Introduction
Quick Start
Fundamentals
Miscellaneous
Karma
Lets understand how karma works in Smartlinks. The idea behind it and its execution
History - How websites are valued?
Earlier in 2010s Google used to publish a metric - Page rank. A way to let web-masters know how much their page was valuable in the eyes of Google. SEOs quickly figured that if they tested different strategies, they would be able to figure out which strategies are the best to manipulate the Page rank.
And to stop this manipulation Google decided to stop publishing Page Rank data in 2016. Since then companies like Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush have created their own versions to gauge a website’s value.
Smartlinks currently utilizes Ahrefs’ DR to ascertain value of a website. Websites having DR greater than 40 are considered to be good websites.
Here’s how Karma work in Smartlinks
Link Insertions
Whenever a link is inserted on the Network, karma points are utilized. Let’s understand this with the table below:
Action | Result |
You gave a link to a partner website | You gain karma equivalent to your website’s DR |
You received a link from a partner website | Karma equivalent to partner’s DR would be deducted |
Link Request expires due to your in-action | 10 Karma points would be deducted from your total karma |
Example link insertion:
Website A has a DR of 50
Website B has a DR of 30
Action | Karma Exchanged |
A gives link to B | - A gets 50 karma points
- B’s karma get deducted by 50 |
B gives link to C | - B gets 30 karma points
- C’s karma get deducted by 30 |
Advantage of this karma system:
In this system, high-authority websites earn more karma when they give out a link. Lower-authority websites must work harder to receive a backlink from these high-authority sites, ensuring fairness.
Moreover, this system eliminates the need to track / follow-up on individual favors. Once you provide a link and earn karma points, you can use these karma points to get a link from any other community member.
Do note, this system also ensures that you are not forced to “exchange” a link but rather whether a link (out or in) makes sense to your website
Guest Posts
There are 3 parties typically involved in a guest post -
1. Publisher Website
Publisher websites perpetually seek authors to contribute high-caliber content, to keep their audience engaged.
Since they are getting a high quality content piece for their website they are typically open to help out the author by allowing them to insert do-follow links.
Here’s how karma system would work for the publisher:
- 1 free link to writer website (as they wrote high quality content for free)
- Additional links are offered for 50% of the DR value as karma points
2. Writer Website
Writer website seeking to expand their audience network writes high quality content for the publisher website.
Here’s how karma system works for a writer website:
- 1 free backlink
- Additional backlinks to their own website cost them → Publisher DR x number of additional links
- Each backlink to partner websites they earn → Publisher DR x number of external links
3. Eager 3rd party
Once the guest post is polished and ready to the published, 3rd-party websites can request contextual links. Each link would cost them karma points equivalent to the publisher’s DR.
Let’s break it down with an example featuring an 80 DR Publisher and a 20 DR Writer.
Suppose a guest post carries
- 2 links to the writer
- 2 links to 3rd-party websites
Publisher’s Ledger:
- Gifts 1 free link.
- Scores 120 karma points (3 additional links * 50% * 80 DR).
Writer’s Tally:
- Relishes 1 free link.
- 1 extra backlink to own website ⇒ 1 x 80 = -80 karma
- 2 backlinks to partner websites ⇒ 2 x 80 ⇒ +160
- Final net gain of karma points ⇒ -80 + 160 ⇒ 80
3rd Party’s Account:
- Each link sets them back by 80 karma points.
Referral Karma
When a website joins through your referral link, you earn 20 karma points, the referred website too gets 10 karma points to start with.
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