Website and blog publishers that want to boost their traffic numbers are finding there's a new buzz word going around. "Linkbaiting" is the latest craze in tactics to drive traffic to websites. Whether it's good, bad or otherwise remains a matter of debate. The reality is, however, that some of the practices involved in linkbaiting are rather effective.

Linkbaiting might be a relatively new word, but the practices it encompasses are not new at all. The term is an umbrella descriptor for a variety of methods that many publishers use to gain incoming links to their sites. Some of the practices involved include such things as hosting contests and giveaways, creating solid content, inventing or designing tools others can use on their websites that link back to another site and even writing articles and posts that attack other's.

The term linkbaiting has earned a dark reputation in the online community, but the fact is many of the measures it defines are anything but shady. Most publishers work their tails off to come up with effective ways to gain traffic and incoming links. In doing so, they can realize increase revenue potential. Linkbaiting can be a great tool to make this happen. Some of its practices are so beneficial, in fact, many SEO optimization businesses offer linkbaiting packages to their clients. On its own, linkbaiting is not bad. It's all a matter of how the effort is handled.

The reason for linkbaiting is rather simple. It's all about gaining traffic. If traffic is increased, revenue potential generally is too. When it comes to making money on the Internet, it's often a numbers game. Since linkbaiting can and does result in traffic increases, it's a popular practice. Another motivation for the practice involves a site's potential search engine ranking benefits. The more incoming links, the better as far as page rank is concerned.

Before diving into a linkbaiting campaign, it's a good idea for publishers to understand a few things. The first is that an increase in traffic is great for a website. The second is an increase in traffic that sends people to pages that are not useful, interesting or informative is not. For linkbaiting to really pay off, new traffic needs to be encouraged to return.

The number of different measures that fall under the linkbaiting definition are many. Some of the more common and generally non-shady ideas include offering up tools for other sites to use, writing good content, offering useful information, sponsoring awards programs and contents and even providing a bit of humor and fun. The best linkbaiting ideas involve drawing natural links via the creation of a good site and/or useful tools. It's that simple.

There are a few somewhat shady means to draw incoming links, as well. These include such ideas as going for a shock factor, attack posts or articles, purposely focusing on controversy and so on.

Linkbaiting itself is not really a bad word. Although the term can describe some methods few enjoy using, the idea behind the concept is a good one. Those who tend to do very well when using some of the practices are publishers that happen to offer something for a visitor's trouble in stopping by.