The LinkTopper(TM)Web Visibility Booster Service ------------------------------------------------ The beauty of this program is that it tackles three basic issues which make most other reciprocal link programs so problematical: 1. INFO HUB FEATURE LinkTopper(TM) offers both: a) INCOMING (all programs do that) *and* – just as importantly – b) OUTGOING quality links. Incoming: the categorized Distributed Internet Directory consisting of participating sites and their descriptions Outgoing: a full fledged distributed Search Engine Portal on an all-on-one-page basis (currently 450+ SEs and directories plus resources links), regularly updated and expanded by us to guarantee fresh, indexable content and linkage The latter helps upgrade sites to an "info hub" or "authority" in the search engines' view (you can't really beat a search engine portal for quality links!), meaning that link reciprocity is upgraded considerably. 2. INVISIBILITY PERMITTED As these distributed pages aren't supposed to divert site visitors from a site's content proper (or even attract visitors directly, for that matter - all they are there for is to *improve* overall search engine rankings, they're not even supposed to rank well by themselves), invisible links from index page are permitted. (No other major program we are aware of is offering this currently.) Intrasite linkage is important, of course, as search engines don't like isolated pages and tend to ignore them. 3. UNIQUENESS OF PAGES Pages will typically be integrated into a site's basic navigation template: this ensures both intrasite cross linkage and uniqueness of pages, warding off penalization for identical or cloned content. 4. NO MAINTENANCE HASSLE LinkTopper(TM) is a pure ASP based solution: all participating sites will have to do is point links to two dedicated CGI scripts on your system. This evades the maintenance hassle so characterstic of all other major link popularity programs which will typically demand that participating sites download, integrate and upload the programs' link pages on a regular basis to accomodate new entries. To save on bandwidth and download times (critical even for SE spiders), the central server feature will be implemented on your system. Integration of new client sites can be automated following system's basic overall approval. (I.e. if a site is being set up at all - in compliance with your terms of service - it can immediately be integrated into the LinkTopper(TM) setup.) We for our part will supply regularly updated content, to wit other, third party sites joining up plus, of course, additional search engine portal links. This will be uploaded by an automated FTP feed or server push technology to your system in regular intervals determined by you. Note that link quality and relevance are quite crucial! Also - and this factor isn't covered by any other major program - link popularity isn't only a question of incoming but also of outgoing links: in fact it is mainly outgoing quality links that will award a site "Info Hub" status. This, in turn, will increase sites' "reference status", meaning that their outgoing links are given considerably more weight than, say, the average FFA site's or even smaller amateur aites, etc. So let's start of from there. QUALITY OUTGOING LINKS AWARDING "INFO HUB" STATUS ------------------------------------------------- LinkTopper(TM) consists of two parts: 1. the stand alone Distributed Search Engine Portal and 2. the Distributed Internet Directory featuring participating sites. It is the Search Engine Portal which helps upgrade a site to info hub status: with over 450 search engines, directories and search engine optimization resources linked (a number constantly increasing via our weekly updates), it constitutes a unique resource in its own right. Now what if your client's site isn't search engine related at all? No matter: offering search engine links is a classical, time proven convenience service still supported by many, many sites out there. The quality of the basic material being such that a site like is considered a unique search engine portal in itself. What you see when surfing that site is (navigation and promo elements aside) exactly the same content participating sites will feature. Obviously, a commercial site doesn't want to divert its visitors to any non-revenue generating places on the Web. This is where two factors peculiar to the LinkTopper(TM) service come in: a) The Distributed Search Engine Portal can be linked to (e.g. from a participating site's index page) in an *invisible* manner. (An empty A HREF link will do - no need for transparent 1 pixel graphics or similar.) Of course, there is nothing to be said against visible links, either - it is just that most sites don't want to implement them for obvious reasons. In any case, invisible links are an option, not a condition of participation, thus offering optimum flexibility. b) Just in case visitors do access the Distributed Search Engine Portal, all links featured on that page will open a new browser window, thus keeping visitors on site within the original window. In most cases, this isn't supposed to happen anyway or, if it does, it is usually the exception. But even if it does, diversion from client's site is reduced to a minimum. Both the Distributed Search Engine Portal and the Distributed Internet Directory will be submitted to the search engines just like any other regular page. QUALITY INCOMING LINKS ENHANCING LINK POPULARITY ------------------------------------------------ Here's the rub: if your site is focused e.g. on cars, pointing to lots of florists and travel sites won't normally do you a lot of good link popularity wise. So the trick to go for is structuring: categorizing outgoing links by topic or focus (as in bundling travel sites under a "Travel" header, florists under "Florists", or similar) helps to serve a well structured and logical directory as, for example, does ODP. Moreover, the more participating sites we have in the Distributed Internet Directory, the more sense it will make to split up the directory into one-focus pages. Thus, all auto sites would be featured on an auto page, the florist sites on a florists only page, etc. The advantage of this approach lies in the fact that even if search engines should start penalizing sites offering too many non-relevant outgoing links some day, you and your clients can always reduce display of the Distributed Internet Directory on any given site to the category page topical to that participant. Naturally, this will considerably reduce the number of cross links and, hence, overall link popularity, so we rank this as a mere emergency "second best choice" option. On the up side, it will by default boost a site's outgoing links' relevance, which is definitely preferable to featuring no outgoing links at all. COVERING THE CROSS LINKED COMPETITORS ISSUE ------------------------------------------- Finally, participating sites will only be cross linked via their Distributed Internet Directory pages, not their index pages. This is to counter possible webmasters' apprehensions relating to directing their precious traffic to competitors' web sites. As everybody will be pointing to basically the same content, no single member will be preferred to any other. Remember: these pages are not intended to attract traffic in the first place! They don't even need to be ranked well themselves with the search engines - their sole function is to enhance link popularity by cross linking participating sites. (Hence, they don't require any form of optimization either.) 2. RANDOMIZATION FEATURE (optional): The Distributed Internet Directory page(s) can optionally be implemented into a MySQL database powered setup. This allows the system to randomize the display of content on a by demand level. (By default, participating sites are listed in alphbetical order.) Thus, whenever a Distributed Internet Directory page gets spidered on a participating site, the directory proper content will be different from that of another's site. Additionally, the SQL based setup can feature alternative site descriptions, display of which again can be randomized, which helps fortify the uniqueness factor. IMPLEMENTATION ON YOUR SYSTEM We suggest a pull technology approach, with the LinkTopper(TM) pages being served from your own servers to reduce bandwidth and cut on download times. The basic setup (customizable according to your requirements) works this way: 1. PAGE GENERATION PHASE ------------------------ 1.1.1 Automated Web Site Generation Systems> During setup of your clients' web sites, your system generates the LinkTopper(TM) template pages including navigation infrastructure. Included in the LinkTopper(TM) page templates would be an SSI call "include virtual" to display the local LinkTopper(TM) main pages' content. 1.1.2 System generates invisible links to the site's LinkTopper(TM) pages and integrates these links in the index or home page. (This would be preferable to cover deep crawling spiders - could be any other page, too, however.) 1.2 User Defined Your hosted clients will generate the LinkTopper(TM) template pages including navigation infrastructure etc. (see above) manually. Important: the LinkTopper(TM) pages should not be included in the normal navigation setup as we do not really want visitors to actually access them. Rather, they constitute a "hidden site feature". (Alternatively, client sites may offer these pages as a courtesy service.) 2. REGISTRATION OF PARTICIPATING SITE - HOST OR USER SIDED ---------------------------------------------------------- 2.1 Automated Web Site Generation Systems After finishing the site building process, your program forwards a registration email message (by sendmail) to a dedicated address on our server. This message will contain the relevant site data to integrate into the program: a) site name b) site description (possibly including several alternatives - see above) c) site category d) site URL 2.2 User Defined After finishing the site building process, user fills in registration email template containing the relevant site data (see above) and sends it to a dedicated address on our server 3. AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION OF PARTICIPATING SITE ----------------------------------------------- LINKTOPPER(TM) SIDED Upon receipt, our system automatically parses the registration message to integrate the new site in our participants database. Thus, the new site will immediately become part of the setup and will be displayed on (and, thus, linked to from) all partner sites. 4. QUALITY CONTROL MANAGEMENT ----------------------------- We will cater to quality control and effect necessary adjustments. E.g. if a webmaster should happen to pick a wrong category for his/her site by mistake, we will re- categorize the site after reviewing it. This, of course, is a manual process which is included in our maintenance service. 5. DOWNLOAD AND LOCAL STORAGE OF LINKTOPPER(TM) PAGES ----------------------------------------------------- The SBI host system retrieves the LinkTopper(TM) pages automatically via a dedicated FTP access point both in regular update intervals and on a per-registration base. The regular update intervals can be implemented as a cron job. I.e., every time a new site is implemented on your system, the LinkTopper(TM) content is downloaded in a new (randomized) form. The advantages of this approach are: a) faster download times by serving the pages locally; this is only critical to avoid possible time out failures when pages are spidered. b) reduced bandwidth by not having to call the pages from an external (i.e. our) server by HTTP. c) full failover functionality in case our core servers should experience an outage: the LinkTopper(TM) program would still be available on your local system, thus avoiding ugly 404 errors during both the search engine submission and the spidering process. 6. SUBMISSION OF LINKTOPPER(TM) PAGES TO SEARCH ENGINES ------------------------------------------------------- We recommend that your system submits the local LinkTopper(TM) pages (per site) to the search engines just like any other page. On our side, we are regularly submitting the searchenginebase.com setup to the engines as well as participating sites' pages at our discretion.