Link Vault launches (new advertising network)

An advertising network with a difference, Link Vault deserves a look at.

The concept is not new, but the methods being used by Link Vault are significantly different to any other link network available.

* Links are dynamically generated but are static permanent links meaning the dont rotate/change on refresh.
* You get 30 links from which you can choose 3 link text and apply weight to them as you see fit eg. 50% for 1 link text, 30% for another and the third link text 20%.
* You can set your own link growth rate. If you want 5 links per day you can choose to have your inbound links growing at that rate. If you want 50 links per day you can do that too (DP coop adds all links at once).
* You can choose to have links only in your own language or accept all languages.
* Links can be formatted how you like (as footer or vertical links)
* There are already many domains in the network so you can get a lot of links now even though it is only going public today.
* Links and accounts are vetted for no porn, online pharmacy (viagra), gambling, illegal content, spam sites so you dont end up with with unsavoury links on your site.

It is no diffrent than a webring or adsense really in that it is designed as a free advertising tool rather than an SEO tool. Google, like they treat the DP coop, can not have a problem with it.

I do have an interest in link vault as I provided the consultancy for it. I very rarely get involved in projects like this that aren't mine, but this one from outset seemed worthwhile.

If you have any improvement suggestions please post them here or at the link-vault forum http://forum.link-vault.com/

Dont forget it's free and the more that sign on the more everyone will benefit with more adds from different domains being shown :-)
http://www.link-vault.com

Cheers
Alan

Very Nice Alan, look forward to checking it out.

Very cool Alan, I believe I'll sign up soon.

I'm glad to see that link vault is out of beta. I've had a site in the network since the testing phase and its already experiencing results. Nice work Alan!

Awaiting Approval ...

Isn't this "unless you are on a Windows server?"

I applaud the development 'quite innovative'... the keyword being "innovative" as in taking an old idea and reviving it.

Doesn't this development create an ever-expanding "closed-loop" network - affectionally known as a "link farm"?

While dis-similiar by limiting the number of mutually shared linked [to 5] the concept is overly the same.

The caution I would add here [I would think] 'members of' shouldn't rely solely on this development for link development - as they will paint a Google's bulleye on their own website [admittedly that is an uninformed impression].

Maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture - I didn't really investigate into this too much...

Any chance you can elaborate more on the general concept... if I can wrap my head around it I have a volume of sites and owners that would likely give a good 'ump' to the project... but I'm not seeing the whole thing beyond an enviable-eventual failure.

Rod

Thanks for the positive feedback so far :-)

@Fathom
What is to be realised really, is that you do not have to have the links you want going to any of your sites with the code on. You get 30 links and you can place them to whatever sites you wish. Therefore the there is hardly any reciprocation and it isnt a closed loop network as links go off literally around the whole web. As an SEO you can get your 'vaultage' spent on placing links to clients sites. This isnt a link farm in the sense you have one page generated that links to 30-40 different sites. Firstly no link page is generated as the links are integrated on existing pages. This is essentially a group of webmasters that have sponsored links in their footer. Check out jupitermedia and other big sites that do precisely the same but in much more of a closed loop.

As for the scheme being short lived, who knows, the DP coop has been going for months and has well over 2000 members by now id have thought.

Where there may well be changes is in the thematic linking side of things. Google is going down the route of latent semantic indexing which will mean that it be going more towards a hubs and communities thing such as teoma. This is why we have categories in the setup so that as soon as the membership is high enough we can then go straight into "only thematic linking mode"
This is no link farm, this is webmasters prepared to place advertisments on their website and in return they get links to WHEREVER they wish.

The general concept is such...

You are prepared to have link slots on your site (must not necessarily be sitewide like dp coop). In return for these link slots you get allocated a vaultage which is kind of like a currency which can be spent on receiving return links to any one of 30 urls which you can freely define and is not limited to those sites that have the link vault code.
How much vaulatage you get depends on the number of pages you have the code on (NOT the result from a 'site:' call in Google), pagerank, how many slots you allow (1-5) . I cant say the exact calculation involved but it is fair and your vaultage is only given on pages that are actually properly indexed (in cache) and does not rely at all on the google site function (many results are just urls without cache or descriptions).
Clearly the more pages you have the code on, the more 'vaulatage' (currency) you have to spend.

see snapshot link below...


How you spend your vaultage is up to you, any site, url (deep link or whatever) can receive links from members. You can tell the system not to add links from your own site so for example you remove any cross linking problems. You can ssay 'I only want links from english sites' or 'I want links from all domains regardless of language'.

For each link you can set 3 link text, set the growth rate and maximum links.
as each link gets placed onto one of your urls your 'vaultmeter' drops a fraction.

see snapshot link below...


Once your vaultmeter reaches zero you have maxed out on links.
You also get stats on how many links are placed for each url which increases at the set rate you choose on link definition.

Vaultage only gets added once the link has been visited once and if it is definitely cached. So you find that without sending a bot to crawl your site at outset vaultage will consistently grow until all pages with the link code on have been visited at least once (either by browser or by bot). This stops abuse of creating thousands of orphaned pages and ensures the pages are actually cached before being given weight.

The links are permanent in the sense as long as an account link vault exactly what link is on a specific pages and it doesnt rotate.

Setup is easy with just two files to upoload and a php, asp snippet to be added to each page (if html pages then you can use addtype to get them to parse php. there is setup instructions for phpbb forums, snitz forums and normal php pages and there will follow setup instructions for vBulletin and other popular systems such as typo3, oscommerce etc...

The links are of course in pure html on the page with absolutely no footprints so finding out whether a site is the system is nigh on impossible. even the files you upload are all unique with random names. There are no telltale gifs or css classes or anything that makes a link vault link appear different than any hard coded link.

I hope that clears it up a bit. It is a very complex back end so I possibly havent covered everything. We are open to enhancment requests and welcome feedback.

Alan

Well there you go! Yup - ok - I thought I was missing something.

"Proxy linking"! Ya this has real value if the member can get over the mindset "I need more links".

Building the quality of websites already linking to you - is far better than gaining more links to yourself.

Thanks for clearing that up!

If anyone joins who is both a PHP and Coldfusion expert, would be great if they could translate the snippet from PHP to CF. I tried but was unable to make the translation, as PHP is not my thing. If there is ever a CF version, I'll be joining up!

Im not used to seeing webby around anymore, I guess thats good because it means he is busy. I just setup my account on an XP server it super simple. Im hoping to get my vaultage up high it looks pretty cool. This seems to cover all the needs the long term SEO is looking for. Good job

I am still confused about this whole concept. Would anyone be willing to PM a link to a site that is in the Link Vault network so that I can see how a site hoting links look like?

Thanks.

I'm showing the Link Vault main page as a page rank of 0, and the site doesn't appear on Google for a search of "link vault". Banned? Before I sign up, any potential risk in participating?

Spice