Can Link Trains Hurt Your Blog?
The oh-so popular, Technorati whoring, quick gain link trains that plague the blogging world come with a degree of innocence. How could this really hurt me when my Technorati authority is up over 200 from 25 a week ago?
First, lets take a link train at face value. What does it offer?
- PageRank. Permanent link on at least one page, could stay on home page long enough to have an effect.
- Technorati. As mentioned, authority ++!
- Traffic. What if someone clicks your site’s link?
- New readers. You could attract first time readers and hopefully convert them into your own readers.
- Alexa. Some trains offer direct Alexa links, improving your rank.
Sounds good, so why doesn’t everybody do it?
First, for those getting on pretty much at any time, you’ll be leeching your PageRank. This refers to so many outbound, external link that your link value drops. Your PR can drop, theoretically from doing this. If your site is PR5, but you only have <PR4 links, the PR5 link tied to your home page is what is holding you there. When that link’s value is cheapened, you could go down. Theoretically, that is.
Technorati and Alexa bonus? They hold pretty true. There is an upside 
As for the traffic: who sees a huge list of names and sites and actually clicks on of them. If you’re lucky, 1 out of every 100 visitors. Now, seeing as most sites participating in link trains don’t get up to 100 visits a day, you’re unlikely to see the ROI in this department. Same with the “increased readership”.
Who the real winners are
The one who starts a link train and actually gets it to work. Their name will be right on top of the list, linked by everyone and he didn’t leech PR at all. So if you’re tagged or added to a link train, I’d recommend passing on the opportunity. Then again after 8 months my Technorati rank is 70,000, but who do you trust: the honest, build over time guy, or the fast a cheap guy?
Have your choice, but it’s the former that continues to grow, and the latter whom fades away.
Leave a comment
Freebies
August 13th, 2007 at 12:56 PM
So I guess the question is why haven’t I started one of these link trains then
Webd360
August 13th, 2007 at 7:41 PM
That is why I don’t participate in link trains. Also, for technorati rank only the last six months of links are counted so that after 6 months those links would be useless (and most probably they all came in a short period of time, when the train was popular). Of course you can just keep joining these trains, but readers wouldn’t be too happy about that, so I just stay away from them.
Paul Bradish
August 15th, 2007 at 10:41 AM
I have to admit to joining one train a couple of weeks ago. I felt that even though I had meant well, my readers probably did not appreciate it very much.
Login »