Since the introduction of Wordpress 2.1, post categories and link categories got merged. wp_links_list and get_links tags have been depreciated in favor of a new tag wp_list_bookmarks. From what I can see (thanks to the Codex article on this tag) the arguments seem to be more logical and useful than the predecessors. I dragged my heels on changing the tag in my current theme as I didn’t know what variables I could work with. If you noticed before (and its really shouldn’t have been obvious, except that it was helpful and pleasing), I had ordered some of my links by length of the link title from shortest to longest (to look good) and some were random. I don’t know if you noticed. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t. You weren’t supposed to.
With the newer tag, your commands are more organized and quite easy to implement. For example, if you want to list links by category, you’d want to pass the argument “categorize” as true (true=1, false=0). So, the code would look like:
wp_list_bookmarks('categorize=1')
This will list your links by category. With no further granularity, your blogroll will be displayed with headings to match the categories you’ve listed your links as. If you want to be pickier, as I have, you can call the tag and specify certain categories, as I have. My link category for often visited blogs is “Daily Visits.” Wordpress treats this as category 15 on my site. Yours will be different. (hint: if you want to know the category ID for a certain link cat, just hover your mouse over the category of a link in your “blogroll” or /sitename/wp-admin/link-manager.php file and the ID# will be the end of the URL you see - as with everything in life, you should pay attention to the details). I display mine separately by specifying the parameter category=15. That displays that link category only.
Now, I’ve ordered the links randomly (on purpose) with the orderby parameter. See the Richard’s SEO articles on Untwistedvortex.com. That is to display only a certain number of links with the limit= parameter. If you specify a number fewer than your actual links list and you specify a random view, the Search Engines will think that your site is active and updated often. I’m still fine tuning the process and will also be setting up a better links page. But, in the mantime, if you don’t see the link you want, hit F5.
Mine are numbered from 1 - 99.
My site is active enough, and when indexing comes by every 2 days, there’s always new content.
You might want to check out the post I did on a SEO site that has tips on it that really work.
I’ve seen results instantly! Especially with my Alexa rank.
I understand where you’re coming from. I already do most of that and have for a while. I am also concerned by something that I read by a better SEO expert HERE and it makes sense. I’ve already changed my ratio of internal vs external links with writing different sidebars and footers for different single page templates (check it out if you haven’t before - click the links at the top of the page). Its all a matter of being smart and getting the most links yourself (by linking elsewhere, once per site, now and then).
MacBros, I linked to that article via your website in the last article of my series. Corey, I linked to a different spot on Andy Beard’s site in the same article.
All I did was take what I learned and passed it on.
RT, I got the Technorati ping . I saw your link. Thanks BTW.