For the past two weeks our industry has been debating the need for standards, many of the regular blogs have weighed in as have most of the major players in our space. The discussion has been heated at times and while the idea has gotten the attention there definitely has not been any accord.

At the end of February, Chris Boggs and I started an exchange on the topic. We had suggested prior to this that there was a need for standard definitions of the various measurement terms and while this may be a peripheral part of the discussion is could have been a good starting point.

In the past week Jill Whalen of High Rankings outlined why we should not or cannot standardize search marketing, stating "Industry market forces and the search engines themselves will eventually dictate what best practices are and are not."

Jill I have to disagree with the statement - never let the fox guard the hen house. The search engines should not dictate our standards - they set their rules and we work with and around them. We work for the client not the engines. You mention that but use it to say no standards... that last point supports not letting the engines set them more than there is no need.

Lisa Barone of Bruce Clay makes the argument that there is a "need to outline what SEO is and what it means to optimize a Web site. We need to establish best practices, what the risk is for abandoning them, and what all these different terms that we throw around actually mean."

From these two articles we have seen many people weigh in with some interesting comments.

Kalena Jordan, a fellow Aussie and founder of Search Engine College, has been very vocal recently on anything about standards. Her blog Ask Kalena came out against the recently launched SEMCompare that reviews search firms - "trouble with a capital T" - but she does offer an alternative. "Creating standards is not going to get rid of shoddy SEOs or make them switch hats. Education and publicity has always been the solution".

Kalena while I agree that education is important for maturing our industry, I think your response encompasses where we are right now. We see the issue differently. There are really many parallel areas and some of the discussion has been about definitions which do need to be standardized and then behaviors which may not need a standard given the creativity of our industry.

The ever controversial Michael Martinez of SEO Theorysuggests we need to drop the term search engine optimization altogether. Come on Mike we know we are not optimizing search engines but rather the sites the engines rank and include in their databases.

But I do agree with your opinion that "skepticism is important while laying the groundwork for further study by all."

Kim Krause of Cre8asite Forum brings up an interesting question for the topic. "Just out of curiosity, who would enforce standards? How would they be enforced? Are they intended to be?"

Kim I don't think there is a need to police standards, more to outline them so customers can have an idea of what to look for as well as new people in our space have an idea of where to start.

Okay I left many comments and commentators out but hopefully this brings the major views together. Without some guidelines we leave our industry in the "Wild Web" stage that has been there from the beginning when porn and spam was the major effective marketing areas.

We have come a long way... in my opinion it is time to become more structured and accessible.

Posted by randfish

High quality directory link building may seem dreary and time-consuming, but it's still one of the best methods to build credibility with the search engines (remember the importance of trust distance?). Today, while adding resources to our list of valuable directories, I stumbled across three webpages with valuable insight into the process of link building. Both are from universities, providing directives on how to evaluate a link - it doesn't get much more relevant than this.

The three pages are:

• University of Southern Maine's Checklist for Evaluating Web Resources
• UCLA College Library's Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources
• Evaluating Web Resources from Cornell University

I've pulled some excerpts to help illustrate how those who might consider linking to your site make that judgement:

Is the information easy to get to? How many links does it take to get to something useful?
What is the quality of the graphical images? Do these images enhance the resource or distract from the content?
Does the site have its own search engine?
Is the site easily browsable or searchable?

Accessibility and usability are big issues - and it's one of the key reasons link building goes hand in hand with great design. Build a site that looks like a professional, high quality resource and your informative articles will carry more weight and a greater ability to attract links.

How comprehensive is this site?

• What are the link selection criteria if any?
• Are the links relevant and appropriate for the site?
• Is the site inward-focused, pointing outward, or both?
• Is there an appropriate balance between inward-pointing links ("inlinks" i.e., within the same site)& outward-pointing links ("outlinks" i.e., to other sites)?
• Are the links comprehensive or do they just provide a sampler?
• What do the links offer that is not easily available in other sources?
• Are the links evaluated in any way?

Search engine have always said they'd judge sites by who they link to and who links to them. Humans who evaluate whether they'll link to us are being instructed to do the same thing! Reputations online are garnered through linking in more ways than one, so be careful about what you link to and how you label it.

Determining the author or source of information for a Web site is important in deciding whether information has credibility. The author should show some evidence of being knowledgeable, reliable, and truthful.

• Is the author identifiable? Look for links that say "Who We Are," "About This Site, " or something similar.
• Is there contact information for the author? (e.g. e-mail address, mailing address or phone number)
• What is the author's background? (e.g. experience, credentials, occupation, have they written other publications on the topic?)
• Does the author cite his or her sources?
• Is this site linked to often by other sites?
• Do links on this site lead to other reputable sites?
• Are there spelling errors or incorrect use of grammar?
• What domain does the site belong to? (e.g. edu, gov, com, etc.)?

The perception of authority is easily created and just as easily destroyed. No matter what kind of site you're building, if you want the links to flow, provide some information about the site, about yourself and about the information you provide. Proper citation and effective backgrounds can mean the difference between link building success and failure.

Take a couple minutes right now and look over the site(s) you're working on. Do you meet the criteria for picky link creators?

• Professional design, look and feel
• High usability and functionality
• Non-commercial content is available in a research-oriented form (if you're not providing any non-commercial content, read this post)
• Information about the author(s), the material and the sources is clearly provided
• Contact information is obvious and accessible

If you're firing on all cylinders, there's a good chance you can close the trust distance gap with some very high quality links.

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