How To Get One-Way Backlinks

Link Vault is made up of a large group of quality websites. Each new member must bring to the network at least one high quality website and make available a few links slots for existing members. In return you receive 'Vaultage' which you use to receive links from the other members websites which is in effect a link exchange.

Each website added to the network will be vetted by a person before any links are placed to ensure it meets our strict quality guidelines. Should you wish to use your Vaultage quota to provide text link adverts to a website not in the system, then this website will also need to pass the vetting.

Link Vault is completely free and the set up is straightforward, flexible and easily customized. All the links are static, unless you delete them or the site is removed. You also have full control over the number of text links you receive.

Sign Up for a Link Vault account, or find out more...

Or, if you're not convinced, look at Alternatives to Link Vault below...

Another really good link building network is Receive Links.

It works in a very similar way to Link Vault, with some small differences which might suit your website better, ideal for the more advanced user.

- See which websites your links have been placed on.
- See what links have been placed on your own website.
- And remove the ones you don't approve of.
- Choose whether or not links are restricted by language and category.

Visit www.receivelinks.com for more information.
Be sure to read their FAQ and Guidelines too.

You can of course use both of these programs at the same time...

Text Link Ads are served as static links that can help your natural (organic) search engine rankings. They have an exhaustive inventory of quality niches that can send targeted traffic to your website. Flat price per ad for a 30 day ad run, so you never need to worry about cost per click or CPM rates.



New to link buying? Text Link Ads is the perfect tool for any linking campaign, and they've put together a $100 starter kit that will help you hit the ground running. Take advantage of their free tools, and you'll be running successful linking campaigns in no time!



You can also make money with Text Link Ads, by selling links on your website and your RSS feeds, and also through their affiliate program.

Vaultage is the term used at Link Vault for the points in their system. With your vaultage points you can spend them to obtain links on other sites. Each link you get costs you vaultage points. You gain vaultage by placing Link Vault code on your own site and having links placed their by the code. The higher your PageRank for the placement page of each link the more vaultage you gain at Link Vault. You can choose to place multiple links from 1-5 per page. Each represents more vaultage earned.

Receive Links has something similar, but calls them 'points'. You collect points by providing slots on your website for links, and you can spend them on ads to other sites. The points cost of a link varies depending on the PageRank of the page it is placed on.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to install the Link Vault or Receive Links code on a Squidoo Lens, but if you have another website you can use that one to build up your 'vaultage' or 'points', and spend it on links to promote your Lens.
Both networks support PHP and ASP.

All webmasters should be familiar with Google's quality guidelines. The last thing you want when optimising your site is to be blacklisted and have all your effort wasted.

People refer to SEO as black hat or white hat. Let's be clear, there is no such thing as white hat SEO - it's all varying shades of grey. In my books, White Hat optimisation is writing a good site that is designed 100% for the visitor - this is good, but it's not "optimisation". As soon as you add tweak your keywords or title tags for the Search Engines, you are engaging in grey hat SEO. You need to make sure your optimisations fall into the light grey area, as opposed to the dark grey where you risk getting penalised.

The paragraph in Google's guidelines many webmasters will be concerned about follows...

"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

There are 2 important things to note here.
Firstly, Google doesn't like "link schemes". This is a linking strategy that is solely for the search engines, not for the visitor.
Secondly, Google makes it clear that if you link to a banned site, then this will have a negative impact on your ranking, perhaps even a ban for your site.

Link Vault is an automated way of setting up text link advertising across other related websites. This in itself is certainly no breach of the Quality guidelines, but you do need to be able to justify it's existance to Google. In other words, do the ads provide some value to your visitors, or is it simply a link scheme?

If Link Vault / Reciprocal Exchange / Blog Spam is done solely for Google, then it's a link scheme. If your site has no real content, just Adsense a reciprocal directory and Link Vault, then it's probably a link scheme.

However if your site has real content on it, is well laid out, and has some related text links on the page (along with other good information), then it's simply advertising. Taken in context with the rest of your content, 5 additional text links on your page isn't a problem.

I recommend you treat your Link Vault links like you would any other SEO - take the time to do it properly. Don't bury them in your footer, or cloak them in hidden CSS. Only place the links on sites that have genuine content. Ensure the links blend in with your site design, and aren't just tacked on as an afterthought. Make sure your other SEO efforts are light-grey hat. In the context of a well maintained site, adding LV will not make your page look like spam, and is therefore light-grey hat SEO just like reciprocal linking.

The second part of Google's statement is a little more difficult to control. Because Link Vault is automated (that's why you are signing up right - to avoid manual link building) you have limited control over the sites you are linking to.
Firstly, All sites are checked by a person before being added to the LV network. Next, all links are regularly checked to ensure they are cached with Google. If a site has no pages cached with Google, this is a sign it may have been blacklisted and it's removed from the network. Link Vault does try to match links amongst the same categories wherever possible. If you are in an industry where "bad neighborhoods" are particularly common (mortgages, mens health etc) then you may want more control over who you link to. For most other industries, the Link Vault checks provide a good safety net.

Link Vault can be a valueable SEO tool, used in conjunction with other SEO strategies. As with any SEO, care must be taken to ensure it doesn't look like spam. If your site already employs other "dark-grey hat" optimisations then Link Vault may not be a great idea, but for many sites it's a great tool to have available.

Harvey Kane is a Web Developer based in Auckland, New Zealand. He is available for freelance Web Development and SEO.