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The SEO community seems to be fully in love with the parasitical abuse of blogs for link building. Okay, maybe only the second-rate SEOs are still telling people to look for “dofollow” blogs where they can drop links. There is a better, more productive way to work with blogs. Here is an example.

Using several blog search tools, find some bloggers who have little to no authority in Technorati and who have not been DUGG, SPHUNN, STUMBLED, or otherwise promoted through social media. It’s easier to do than you think.

You don’t want just any bloggers. You want bloggers who meet the following criteria:

1. They write fairly often — at least several times a month
2. They have been blogging for a year
3. They receive few to no comments on their posts
4. Their posts are substantial enough to run to 3-4 paragraphs per post
5. They don’t embed ads on their blogs (but it’s okay if they blog on ad-supported platforms)
6. Their posts are fairly consistent about topic
7. They don’t post hateful, malicious, or harshly critical content about anything
8. They allow you to link to your site with your name (this is usually a nofollowed field)
9. They don’t talk about links, SEO, PageRank, or Web marketing
10. They discuss a topic for which you can find similar bloggers
11. Their blogs have automatic trackbacks turned OFF

In short, you want to find content-rich, frequently posted blogs that have not built up huge user communities and which are not being trampled by SEO link spammers. In fact, you really want to work only with blogs that use “rel=’nofollow’” in their comments.

For each topic where you want to optimize, find 5-6 bloggers. Don’t try to optimize more than one topic at a time because you’re not going to be a one-comment wonder for any of these bloggers. You must commit to commenting on their blogs at least 12 times — spaced out over time, preferably no less than three months.

Furthermore, you are going to link to these blogs. Yes, you will give value-passing link love to blogs that only let you link back using “rel=’nofollow’”.

Now, don’t be greedy. Just comment on one recent post for each blog to begin with. Write a thoughtful comment that provides additional information, agreement, or polite disagreement, that is considerate and supportive. If you do this right, you may find some people you want to stay in touch with once you’ve completed your twelve comments on their blogs.

Each comment should consist of no fewer than 100 words. You will NOT embed any links in the comments. But you MAY (if you so wish) embed KEYWORDS in the comments. Yes, you’re going to practice blog comment copywriting for SEO.

Make these blogs MORE RELEVANT for long-tail queries that are related to your topic. (Guess what link you’ll put under your name.)

Don’t come back and comment every day (a blog that is updated daily is too active and probably has a regular audience). Do comment about once a week if you can. Try not to comment on every post.

The best types of bloggers to choose are professionals who write about their line of work, educators who write about their fields, researchers, technicians, and passionate hobbyists and volunteers.

As you post your comments to these blogs, LINK TO THEM FROM YOUR OWN BLOG. Link to the blog posts, not to your comments. Make sure your links will pass value. It’s okay to set up ONE BLOG that references all the blogs you’re developing relationships with. Be sure to write substantial posts about the topics of the other bloggers’ posts.

Do NOT use trackbacks to obtain links. DO make a point of showcasing the other blogs regularly but only for occasional posts (that is, don’t showcase every post on every blog).

What does this do for you? It helps you create visibility for your comments in the search engines.

People can and do and will (usually) click through those links to come back to your site (which can be any site that you consistently want to promote).

This type of piggy-back search optimization is rarely executed, and when it IS attempted, it is rarely done well. If you’re going to play in the blogstream, you might as well learn how to get the most bang for your buck. You do that by:

1. Creating value for the bloggers whose sites you place links on
2. Avoiding blogs that other SEOs are targeting for links
3. Sending traffic to those blogs where you place links
4. Assisting those blogs to rank for traffic-bringing queries with your well-written, keyword-rich comments

Your objective is NOT to obtain value-passing links (although I would not be surprised if some of your newfound blogger friends choose to reward you with editorially-given links). Your objective is to help OTHER PEOPLE’S SITES rank for targeted expressions with YOUR content.

Don’t use sock puppets. Don’t use cute screen names. Use your own name for its brand value.

Can you do this for clients? Sure. But I don’t advise that approach. You have to make your own business decision but I think this method works better for building your own search visibility.

This is not about conducting search reputation management for yourself where you flood your namespace with blog comments. This is about showing people that you have knowledge about particular topics, passion for those topics, and that you’re willing to form and support a community around those topics. You should see a long-term return on investment.

My only reservation about this technique is that I have given you a formula. It’s not a formula for success, but rather a formula for learning. There is no reason why you should stop commenting at twelve posts per blog, but you need to set a goal. That is an achievable goal.

I think people will appreciate your creating some valuable content rather than just dropping links on their blogs. I know I would.

You cannot see, feel, hear, smell, or touch PageRank.

You cannot in any way measure PageRank.

Nonetheless, you may believe you’re sculpting PageRank in some way, perhaps by using “rel=’nofollow’” on internal links to what you believe are “unimportant” pages; or perhaps by controlling where your inbound links point to; or perhaps by using your robots.txt file to disallow some pages on your site; or perhaps by using 301 redirects to alter the flow of PageRank through your site; or perhaps by using “noindex,follow” in your robots meta tag on some pages; or perhaps by using Javascript or Flash for some internal navigation.

There are many ways to directly and indirectly impact the flow of PageRank throughout your site, but you can neither shape it nor sculpt it because:

1. You don’t know which of your pages currently possess PageRank
2. You don’t know which of your pages currently pass PageRank
3. You don’t know how much PageRank any of your pages possess
4. You don’t know how often PageRank is calculated for your pages
5. You don’t know which images of your pages are used for PageRank calculations

If you have a fairly static site whose page contents rarely change, you can probably assume 3-6 months after each page is created that you know what the PageRank image for those pages should be.

If you place one outbound link with unique anchor text on all your pages, you may be able to determine which of your pages is passing value through their links. However, you want to avoid use of nonsense expressions like “XPFTERGL”. Use real words. Use common words. Use them in relatively brief phrases of five or few words. And the expressions only have to be unique to your own site (because you should be able to use site: queries to test for the passing of anchor text between your pages).

Being able to estimate which of your pages possess PageRank, which of your pages pass PageRank, and which page images are used to calculate PageRank for your site is better than nothing, but it still leaves you with to cope with the inability to determine how much PageRank any of your pages possess and pass AND the inability to determine how often your PageRank is recalculated.

But there are more factors you have to take into consideration if you really want to sculpt PageRank on a site. For example, you need to get as many pages crawled and indexed as possible. That means you have to provide the search engines both the means and the incentive to crawl and index your sites. More crawling tends to happen than indexing.

Telling search engines where NOT to fetch content from doesn’t in any way tell them where to look. If you feel the wrong pages on your site are being crawled and indexed, you need to point more links toward those pages.

You can do that in one of three ways:

1. You can use your most frequently crawled and reindexed pages to link to your least often crawled and indexed pages
2. You can get links from other sites to link to your least frequently crawled and reindexed pages
3. You can add more links to pages across your site to the least-frequently crawled and reindexed pages
4. You can add secondary crawl pages to your site and have all your pages link to them (some people call these HTML sitemap pages)

As some people will be quick to point out, a large site can do all of these things and still have pages that are not crawled and indexed, or pages that are only infrequently crawled and indexed. Of course, if the links you create or obtain are not passing value, that is why their destinations are not benefitting from the links.

Hence, if you want to move PageRank around your site, you have to work with what you can find out about PageRank. The pages most likely to be frequently crawled and reindexed are the most important pages on your site. You should use them to point links to your least frequently crawled and reindexed pages. In other words, using the pages a search engine deems to be your most important pages to point to pages YOU feel are most important sends an important signal to the search engine.

This approach is less crude and more effective than adding “rel=’nofollow’” to your internal navigation (or using Javascript and Flash to strip your internal navigation of PageRank). Starving pages of PageRank doesn’t somehow squeeze the PageRank so that it begins flowing toward pages it previously didn’t find before. PageRank flows through links, and the more links you point at a particular page on your site, the more PageRank that page will receive.

Now, while it’s silly to think in terms of hoarding PageRank (it’s going to flow out of your site regardless of what you do to “contain” it), there are some prudent actions you should take to prevent people from using your site as a springboard for crawling, indexing, PageRank, and anchor text.

1. Block all external linking you don’t directly create yourself
2. Require human-verified registration before anyone can place links on your site
3. Block popular spammer email hosts like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc. from being used in your registration system
4. Block email hosts that LOOK like the major ones (all legitimate Google Gmail, for example, comes from gmail.com and not the .org or .net addresses)
5. Use “rel=’nofollow’” on all outbound links in your forum posts, forum signatures, and blog comments
6. Use robots.txt and/or robots meta tags to prevent crawling of user profile pages

In short, make registering with your site as unattractive for link spammers as possible. Force your fellow SEOs to practice real search engine optimization and real link building. Link leeches don’t just draw off your PageRank — they put you at risk for being penalized or filtered because you link to the “wrong” Web neighborhoods.

There are still sites that don’t autonofollow the outbound links you drop on them. However, most of the pages on those sites won’t pass value. If you know of any such sites, follow this advice:

1. Do NOT share those sites on blogs, in forums, or in articles
2. Point links with unique anchor text from your own site to the pages where you drop links
3. Use unique anchor text as much as possible to point back to your own site
4. Diversify and exercise restraint
5. Practice the SEO Method: Experiment, Evaluate, Adjust

Unique anchor text is the only means you have available for determining if a page passes or receives value from another page through links. Learn to use unique anchor text, but also learn to be discreet. Every time someone in the SEO community tells other people which sites are open to abuse, the available resources for free one-way links shrink. The SEO community is its own worst enemy because people don’t have sense enough to keep their mouths shut.

Don’t openly share your unique anchor text tags. Other people can duplicate the anchor text to mess with your analytics. Trust me, I know this is being done to unsuspecting SEOs.

Don’t use linking resources for article/blog post ideas — you just reveal how naive you are, and I’m sure the site owners won’t appreciate your directing all the spam link bots at their sites.

DO link to sites you feel provide good information and DO describe that good information accurately.

DO share ideas about how to create good content and DO acknowledge good content through your links to other sites.

Even though you cannot prevent the search engine from flowing your PageRank on to other sites, you CAN help the search engine figure out where that PageRank should go. PageRank flows THROUGH a page, not TO a page. Most people in the SEO industry just don’t get it. As soon as you do start to get it, you’ll be a step ahead of the pack.

People in the SEO community talk about Website structure and architecture but we don’t really define it very well. In fact, one must ask if there really is a difference between Web site structure and Web site architecture. I think we can provide distinct contexts for both.

However, let me begin by suggesting that Web site structure is really a part Web site architecture, which is concerned not only with structure but also materials or components.

For example, Web site content can be served as static pages or dynamic pages (or both). However, we use the word dynamic loosely, as it can have several relevant uses. For example, a transactional page that only exists one time (such as a confirmation of a purchase completion) is a dynamic page. But a database-driven site that builds all its pages as they are requested also serves dynamic pages.

So, to help clarify these different types of content, let’s speak of static pages, persistent dynamic pages (aka virtual pages), and transactional dynamic pages (aka temporary pages). Static pages are stored in their own individual files (usually the file names end with extensions like “.htm”, “.html”, “.shtm”, “.shtml”, etc.). Persistent dynamic pages are stored in a database (like MySQL) but they generally don’t change their content or appearance. You see the same pages over and over, but they are really virtual pages. Transactional dynamic pages only exist once and they are tied to specific transactions. These are temporary pages.

These definitions, I think, fall into the Web site architecture category because they provide a framework of atomic components from which a Web site may be built.

We can speak of static sites, dynamic sites, and hybrid sites. In a static site all the content is served from static files (although you can allow for server side inclusion of on-page elements, even if they are loaded from a database). In a dynamic site, the pages are constructed by an application (like a Perl or PHP script). The data for the pages may or may not come from a database (it could be stored in a set of text files).

In my view, these are still architectural issues.

You get into the sub-category of Web site structure as you begin to assemble your components into an ordered group. By that, I mean you decide whether you’ll have folders (directories), whether you’ll put more than one file into a folder (directory), and how you’ll interlink your pages (navigation).

Page arrangement and distribution are thus the first order of business in establishing a Web site structure. Today most people install some sort of content management system (CMS) to handle these basic design decisions. The CMS creates folders, assigns pages to them, and keeps a map of everything’s location.

You can use a CMS to serve either static or dynamic content, and many CMS installations do in fact serve both types of content.

Going deeper into the structure issue, most sites are developed according to a tiered hierarchy. That is, you place a minimal amount of content pages in your root folder and you build sub-folders there that contain other content. Each sub-folder should logically define a distinct topic within the Web site. For example, your “About …” section could include a company profile, an executive biography page (or several), a mission statement, and other incidental pages. Your products would logically comprise another topic or section that deserves its own sub-folder.

And each sub-folder could potentially be further sub-divided. Don’t be afraid to do this. Don’t agonize over how far away from the root URL any particular folder or page is. That’s amateurish search optimization because, frankly, it doesn’t matter how many folders deep your content goes. All that matters is how many clicks it takes anyone (or any robot) to reach the content. Folder depth does NOT equal click depth.

It is generally a good idea NOT to include more 10-15 pages in a folder. It is generally a good idea to store your images in their own folder or folders. In fact, you may want to consider storing your images in a separate domain or sub-domain.

Now, speaking of sub-domains, some sites divide their content into distinct sub-domains. This is advisable when your content sections are distinct enough from each other to have separate needs. For example, if your site features an image gallery, it may need a different type of CMS than the blog your site includes. You could put one or both types of content on a sub-domain — or in sub-folders, as some people do that.

I would use a sub-domain strategy where I felt confident of building a distinct brand value for the sub-domain. If I didn’t feel the content justified its own branding strategy, then I would prefer to use a sub-folder.

You don’t have to use a tiered structure, but if you have more than 9-12 pages on your site you’ll either create a very awkward site structure or you’ll create a virtual hierarchy, in which all your files are located in one folder but your navigation system breaks the pages up into groups or categories.

Web site navigation does NOT have to exactly match the physical structures you use to organize your source files. However, if you use one structural paradigm for your navigation and another structural paradigm for your page addresses (the URLs include all folder names), you may confuse yourself or your visitors. Consistency between navigation and page location helps if you can achieve it, but on larger sites that is not always a realistic goal.

The larger your site becomes, the more likely you’ll have to devise more than one navigation system for it. You can organize your navigation in tiers or layers. You should NEVER attempt to include all your navigation in one menu, one style sheet, or one include. Each level of navigation should be limited to no more than 10-15 options. People can only easily comprehend about 10-12 objects in a group at a time.

If you have enough content that you create navigation systems for each section, those navigation systems should also include at least one option for returning to the root page of the site. In some site designs you can get away with keeping the top-level navigation bar on every page and just adding a second-level navigation bar below or beside it that is customized for each section.

If your system embeds more than 25-30 navigational links on a page, that is too many.

You don’t have to limit yourself to a primary navigation mechanism. For example, you want to include a site search tool on every page of a large site. But you can go beyond that by adding specialized navigation blocks.

For example, on a site that archives articles you can include “Related articles” in your footers.

On a site that manages an image gallery you can include different links to different navigational views of the same image groups (or you can link to “Related images”, “Similar images”, etc.). A navigational view is an alternate format for basically the same set of documents. Although most sites don’t employ multiple navigational views in their structures, some sites do. The best-known examples of multiple navigational views include footer or margin links that replicate the primary navigation menu (often embedded in image maps, Flash menu bars, and other non-crawlable objects).

There should be no harm in using multiple navigation views as long as they benefit your visitors. You can use alternate navigation blocks, mechanisms, or views to organize your data in a very different way from your primary site. Think of a site that features profiles of cars. The main site could organize the profiles by region and manufacturer; an alternative site (a sub-domain, for example) could organize the profiles by type of car and year.

I would be careful not to create fluff secondary navigation systems. I would make them distinct by associating each navigation system with unique content to provide value to the user.

I would not include such things as page layouts, styles, color schemes, and embedded objects in Web site structure and architecture. These concepts fall under presentation design rather than structural design.

If you read the Webalizer configuration article on SEO Theory, you’ll know that you can capture a lot of search referral data. Of course, you can also get this data from programs like Google Analytics.

Search referral data shows you which long tail queries your site is relevant to. Now, if you’re trying to build a query space, staying on top of your long tail referrals is important. It essentially defines your query space for you (call it a virtual query space, since no site is likely to capture traffic for every query in a very active query space).

As you add content to your site (over some period of time), rotate your use of keywords from the referral data. Go back and reuse older expressions but gradually introduce new expressions. Track your results by expression.

The idea is to identify which queries will produce the most traffic for you as you strengthen your relevance for each query. They’ll all be related or similar queries so you’ll improve your ability to write using the idiom (the expressions) that searchers employ to find content like you.

The more you write like people search, the easier it becomes to rank for people’s searches. As you become comfortable with creating content around search referral strings, you can become experimental and start integrating multiple expressions into your content.

You should do this with any type of content: picture galleries, staff bios, product descriptions, marketing blurbs for new specials, press releases, etc. Don’t limit your creativity by thinking this only works for certain types of content. It works for EVERYTHING.

Here is a tip for people who want to know how to optimize a long tail SEO strategy.

Let’s say your Web site sells trail shoes but you’ve found the competition for “trail shoes” is too much for your basic SEO techniques. One-dimensional SEO strategies tell you to pour everything you’ve got into that query space to dominate it: build a great site, expand the useful and informative content often, and obtain as many links as you can.

Of course, if you can do all that, so can your competitors.

Two-dimensional SEO strategies tell you to concentrate on secondary keywords, the “long tail” strategy. If you cannot beat them, go around them. So instead of optimizing for “trail shoes” you optimize for “trail shoes X Y Z”, where people may be looking for very specific trail shoes.

But that trick is passe. In fact, it’s now a more highly recommended strategy than the first (in some corners of the SEO community).

Three dimensional SEO strategies focus on neighborhoods and networks rather than individual Web sites. You can optimize for both the highly competitive core term and the long tail terms by specializing through micro sites.

Now, a lot of people have tried to boost their primary sites with micro sites and faux networks. I am not proposing that. If you’re going to create micro sites, each site needs to have a unique function and purpose. You’re creating a brand for each micro site so that it can stand on its own. But the brands are built on long tail queries.

In essence, you create a niche neighborhood that connects with sites you don’t operate but which helps guide people to the central resource you want to promote the most. These segue sites serve as a transition point for surfers. If they are looking for “trail shoe recycling” you can write articles about how to recycle trail shoes on a micro site and use that site to promote your main trail shoe site.

It’s not as simple as saying, “Oh, let me move my product reviews to another domain”. You have to create a site that could and should exist (in someone’s mind) regardless of whether your primary site exists. In this way you bring your passion and expertise together to create a new, useful resource that attracts motivated, interested visitors.

The micro site then suggests to those visitors that they look at your primary site.

Do you have to spend as much time developing value for the micro sites as for the primary site? No. But you don’t want to abandon the micro sites completely. They should be redesigned at least once a year and updated with new content every 1-3 months.

There is no specific number of sites you need or should create. However, if you create more than 10 you’re probably doing it wrong. In my experience, micro site clusters work best when you keep them in the 5-10 range. You want to provide unique, useful information to people that is substantial and coherent.

You would need to use different templates for each micro site, so if they all look like the primary site, you’re doing it wrong.

You would NOT necessarily want to interlink the micro sites. If you do interlink them, make sure you do so through relevant copy, not through footer, margin, or navigation links.

You want each micro site to link out to other sites you don’t control that are relevant each site’s primary topic (its brand). Show people there is a coherent Web community about the topic. Build the coherent community if you must (it’s okay to reciprocate with a few of the sites — the more obscure and unknown your linking partners, the better).

This is not cheap spammy stuff. If you can put a micro site network together in a day or two, you’re doing it wrong (i.e., you’re being spammy). A week, maybe. Frankly, if it takes you less than two weeks, you’re probably doing a sloppy job. Spend at least 2 days on each site.

Promote each site appropriately. Don’t obsess over links, but get links for each site. You don’t need many before people start to notice the sites.

This technique is what some people call organic search arbitrage. However, the more you try to systemize it, the less likely you are to achieve long term success. You don’t want to be constantly building new Web sites. You just want to create a Web neighborhood that accrues traffic from multiple long tail queries, funneling that traffic toward the master brand site.