KELLEY MITCHELL <kmitchell_at_knowx.com> WROTE:
> I have recently read an article about FFA
> (free-for-all pages) and I'm wondering if
> anyone has tried these, if they are an
> acceptable means of marketing, and/or if
> they are worth the trouble?
Kelly,
Once upon a time I had a go at FFA pages. I don't
think they're worth your time and here's why:
No one is going to these pages. Have you *ever* found
a new web site via an FFA page? I think most people
would agree that these are not destination pages. So
if no one is going to these pages, how are they going
to help your site to gain traffic and visibility?
Well I've seen many arguments claiming that FFA pages
can increase your inbound links in search engines, thus
increasing your "popularity" and achieving higher
rankings (in the search engines that give boosts to
"popular" pages). That's good thinking, but of course
the FAA page has to be indexed by the search engine
when your link is on it. How long is that?
Well in my experience, FFA links lasted a couple of
hours before being bumped off the list. So your
likelyhood of picking up an extra inbound link or two
is very limited (and limited further by the fact that
many of the FFA pages you submit to will not be indexed
by the search engines). One more thing to consider is
that search engines such as Google also factor in the
"popularity" of the linking page, so a link from a
popular site is more valuable than a link from a site
which has fewer inbound links (and how many people are
linking to FFA pages?).
I think you're time is better spent doing something
else (like seeking out permanent links from popular web
sites).
I hope this helps.
Andrew Sinclair
Online Marketing Associate
www.moreover.com
Received on Mon Dec 18 2000 - 10:24:56 CST
