Web Dev Notes

The celebration is on at Web Dev Notes as my wildly insane linking experiment has been completed! The results are in, and the conclusion is simple; do not link too much, or you will be destroyed!!!

Yes, my quest for knowledge and glory has resulted in my own destruction. Just as this blog began to set new traffic records, I found a way to shoot myself in the foot! Please take this opportunity to learn from my horrible mistakes so that your daily readers are never forced to pillage your village!

So what the heck happened you ask? Well, for about a week and a half, I have been trying to determine if posting links to other websites increases incoming traffic. While I’ve heard the phrase, “everything in moderation”, I decided to ignore the advice of all the experts and test the theory straight out by simply writing posts that linked to other websites for 11 days in a row! The ultimate goal was to see if my stats then showed a traffic increase or decrease at the end of the experiment. I felt that in order for the results to be conclusive, I would have to go at it for at least a week and a half!

Guess what? My stats got worse! At the start of the experiment I actually saw a little spike in traffic, however, this quickly began to decline. My daily average dropped from 311 to 283. While this may not be huge, consider that my daily page views dropped to a low of 477, whereas in July they sat at 700! If you run a website which you monetize, then you know less page views equals less profit, which generally saddens hard working individuals!

What was the worst part of this experiment? Well, while I hoped to attract some new curious visitors who would be interested in the fact that I linked to their website, I forgot about my current readership! I did not consider how they would react to the fact that for over a week I would not be posting any of my own content which is what had them reading my blog in the first place! While many of them were interested to learn the results of the experiment, they were not interested in reading links everyday. In order for this experiment to be successful, I would have needed to post content daily as well as link, so as to maintain my readership while attracting new readers! Hopefully they will all forgive me and return now that the experiment is over! If not, then I will have set myself back a few months in growth virtually destroying myself through my own curiosity!

What would have been better? Well as I mentioned, posting content throughout the experiment would have definitely helped. Another good idea would have been to involve my readers in the experiment! I could have asked them to share stats from their website for example in order to have them embark on the quest with me, rather than watch as a spectator.

Did anything good come from the experiment? Yes! We did in fact get some new visitors and actually received a few nice comments from some authors thanking me for the link! In fact, all the Web Dev Connection posts brought in above average traffic because the majority of them created backlinks in the comments sections of other websites which inevitably received a few clicks! The only problem was, over time, regular traffic from my readership continuously declined more quickly than incoming traffic increased! And while I appreciate everyone out there and hope they read my blog, my readership should always be my first priority!

What is the lesson? Link in moderation, it is in fact good for you! However, too much linking will upset your readers and destroy all your hard work and effort! A good idea is to write link posts on the same day as a quality post so that your readers are not upset by the links and so first time visitors attracted by a backlink can get a good preview of what your site has to offer!