Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is Natural Link Exchange a link farm or a "free for all"?
No. But first you must understand that a link farm is a bunch of sites, often generated
for the sole purpose of giving away links to 1 or 2 targeted sites. There are automated link
packages on the market that will provide direct reciprocal links to each other. This is essentially
a link farm and the major search engines have begun to crack down on them as they find sites that
use them.
While Natural Link Exchange is an automated service, it is monitored by humans so not every site
is accepted. Links are not reciprocated with every site, only those that are relevant or related to
the theme of your site. Sites are categorized so that relevant links can be exchanged between sites.
These categories are monitored for abuse. Sites resource pages must be on the same domain as the home
page of the site therefore members of the network cannot spam other members. Natural Link Exchange is
designed to save you time and get the most value out of your links not spam the search engines.
Additionally, category pages are linked to subsequent category pages so that pages are linked together
assuring that your links will be on the largest number of sites in the network.
Can any type of site get in to the Natural Link Exchange network? How can I be sure I won't be
linking to or getting links from Spam or Porn sites?
A real person reviews each site before it is added to the Natural Link Exchange link generation rotation. Sites
that do not meet our guidelines are not admitted to the network. If you ever come across a site
that you feel is questionable, please do not hesitate to contact
our support team.
I want my links page to look and feel just like my existing pages, is this possible?
Absolutely! When you set up your site, you simply point to an existing page and Natural Link
Exchange will import the HTML. Alternatively you can simply paste the HTML into the template editor.
Can I put my own content on this template page?
You can but we discourage it because the template page is designed to morph with the category of links that
is displayed. Each template page will have links to related categories on it. As the spider or the human
visitor navigates to one of these other links, the category of that link is sent into the same template
as a parameter and mini articles about that topic as well as RSS feeds are displayed. Therefore if you
add your own content, if it’s not relevant to the category it can hurt both you and those you are pointing to.
My links are not showing up. What's going on?
Your links are added to the Natural Link Exchange network in a natural way - as if you were
doing it yourself. Links that are added in large numbers and quickly are considered spam to
Google and possibly other major search engines. Keep in mind that there is no perfect way to
determine the number of sites that are linking to you. Using the Google "link:" command
does not necessarily show every link that Google has found. Various search engines that have
a similar command often yield drastically different results.
It's generally well known that the search engines do a poor job of reporting real backlinks.
Google is especially poor, and usually never reports the true number of backlinks. Google also
has periodic updates where the backlink list is updated.
MSN search (http://search.msn.com) often gives much better backlink results, but is still far
from perfect.
We recommend that if you are using the backlink checkers in the search engines, that you give it time.
We have had excellent results with the link pages showing up. Many of the link pages have a PageRank of
5 or even higher. We know that the links eventually do count. Remember that the longer the links have been
around, the more likely they will count toward increasing your rank.
How do I get the article pages on my site?
There are 3 methods to place the article pages on your website:
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FTP (Static). Nightly the Natural Link Exchange services will generate static HTML pages
with links and articles already built. Using the account information you supply the page
that will be FTP'd to your site.
-
PHP (Dynamic). A very simple script will be placed on your site and each time a visitor
(human or spider) requests the page it will be generated and static results will be returned.
The visitor will have no idea that it was generated.
-
ASP (Dynamic). Same as PHP but a different language. Check with your hosting company to see
which is right for your site.
How long will it take for me to see results?
One of the primary premises of Natural Link Exchange is that we will distribute your links
slowly as if done by you. Links that are added quickly are a flag to Google that something
is amiss. Over 3-6 months you will have the majority of your links and as the network grows
so will your links. In theory, you will never stop receiving links as long as the network grows.
You can help the network grow by becoming an affiliate - Signup to get more details.
Please visit the How Does This Work page.
If I'm the only site in a given category, how will Natural Link Exchange help me?
If there are not enough sites in your primary category your links will be distributed over
other categories until more sites in your category are added to the network. At that time your
lower value, general category links will be moved to the specific category - as always, this will
be done slowly so as not to startle the search engines.
How many links can I have in a single article?
Each mini article can point to 2 different links each with separate anchor text.
How long does it take for a new site to be approved?
Most new sites are approved almost immediately if they are added during the working day (8-5 CST). Outside of that
time frame, it may take up to 24 hours. If the site doesn't meet our guidelines or is down and can't be approved
it can take longer.
I don't want to provide my FTP information to Natural Link Exchange. Is there another way to join the network?
Links can be placed on your site through FTP, php or .ASP. There is some evidence that true static links are
better think dynamically generated pages therefore we offer FTP as only one of the options. Note that more and
more evidence indicates that the major search engines have over come many of the early problems with dynamic pages
and can handle them as if they are static so php or ASP are both excellent choices to obtain your links.
I want to add my own links manually - how can I do that?
At this time Natural Link Exchange does not offer the ability to add and manage your own links but this
feature is currently under development.
I've implemented the php or ASP version of Natural Link Exchange, how do I make sure it's working properly?
First place the page you created in the template wizard or in the manual template editor on your site. Then create
a link to it from your home page. Click on that link and you will see the link page just as the spiders will. Feel free
to add more content to that page but understand that this page will be used by the spiders for every category link that
they follow so your content must be generic enough to be relevant to other categories that related to yours.
How many links will I receive?
The number of links you will receive depends on the size of the network. Based on our current algorithm, each
site should receive 75% of the total number of sites in the network. In theory, you could receive thousands
of links - the total may never end because you will receive links as the network grows.
Can I change the link text I want people to use for linking to me?
Yes that's one of the fantastic features of Natural Link Exchange: you can adjust the link anchor text as well as the proportion
that you want it distributed. This will very slowly and randomly go back through your links in the network and
modify the anchor text until your distribution is met.
Can I refuse to host certain links on my Natural Link Exchange pages?
Yes but the number that you can ban depends on the package you select. Please see our Signup page for
more details on each package.
How many domains can I ban?
It depends on the package you select. Please see our Signup page for more details on each package.
Are the banned sites permanently banned?
No, you can "unban" a site by simply removing it from the list of banned sites.
How do I cancel my account?
We're not sure why you would ever want to do this. If you are having issues that we may be able to work
out, please let us know. This service was designed for our customers, and we want to make every attempt
to make sure it's valuable.
If you're absolutely sure you want to cancel, simply find your subscription in PayPal and cancel it from there.
Our system will automatically pick up the cancellation. PayPal does not give us the authority to cancel
your payments from our end.