This really was one of the best sessions I attended. [Rae Hoffman](http://www.sugarrae.com/) and [Roger Montti](http://www.martinibuster.com/), both long time WebmasterWorld members and moderators both gave presentations that had more information than I could even keep up with.
Rae (who also provides [seo consulting services](http://www.sugarrae.com/blog/consulting/)) was kind enough to [publicly link to her presentation](http://www.sugarrae.com/pubconvegas2006raehoffman.ppt) (Powerpoint File) on [Delegating Link Development](http://www.sugarrae.com/blog/back-from-vegas-pubcon-download-the-presentation/ ). That presentation is worth reading through a few times to get all the information. A couple big highlights of her talk for me:
* Training a link developer is not a light task. But, given the right person with the right training, efficient management and monitoring, they will rapidly do better than outsourcing can do.
* It is easier to train someone inexperienced with marketing who is familiar with the internet than it is to train someone experienced with marketing but lacking experience using the internet.
And also her list of interview questions for a potential in-house link monkey was quite helpful:
1. What is your favorite search engine?
2. What is a blog? A message board? A link?
3. Three favorite websites?
4. Do you use IM?
(And Rae made it clear that IM use is a positive thing as an indicator of computer and internet familiarity.)
She had even more questions in her presentation (linked above) which I won’t duplicate here. She also recommended having a computer handy and asking the applicant to perform a specific task on the internet, such as “Can you find me a {Brand} {Model} digital camera that I can actually buy?” to see if they can tell the difference between an e-commerce site and an affiliate/content site.
Joel Lesser of [LinksManager.com](http://blog.linksmanager.com/?cat=2) spoke mostly about reciprocal linking. This is a topic that I felt (and he confirmed) was mostly taboo in the SEO community. He recognized that full duplex linking schemes with no editorial discretion will cause problems with search engines but also made a case for limited, on-topic reciprocal linking.
Joel, correctly, points out that the nature of the internet allows for the organic growth of reciprocal linking and he says, therefore, the search engines mustn’t completely devalue these links. Unfortunately, his proof that recips still have value is that “I can’t tell you what the search engines do or don’t do.” This strikes me as dodging the burden of proof, a logical tactic that sends off “scam alarms” in my head. The whole “no one can prove that recips are bad” struck me as a [Russell’s teapot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot) approach to something that can actually be independently tested to a reasonable degree of satisfaction.
Ignoring that one aspect of his presentation, however, Joel did bring back to the table the non-search engine benefits of relevant reciprocal links:
* Cost effective
* Provides qualified traffic independent of search engines
* Provides value to your users by connecting them to other relevant resources
Another interesting aspect of his presentation was the idea of alternate forms of publishing reciprocal links. Most of these alternatives blend the links as sidebar resources or as contextual links inside of your content.
Finally, he wrapped up with some link request etiquette.
* Use link request forms whenever available
* Don’t send out link requests longer than 3 sentences
* Don’t require links be placed on a page with *x* pagerank.
Roger Montti, who (surprise, surprise) also provides [link development services](http://www.martinibuster.com/), gave a presentation full of alternative link building ideas. If this blog entry wasn’t serving as my own personal notes, I would think twice about posting a lot of his ideas. :)
He discussed things to look for when you are going to be buying a text link (or even a banner link) from a site:
1. **Relevance**
2. No mention of PageRank
3. No ads for non-relevant sites
4. Year-long contracts
Smaller magazines which are published offline often have an online presence that is poorly developed. So, they will be happy to sell a banner ad or other link for relatively low dollar amounts.
Buying websites is a good way to accumulate their links and direct that link popularity to your own site. Older sites which are inactive or under-performing are good candidates for a low dollar amount (less than $1,000) buy.
Site of the month/week/day/second sites (and also newsletters) are handy for getting some traffic and links. If they do not permanently archive the links, you may still see the readers of those sites re-publishing links to your site if it’s any good. Ideally you would find a “site of the whatever” site that is specifically focused on your niche.
Sponsorships of sites, groups, and events all provide opportunities for static links — often from .org or .edu domains. Check your competitors backlinks for .org and .edu backlinks to see how they are getting those links.
Although he discussed the creation of satellite informational sites as a means of acquiring inbound links and I agree that method still works, I have anxiety about it’s long-term value if you take any shortcuts on quality with those sites.
