Matt Cutts on Linkbaiting + Link Baiting Case Study
SEO Advice: linkbait and linkbaiting
I hereby claim that content can be both white-hat and yet still be wonderful “bait” for links (e.g. Danny’s spam email analysis). And generating information or ideas that people talk about is a surefire way to generate links. Personally, I’d lean toward producing interesting data or having a creative idea rather than spouting really controversial ideas 100% of the time. If everything you ever say is controversial, it can be entertaining, but it’s harder to maintain credibility over the long haul.
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Link Baiting Case Study
1,960 links to the contest announcement page is pretty good, even if 10% are judged to be quality back links, that’s still 196 more than I had beforehand. If $100 per link is the going rate for an organic & valuable link to a web site, then the four hours I put into this contest resulted in $196,000 worth of links. That’s one valuable idea.
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Link baiting is simply useful, creative, and/or funny content viewed from an SEO perspective.

Just don't get caught "linksturbaiting," that is, crafting link baiting initiatives that are wack, weak, stupid, lame or obvious link bait attempts in which you don't make your intentions plain with a self-deprecating comment or two.

SEOs can see what you're doing, wanker.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |