Nov
10
Getting links from the BBC website.
Filed Under link building |
The BBC website is one of the most trusted websites in the UK, if not the world. And getting yourself a link from the BBC, weather it was from a press release, a friend that works there, or somehow being very relevant to the article on a speciic page is the holy grail of link building. Google and the other search engines love the BBC. And you will get a massive rankings boost just by appearing on the links section to the right of the article.
At some point last week, I noticed that the BBC was not handling links in the way it used to. A couple of days later it was reported all over the internet. With blogstorm being first to report it in the blogosphere. I was actually going to right a piece about it at the time, but unfortunatley we had a number of deadlines that day and that “exclusive” slipped through the net.
On the subject the BBC had to say:
Recently, in response to feedback, we have been putting more external links onto the BBC site and have also started using tracking for external links on the BBC News sites.
Essentially the reason for tracking links is to allow us to report to the BBC Trust how many click-throughs we are generating to external sites so that they can accurately monitor this.
We have had some feedback that the way we are doing this has an unintended side effect (”BBC pledges to link out - but holds back the Google juice”).
Strategically there is no intention to drink all the Google Juice. The reasons for this are less sinister and I thought it worth explaining.
The system the BBC uses for tracking external links has been around for years, but we only recently added this tracking to the external links on the Right Hand Side of the BBC News site. You will find the /go/ tracking system in use across the BBC website and the way it redirects links is nothing new. You can see the mechanism working if you use a /go/ URL off the BBC site (e.g. this). (Editor’s note 6.44 p.m.: To see the tracking mechanism in action, you need to be on a website that isn’t the BBC. We suggest you copy this entire link into a new browser window or tab: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/bristol/content/features/2003/01/13/ sayingaboutus.shtml/ext/_auto/-/http://www.venue.co.uk/ )
On the BBC site you don’t get this delay, but you can see what it is doing - it is basically logging that you have clicked a link from he BBC to an external site by going to the intermediary page and then sends you on to this page. Many sites use similar mechanisms and have to deal with the side effects of this.
We are rolling out improvements to the way this works, as already used on some other parts of the website. Essentially we use JavaScript to retain SEO (”Search Engine Optimisation”) and Google juice for external sites, while we will still be able to track external links. Search Engines, casual observers and those without JavaScript will still see the original URL.
We will keep an eye on the situation, and continue to quest those lovely BBC links.