Contacting site owners directly is another method of getting inbound links. This will have a lower chance of success in most cases but it is usually worth trying.
I hate those people. If I want to link to someone's site, I will. I'm not going to do it as some sort of trade to try to game Google, though. Linking to me might make me aware of you, but spamming me just makes the world a little bit worse. Ditto for shoving ads into my mailbox, affixing them to my bike or SEOing the heck out of mediocre content that most searchers don't want to see in the first page of results.
There's kind of an r/K selection thing going on, here. The people who do the least research per email have more time to send emails, so even if most link-requesters do their research, most link requests won't reflect that.
I totally agree with that. Most of the link request emails are quickly put together and unthoughtful.
The people who write honest emails to me about how we can both provide value to each other do not happen very often but when they do I always listen. If fact if someone has a good resource that would provide value to my users I am happy to link to it. It's great to discover a "diamond in the rough" before my competitors to.
I am not advocating link spam here. I am saying that users should do their research and find sites that an inbound would prove value to both parties.
Well... I'd say that it'd help if the information was reliable, backed by evidence, up to date, referenced experts within the field and actually factually correct. Like http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
A quick look at the site you mention gleans these words:
"SEOmoz surveys top SEO experts ...opinions of the algorithmic elements that comprise search engine rankings"
"Each participant was asked to rate more than 100 search ranking factors"
So it's not reliable, it's a survey.
It's not backed by evidence but by opinion.
And how can an SEO be called 'referenced'. I didn't realise SEO was a science.
The only true thing in your statement is up-to-date.
A better description would be that it's based on guess work by the men who are most known for snake oil and me-too mentality in the IT industry, SEO 'experts'.
Just playing devil's advocate but I don't really think that article is any more likely to be right than this guy's.
I hate those people. If I want to link to someone's site, I will. I'm not going to do it as some sort of trade to try to game Google, though. Linking to me might make me aware of you, but spamming me just makes the world a little bit worse. Ditto for shoving ads into my mailbox, affixing them to my bike or SEOing the heck out of mediocre content that most searchers don't want to see in the first page of results.