Blog Duck - Blogging Tips & Ideas

As the entire web holds their breath as to when Google will be archiving the net and handing out PageRank I decided I would put up a post about it. There are many ideas to increase your PageRank, I will explain them and also the pros and cons of completing each method:

• Getting Backlinks
  If you are able to get your site talked about or linked to on a fairly popular site that shares your niche, then more power to you. This will help your PageRank, having been connected to another blogger just like you. The danger in getting these backlinks is the possibility of low-quality. You would not want your link on new or spam-type blogs. In fact, you would rather have 1 backlink from a PageRank 5 blog than, 50 backlinks from 50 different PageRank 1 blogs. Basically, watch out not to leave your link in a ‘bad neighborhood.’ A good way to ensure your backlinks are of high quality is to use a service like Text Link Ads. In fact, they will even give you $100 in free backlinks to start you out.
• Having Lots of Pages
  Google will reward you if your blog is extensive, lots of pages are great. Many times bloggers will increase their posting frequency, which is fine. The danger comes with something called ‘duplicate content.’ If your blog post shows up anywhere else of the web, exactly how you wrote it - Google will punish you for it. So it’s good to write alot, just watch out for unauthorized re-publishing.
• Add noFollow Attributes to Links
  You have probably heard of adding nofollow attributes to your links so you don’t ‘leak PageRank.’ People do this so the Google spiders do not actually follow the links on their site. This practice makes some sense - but still has some holes in it. First off, it defeats the purpose of blogging - you can look at any successful blogger and they almost always link out to other blogs. The second problem with using nofollow is that Google does in fact look for outgoing links on your site. A good link to put up is a site that shares your niche, so when the spider comes it will eventually group the two together.
• Making Comments on doFollow Blogs
  Lots of bloggers like to make comments on dofollow sites with their blog name as their name. Courtney Tuttle has compiled the ultimate list of dofollow blogs called the D-List. This makes perfect sense, but is unfortunately is pretty tacky. People should make comments because they are compelled to add to the conversation, not because they secretly want some of the post’s PageRank.
• Viral Links Through Meme
  These link trains or memes that go around the net are good for quick linkage and maybe even a better Technorati rank. The problem is that these are like chain-letters and Google is more likely to punish you because of it than not. Even Gary agrees with me.
• Submitting Articles
  Many people make article submissions about various topics and publish them at article sites like eZine and Article Hut amongst others. The downside to doing this relates to something I just talked about, duplicate content. Writing an article and posting it to many different articles sites probably will not help your PageRank and might even hurt it.
• Submitting Press Releases
  This is a tricky thing to write because press releases have different rules for writing than a blog post. You will not gain PageRank from the press releases themselves, but instead the natural links you will receive from people who read the press release.

Take a look at what Google says about all this:

Quality guidelines - basic principles

• Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

• 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.

• Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

• Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Source: Google Webmaster Guidelines

The important thing is to be tactful when trying to build PageRank, any sneaky or unsavory methods will most likely turn into a regret for you.