Building Links to DarkPoetry

This page is for Marketing Department use primarily.  It outlines the rules and techniques for building links to DarkPoetry.com.

First, you'll need to know the difference between getting links set up and spamming.  If you follow the guidelines below, that should be clear enough.  Any link spamming or the use of a third party service to do spamming of DarkPoetry will result in as much punishment as we can possibly throw at you.  Really!

If you aren't sure whether or not you can do something, ask first.

Links must meet the following criteria to get the best payout

Yes, that's right, we will pay hefty bounties of Ducats for Marketers who manage to set up high quality links.

• Relevance:  They must come from poetry-oriented sites, or poetry categories of directory or link list type sites.
• Good Pagerank: The links from higher page rank page will earn rewards in multiples of the page rank.  So a link from a page with a pagerank of 10 may pay  10x more than a link from a pagerank 1 page, depending on relevance.
• Permanence:  They must be on pages that are not likely to be deleted or expired within one year.
• Prominence: The link should be visible to all visitors, and appear within the top section of the page: ie, not require scrolling down to view if possible.

Sites that we want to get links from

1. Look for directory type sites.  If you've ever seen Dmoz.org, that is an example of a directory.   There are probably thousands of others out there, and you should be careful to add links only in full accordance with their policies.
2. Other similar sites.  A link from an excellent site like Deviant Art would be one example.
3. Blogs.   You could even write blog posts on other sites like blogger that center around DarkPoetry.  Comments tacked on to the end of other people's blog posts will probably not be that helpful, and if not relevant to the post are considered spam.
4. Mentions in social networking sites may be good, but they're not believed to be significant for building traffic and they may be rewarded less than permanent sites.

Some sites to view for tips on link building:

• http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml  - some sections are more relevant than others, but it's the top result of a google search for "link building" so they probably know the score.  See that second link for more tips.

How to get paid:

Keep a spreadsheet with the following columns:

1. URL
2. Pagerank  (you'll probably have to install Google Toolbar to figure out what this is)
3. Date link appeared on site
4. Date link appeared in Google (use this link to test)
5. Site Type (should be one of directory, blog, similar site, other)

When all 5 pieces of information are filled out  (this can take awhile, especially column 4) completely, you can submit your spreadsheet to DarkPoet at gmail.  DarkPoetry will pay for any link that can be unambiguously attributed to your effort, and will do so on this pay scale:

DC $1 per pagerank of the linking page (not the site's front page, but the page on which the link appears), times a quality factor of our choosing between 0.5 and 2.5 which will be applied to each verified link.

Payment

Example 1:

John is responsible for a new link to DarkPoetry from the very popular (fictional)  "Evil Poet's Den Fansite" front page which has a pagerank of 8 on Google.  

He had some pull with the website owner, and talked him into an exchange, putting a link on his popular DarkPoetry profile in trade.  (he told the website owner how many hits his page got, and how he submits new works all the time to keep people coming to his page)  John finds that it appears in Google after a few weeks, and submits it on his spreadsheet.

DarkPoetry then assigns this site a quality factor of 2 because it's very relevant, the site has great pagerank, and the link is not likely to go away anytime soon.  John chooses to accept a cash payment, and is immediately sent DC $16.  ( pagerank of 8 * quality factor of 2 * $1)

Not bad for a half-hour's work.

Getting Started

If you want to become a link builder on DarkPoetry, please make sure you have logged on to the forum at least once (to establish your forum shadow-account so you can join the group) and then apply to the Marketing Department.

Sample Title

Whenever possible, use the title "Dark Poetry: Dark Poems and Writers"

If a very sparse title is more likely to get the link approved, just use "Dark Poetry"

Sample Description

Use a close variation on this for your link descriptions where appropriate, but feel free to tailor it to the site you're linking from.  Spelling mistakes or grammatical blunders on this text will result a very low quality score so be sure you alter it with care.

DarkPoetry offers free accounts to anyone wishing to post poetry.  Members may post poems as well as artistic mixes of photography, sound, and art with poetry.  Feedback from other artists is easy to get and a high quality of feedback is encouraged.

Link To Use

The vast majority of the time you should be linking to the main page,
http://www.darkpoetry.com/

When you want to use an article or specific poem you may link directly to it.  This type of link will usually get a lower quality score.

Putting tracking code in the links tends to dilute the impact of the links.  Therefore it is important to keep a spreadsheet with dates and submit it frequently to ensure credit is given where it's due.

Disputes

Any dispute between Marketing Department members, including who gets credit for any particular effort, will be settled by the Department's leadership and all settlements will be as fair as possible and final.