
To be sure you are posting to the best forum you want one in your category where your signature is not tagged with “nofollow”. (Covered in Article One of this series.) I can already hear you, “but I don’t have time for all this extra stuff!” Really? You don’t have 20 minutes a week to post one response on one forum. You must really be busy making lots of sales; but if not, then post one a week. Be a good parasite! 
Comments. Same with sites that write articles in your category. Again, pick a site that sells or promotes similar products to your site. Then check which ones provide the ability to post “comments” to articles. Write a comment. Most sites allow for one “link” in your comment. Suggestion, don’t always link to your home page. Pick other key pages from your site and link there. You might even get to have two links in a comment. Simply by linking to an article you wrote that adds more information to the topic of the website author’s post. If it truly is added information many sites will leave the link. Remember, they are the host, but other websites love good parasites. Umm, good user generated content.
This is a multi-part article focused on our many parasitic relationships. For example, what if nobody “tweeted”? When we tweet, we give twitter “user generated content”! The objective of this article series is a new basics course for webmasters to hone their skills and be a better parasite!
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