Auto And Trucks 1946Business And Finance 11381Cellular Phones 10Collectibles 10College Articles 455Computers And Internet 4892Education 839Environment 825Family 3852Food And Drink 1559Gadgets And Gizmos 924Gardening 68Gifts And Gift Baskets 18Government 806Health 5196Hobbies 959Home Improvement 2196Humor 203Kids And Teens 804Legal 1609Marketing 6217Men 338Music And Entertainment 779Online Business 4940Parenting 1369Pets And Animals 951Recreation And Sports 2236Relationships 684Religion 694Self Improvement And Motivation 7987Site Promotion 1526Sports And Recreation 217Travel And Leisure 2668Web Development 3317Women 2242Writing 2437
The when, how and why of using transparent gif graphics to cross link pages
Recently I wrote an article on how your web site can generate
over 25 times more buying customers in less than a year. There
seemed to be some confusion on how a transparent gif graphic
could be used to cross link pages. Many of you asked for
samples or downloads to look at. Plus how big the gif should be
and how many of them should be used, so I'll try to explain it in
detail here.
Why Cross Linking Is Important
What is on your web site is only part of the puzzle when it
comes to good search engine positioning. Search engines are
now employing various "off page" criteria. You've probably heard
terms like "link popularity, link density, link relevancy". They all
have slightly different meanings and but what it boils down to is
that the links leading to and from your web site, are being
analyzed, assessed, evaluated and then ranked, to
determine where your site should come up in search results.
There is also one major search engine company - that also
owns two other large engines - that has a real nasty habit of
binging and purging out pages. One month you'll have 100
pages in the indexes, and the next month it purges all but three
or four of your web pages. Now you either have to scramble and
resubmit the indexed pages with links to all your other pages.
Or if you used the cross linking technique, every single page
has links to all you other pages. So even if only one page
remains in the index, when the spider comes crawling to
update, all your other pages will be found again, automatically.
If you want to beat the linking criteria of many the search
engines and stop the binging and purging of your pages, then
it's more important than ever, to get your web sites cross linked
together. Simply put, cross linking means to link all your sites
and pages together using visible text links or invisible pixel links.
Why Use Invisible Pixels
A regular web site might have 10 links to 10 internal pages and
a "links" page that leads to some other sites. But what if, you've
got say, 10 other web sites and want to link to them all. Plus
you have over 100 doorway or hook pages, and you want to link
to all of them too. Well, that would create a big mess of visible
links, hundreds of links that would do nothing but confuse your
visitors.... enter the invisible pixel technique.
How Big Is A Pixel
An invisible pixel is a transparent gif graphic, one square pixel in
size. Depending on the dots per inch or dpi of your monitor, that
may be 1/72 or 1/80 or even 1/96 of an inch. So you could have
links to 70 pages and it would occupy an area on your monitor
screen less than 1 inch wide by 1/72 of an inch high. If you put
this string of pixels at the bottom of your web page, after a
couple of carriage returns, the likelihood of it being discovered or
clicked on by anyone is minimal. The search engines will find it
though, and many of them have spiders or crawlers that will
follow the links.
How Many Do You Need
Place as many gifs on your pages as you require. I have
provided a sample invisible pixel for your own use, you can find
it here....
http://www.1-internet-marketing.com/pixel/
I put the graphic (called follow.gif) in a directory, so you can
save the image to your hard drive. Note that if you click on it,
your browser will display nothing.... because it's invisible. I also
made this sample 10 pixels wide so it's a little easier to grab
and work with. You may want to reduce its width, once you
paste it into your html page.
You can copy and paste the graphic as many times as you
need, each time making the gif link to a different web page.
Some of my customers just make a stock footer that goes on
the bottom of every single web page they create. This footer
contains contact info, navigation panel, copyright info and you
guessed it, hundreds of invisible pixel links. You can take a look
at one such page here:
http://www.dynamicmedia.com
At the bottom of the page there are around fifty or so links, can
you see them? The search engine can. To see the invisible
links, just "View Source" in your browser window, or save the
page to your hard drive and open it up with an html editor. Note
that I have links leading to home pages, internal pages and hook
(doorway) pages.
The Technical Stuff
Here is the actual html code that goes into making an invisible
pixel. First of all, there are two parts to a hypertext link in html
code. The first part is the url or destination of the link that
search engines follow. The second is the part that people see
on the web page as the familiar blue underlined text.
This is the
blue text that people will see.
We can do the same thing with a picture or graphic. The first part
contains the destination.... where I want the search engine to
go. The second part calls up a gif graphic called "follow.gif", that
is 1 pixel by 1 pixel in size.
![]()
ALIGN"BOTTOM" BORDER"0">
What Makes It Invisible
There are two things we need to do, to make the graphic
invisible. First off we need to use image editing software to
make the gif transparent. In other words, it takes on the same
color as the background color of the web page, which makes it
appear invisible. The good news is, I've already done this part for
you with the sample you can download. The second part is to
make sure the BORDER"0" in the html code. That will prevent
a blue border or box from being drawn around your invisible
pixels.
Conclusion
I wrote about this technique in my book "Nothing But 'Net" in the
section entitled "How to ensure a search engine can spider your
pages." Its an old tactic that I've used for years. Word got out
about cross linking and although this tactic is well publicized,
few people have used it, not realizing how powerful and effective
it is.
Cross link all of your home pages, internal pages, and hook
pages to each other. When the search engine comes to catalog
your page it finds links to all your other pages. If the engine is a
spider it will crawl and add your other pages to its index. Being
cross linked gives your pages a greater chance of being
cataloged and having your pages "stick" in the index. Some
search engines even prefer this method of "finding" your pages
rather than having you announce them to their submission areas.
Hope this clears up the mystery surrounding cross linking and
the invisible pixels.
over 25 times more buying customers in less than a year. There
seemed to be some confusion on how a transparent gif graphic
could be used to cross link pages. Many of you asked for
samples or downloads to look at. Plus how big the gif should be
and how many of them should be used, so I'll try to explain it in
detail here.
Why Cross Linking Is Important
What is on your web site is only part of the puzzle when it
comes to good search engine positioning. Search engines are
now employing various "off page" criteria. You've probably heard
terms like "link popularity, link density, link relevancy". They all
have slightly different meanings and but what it boils down to is
that the links leading to and from your web site, are being
analyzed, assessed, evaluated and then ranked, to
determine where your site should come up in search results.
There is also one major search engine company - that also
owns two other large engines - that has a real nasty habit of
binging and purging out pages. One month you'll have 100
pages in the indexes, and the next month it purges all but three
or four of your web pages. Now you either have to scramble and
resubmit the indexed pages with links to all your other pages.
Or if you used the cross linking technique, every single page
has links to all you other pages. So even if only one page
remains in the index, when the spider comes crawling to
update, all your other pages will be found again, automatically.
If you want to beat the linking criteria of many the search
engines and stop the binging and purging of your pages, then
it's more important than ever, to get your web sites cross linked
together. Simply put, cross linking means to link all your sites
and pages together using visible text links or invisible pixel links.
Why Use Invisible Pixels
A regular web site might have 10 links to 10 internal pages and
a "links" page that leads to some other sites. But what if, you've
got say, 10 other web sites and want to link to them all. Plus
you have over 100 doorway or hook pages, and you want to link
to all of them too. Well, that would create a big mess of visible
links, hundreds of links that would do nothing but confuse your
visitors.... enter the invisible pixel technique.
How Big Is A Pixel
An invisible pixel is a transparent gif graphic, one square pixel in
size. Depending on the dots per inch or dpi of your monitor, that
may be 1/72 or 1/80 or even 1/96 of an inch. So you could have
links to 70 pages and it would occupy an area on your monitor
screen less than 1 inch wide by 1/72 of an inch high. If you put
this string of pixels at the bottom of your web page, after a
couple of carriage returns, the likelihood of it being discovered or
clicked on by anyone is minimal. The search engines will find it
though, and many of them have spiders or crawlers that will
follow the links.
How Many Do You Need
Place as many gifs on your pages as you require. I have
provided a sample invisible pixel for your own use, you can find
it here....
http://www.1-internet-marketing.com/pixel/
I put the graphic (called follow.gif) in a directory, so you can
save the image to your hard drive. Note that if you click on it,
your browser will display nothing.... because it's invisible. I also
made this sample 10 pixels wide so it's a little easier to grab
and work with. You may want to reduce its width, once you
paste it into your html page.
You can copy and paste the graphic as many times as you
need, each time making the gif link to a different web page.
Some of my customers just make a stock footer that goes on
the bottom of every single web page they create. This footer
contains contact info, navigation panel, copyright info and you
guessed it, hundreds of invisible pixel links. You can take a look
at one such page here:
http://www.dynamicmedia.com
At the bottom of the page there are around fifty or so links, can
you see them? The search engine can. To see the invisible
links, just "View Source" in your browser window, or save the
page to your hard drive and open it up with an html editor. Note
that I have links leading to home pages, internal pages and hook
(doorway) pages.
The Technical Stuff
Here is the actual html code that goes into making an invisible
pixel. First of all, there are two parts to a hypertext link in html
code. The first part is the url or destination of the link that
search engines follow. The second is the part that people see
on the web page as the familiar blue underlined text.
This is the
blue text that people will see.
We can do the same thing with a picture or graphic. The first part
contains the destination.... where I want the search engine to
go. The second part calls up a gif graphic called "follow.gif", that
is 1 pixel by 1 pixel in size.
What Makes It Invisible
There are two things we need to do, to make the graphic
invisible. First off we need to use image editing software to
make the gif transparent. In other words, it takes on the same
color as the background color of the web page, which makes it
appear invisible. The good news is, I've already done this part for
you with the sample you can download. The second part is to
make sure the BORDER"0" in the html code. That will prevent
a blue border or box from being drawn around your invisible
pixels.
Conclusion
I wrote about this technique in my book "Nothing But 'Net" in the
section entitled "How to ensure a search engine can spider your
pages." Its an old tactic that I've used for years. Word got out
about cross linking and although this tactic is well publicized,
few people have used it, not realizing how powerful and effective
it is.
Cross link all of your home pages, internal pages, and hook
pages to each other. When the search engine comes to catalog
your page it finds links to all your other pages. If the engine is a
spider it will crawl and add your other pages to its index. Being
cross linked gives your pages a greater chance of being
cataloged and having your pages "stick" in the index. Some
search engines even prefer this method of "finding" your pages
rather than having you announce them to their submission areas.
Hope this clears up the mystery surrounding cross linking and
the invisible pixels.
About the Author
Michael Campbell
Author, "Nothing But 'Net"
How I generated $750,000 in internet revenues with no
advertising costs.
http://www.1-internet-marketing.com/nbn/