What The Perfect Link Builder Looks Like
Eric Ward wrote a friggen great article on Searchengineland today called A Portrait Of The Perfect Link Builder
It discusses the characteristics of good link builders and the very real challenge of knowing what to look for when seeking a link builder for your business. It is a nice piece where Eric shares alot of good info. He did, however, leave something out. Me. 
The perfect link builder
It is with great delight that I help you with your quest to find the perfect link builder so you all may learn from my sweetness.
When seeking a link builder for your business, you should tailor your search to people who are similar to me.
Trying to find someone even remotely as extraordinary as I am is sorta the holy grail of the search industry, but you should try to do so anyway. You all seem so cute and I want to help you, so here are a few pointers to help you get on the right track…
The perfect link builder smokes cigarettes.
If a non-smoker is telling you that he or she is a link builder then you should point that person out to me so I can hit them repeatedly with a stick until they whine like the little lame non-smoker they are. [Editors note: “hit with a stick” is the copyrighted property of Lisa Barone]
The perfect link builder drinks alcohol.
If I do not smell alcohol on someones breath, I do not smell link building ability either.
The perfect link builder is shifty.
There should be something about the beady eyes of your potential link builder that kinda worries you.
The perfect link builder is good looking.
See picture above, or my About page
The perfect link builder inspires.
A true link builder hires minions and inspires them to work hard by buying them beer, pizza, and letting them smoke at their desk.
The perfect link builder does not work before noon.
I have seen link builders work prior to noon, but I have never encountered extraordinary link builders working before noon. Mornings hurt our heads and stifle our creativity.
The perfect link builder is a smart ass.
The one over riding sign of link building ability is a smart ass. If at no time during the interview process does the applicant make fun of you, then you have not found the perfect person yet.
The above pointers should start you off well, use them in your quest for link builders, but you should link to me if you do.
Thank you Eric for a wonderful article which inspired me to be a smart ass as I sat here smoking and drinking in the middle of the night writing this, shiftily creating an article for my own blog instead of leaving it in the comments of yours.
Luckily, I can get away with stuff like that because I am so good looking.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Like speed dial #1, you have now reached the top of my list of blogs. Move over seomoz, searchengineland, coppyblogger, stuntdubl and graywolf!
June 19th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I know what you did at SMX…..
Does this smart ass remark entitle me to call myself a great link builder now? I’m already good at hangovers in the morning and smoking while eating pizza, but I need to improve the smart ass and shifty qualifications.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Hehe, great post Pat. Love the topic, pics and as always your unique spin on the world of search.
June 19th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Pat - your modesty is a true lesson to us all!
June 20th, 2007 at 1:09 am
PQ - You sound like a very wise person. Thanks!
Joost - You’re not shifty?… mr. let me wait until the very milisecond that Matt Cutts posts so I can pimp my plugin at the top? Hee hee
Ciaran - The funny thing is that I actually toned it down a bit to be less about me and how great I am (you should have seen the first draft)
June 20th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Ecopt, I just started using spam protection, sorry it took so long to get your coment up. I have to figure it out more, it is affecting a couple of people. Sorry.
June 20th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Why aren’t there any women writing to tell you ……, Pat? Good luck up north! You’ll have to explain Google.ca to us all. I used to think the .ca meant California. Now that I humored you, can I ask a serious question about the Webmasters Guide? It says not to put over 100 links on a page, but my site map is starting to flow to over 100. Should I start a second sitemap page? If so, what should I call it? I’m thinking something cleaver like ’sitemap 2.” I remember Vanessa, before she moved over to Zillow, ha, saying something about using a second sitemap page.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
The 100 links/page is not an absolute limit. However, the more links you have on a page, the less value will be passed to each of them. By limiting the number of links you can make sure that each link is worth something (rather than just a tiny fraction of that).
That said, when you say “Sitemap” do you mean a XML Sitemap file (or text URL listing)? If so, you can put all your “links” (URLs) in there - up to 49′999 per file and I think up to 1′000 files (and more, if you have that many). The sitemap-files are not treated like normal pages, so you don’t have to worry about that. Also, if the sitemap is a HTML sitemap page, then you might still want to use more than 100 links on it — if you don’t need to have those links pass value and if it makes sense with regards to usability.
June 20th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Tinkerbell: The guidelines of Google do specifically state that if your site map starts to get over 100 links, you should make another page.
Another suggestion is to consider if all the links of your sitemap are necessary. See of you can make your siemap more concise. If you can’t then the Google guidelines suggest you make a new page.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Thanks to both of you. My sitemap is a simple list of all the html pages on my site. I used regular text links. I could just weed pages out, but I thought the point was to list all the pages for the bots in order to make their job easier and faster. I didn’t even know that sitemap links were passing value.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
John: I can be of some help to your question, I guess. The 100 limit is for the HTML sitemap, not for the XML sitemap. The XML one gets up to 49,999 and anything above would get you into the second XML (ie sitemap2.xml). Hope this clarifies your doubts.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I found the page that you’re talking about, but I haven’t had time to read it. Here is the link: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.html. I’m going to get back to it tonight and spend some time going over it carefully. I remember Vanessa saying that you don’t really need to add all the info about update schedules etc. and that just a plain list will do. I’ll probably stick with the simple html for now. My skills aren’t all that high yet.
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Only just now did I realize what you were talking about with the shifty-Matt Cutts-me comment. You saw this: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/smx-seattle-wrap-up/#comment-106642 (didn’t read those comments until today and only because I got there through Graywolf’s blog).
Joost de Valk is an SEO from Holland and resides here: www.joostdevalk.nl (you should know him from SEOmoz), I’m from Curacao and much better looking