The holy grail of SEO, a self-feeding SEO machine, and all that jazz... When the quirky meerkat Aleksandr Orlov appeared on our screens in 2009 to inform us of the difference between Comparethemarket.com and Comparethemeerkat.com, some brilliant linkbait was born. The spin-off site Comparethemeerkat.com (where you can compare thousands of meerkats), has attracted nearly 10,000 inbound links, from people compelled to spread the meerkat word. By linking the spin-off site to the main price comparison site, Comparethemarket.com will have been able to pass on valuable link-juice and gained some well-earned Google-love. Simples! So what is linkbait? According to the head of Google’s Webspan team and SEO-guru Matt Cutts, linkbait is anything “interesting enough to catch people's attention". More specifically, linkbait differs from viral content in that it's not just designed to be spread around, but to be linked to aswell. And while the primary purpose of linkbait is to...
