What is Link Building?
Definition: Getting other
websites to link to yours to improve your ranking in Google. Basically.
One man’s spam is another man’s quality link. Remember that, too.
Today Google has a few surprises for web masters bending the rules in this fashion. As well as investing more manpower to hand out MANUAL ACTIONS (penalties), Google introduced PANDA, to deal with those low quality pages, and PENGUIN to deal with those unnatural links. PANDA and PENGUIN are algorithm changes (as opposed to penalties) – but that’s splitting hairs. FYI I’ve very much simplified these two algorithm changes in Google, but trip a PANDA or PENGUIN filter, and traffic levels take a nosedive over night – and they might never come back. A kick in the balls is a kick in the balls – you’ll think you’re penalised and it will feel like one. This is not a black hat seo blog, so I won’t go into link wheels, link hubs, blog networks, three way links, tiered link building service, hacks or redirects (other than mention them) because I don’t do any of that any more (not that I did much anyway). For me (at least) the focus since PENGUIN (and especially since the disavow tool appeared) has focused entirely on building something useful that will attract links so I don’t need to build unnatural links and be looking over my shoulder. My notes are for money sites – sites you want to build something useful to people that makes money. If you’re going to break the rules, hire a link buyer who can help you with your business model, too, because you’ll need it – and that’s not me. I work with companies who focus on making the website better and richer in content. It’s much easier to get links to something that’s useful, and when you earn rankings, it’s a more stable existence in Google these days. Too many people submit spam reports and too many people engage in negative seo for me to invest too much in unnatural links these days – but that’s horses for courses. The truth is, if you work on your site and put a bit – OK a massive amount – of effort into it, you can still achieve top rankings and better traffic, month on month, while your competition is slapped about by Google. If you are totally new to building links to your website – I’d focus on creating the best page on the web for what you want to rank for – and then think ‘where is my next great link’ coming from. Or – do it the other way around. You can see the types of great content being linked to in your niche – and emulate that, to chase down similar links. If you want to rank in Google with any confidence in the long term, you are going to have to INVEST in GOOD content, and GREAT links. If you don’t want to do that – you better hire a great black hat spammer. The number of low quality links pointing at your site will affect your rankings adversely, and I’ve not seen many paid links age well. Eventually – those unnatural links will catch up with you. Get links from REAL sites that doesn’t sell links and you’ll soon see results.
The Basics
When you are not spamming it, ranking in Google today is about
patience, ACCESSIBILITY, RELEVANCE, REPUTATION and above all – TRUST –
however Google works that last one out. I prefer focusing on improving
those signals, rather than just manipulating link popularity. A link
building campaign devoid of any quality, or of any use to anyone, is not
the type of back link profile Google wants to reward with any long term
consistency. Google calls that spam, and will punish you for it if it
detects an intent to deceive it’s algorithms. Not that that stops a good
spammer of course. If you’re reading this, chances are you are not a
good spammer, so I would keep it clean until you know what you are
doing. And maybe even then….. Here’s some tips to get you started:
- Get links from real sites to build real domain authority
- Try and get links from authority websites in your niche. Find that circle of sites where authorities in your industry link to and are linked from and think about how you can get involved.
- Don’t worry too much about “theme” of websites linking to you
- Review the tactics your competitors employ to earn links and think about how you can emulate them
- Join social networks, not for the links themselves, but to get your content noticed by the linkerati, to build your personal network, and to build your ‘Authorship’ signal – you’re going to need those for the future!
- It doesn’t hurt to get a link from a low or high Google Page Rank page. Today’s No-PR page might be a PR 5 page in reality, as Google Toolbar Pagerank is out of date.
- Get links from relevant sites, but any editorial link is a good link, regardless of the page and site it is on.
- Focus on quality link building techniques and strategies to avoid future unnatural links notices in Google Webmaster Tools
- Don’t annoy folk with link begging emails without a good pice of content for them, and don’t bombard friends you make on social networks with your sales message.
- Help others achieve their goals today and some will help you in the future
- The more people abuse certain links, the faster they turn toxic. Don’t go with the herd.
- Automated link building or manual link building – if the end result is an unnatural link you’ve placed yourself, Google doesn’t want to count that
- Outsource link building with extreme caution in 2014.
Which Search Engine Gives The Best Advice?
Unless you have no clue about what is going on and think GooglePlus counts are the number one ranking factor, you’ll realise building high quality links to your site is STILL the single most important thing you can be doing to improve the rank of an already relevant page (if you haven’t been doing anything shady in the past, that is. If you have, you need to concentrate on dissociating your self first from unnatural links). In competitive verticals – you can easily follow Bing/Yahoo clear linkbuilding guidelines to rank in Google, but forget to try and rank in Bing/Yahoo with this same technique because to do so, you need to use Google Webmaster Guidelines as a rulebook for success, and that will penalise you in, em, Google, which no sensible person wants. Bing and Yahoo encourage you to outreach for relevant links to improve the rank of your website:
Bing says:
“simply ask websites for them”Yahoo says
“Correspond with webmasters of related sites and other providers of relevant content in order to increase the number of links to your site.”Google has a different view. Google says
“Any links intended to manipulate ….a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Additionally, creating links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page, otherwise known as unnatural links, can be considered a violation of our guidelines.Basically two of the 3 major (UK) search engines encourage you to ask websites for links to specifically improve the ranking of your site, and the biggest, Google, tells you not to do it at all. Bing’s SERPS (which go a way to power Yahoo searches) look pre penguin and pre-emd Google serps. You can easily rank in Bing and tank in Google, these days. Actionable Advice From Yahoo and Bing: Get links from related sites. Ask for links to increase the number of links to your site. (quotes) Honesty From Google If we spot a linkbuilding footprint we will f*** you. (paraphrased)
Bing’s Position on Link Building Clarified
Here’s a post on link building and seo for “smart webmasters” on the Bing search blog.
Interesting and it gives an insight into linkbuilding and penalties for manipulation – we know the same sort of thing is happening at Google too. Bing’s policy on link building
- You contact webmasters of other, related websites and let them know your site exists.
- If the value that you have worked so hard to instill in your site is evident to them, they will assist their own customers by linking back to your site. That, my friend, is the essence of link building.
- Relevance is important to end users… We see the content they possess and the content you possess. If there is a clear disconnect, the value of that inbound link is significantly diminished, if not completely disregarded.
- If relevance is important, the most highly regarded, relevant sites are best of all. Sites that possess great content, that have a history in their space, that have earned tons of relevant, inbound links – basically, the sites who are authorities in their field – are considered authoritative sites.
- When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction. If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.
Bing’s position on link building is straightforward – we are less concerned about the link building techniques used than we are about the intentions behind the effort. That said, techniques used are often quite revealing of intent.
Building Links Is Easier When You Have Content Worth Linking To
Getting other sites to link to yours is easy when you have content worth linking to. it really is that simple in some cases. Your content should be original, but it doesn’t need to set the world on fire. The more content you add to your site, the more likely people will link to it, today or in the future. I’m still getting links from stuff I wrote years ago. So first thing you should be doing is, er…., adding content to your site. I personally think How-To articles, or articles that discuss a common problem often discussed in forums etc – some call it timeless content – is best suited to linkbait (and visitors!). This is always going to get linked to at some point if it’s presented slightly differently, and interesting. Once you get enough links and you feature in the top 3 results, you’ll find you start to pick up more and more natural links. Where to start? See that crap little FAQ on your site? Those frequently asked questions nobody asks about? Those need expanded – each FAQ should be it’s own page with a good page title and in a well structured site. You need to ask your self what do people want to know about your products, or your industry – not necessarily your business. Having content on your site makes it so much easier to pick up links. If you have no content, while you can still rank in Google via links alone, you’re limiting yourself in a way you might not recover from. Try not to add content to your website that’s not just about your boring company. Most folk are not interested.
Tell The World About Your Site But Don’t Ask For Links!
Google used to say:Have other relevant sites link to yours.Then it’s guidelines changed to:
Tell the world about your site. Googleand in 2014:
create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. GoogleIt’s clear. Google does not want you asking specifically for links or building links you make yourself because this is a clear attempt to manipulate rankings. It’s a bit slack advice when the key to ranking and traffic success in Google is getting other relevant authority sites link to your site. Links are what the web is about though and it is why Google is the number 1 search engine. Links were about before Google. There’s nothing wrong with getting other sites to link to you as long as it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb you’re looking for Pagerank or improved rankings for particular terms. Private discussions with people you know are another thing, but when I ask for links (which I don’t do very often), I very very rarely ask for specific keyword anchor text. If I send out an email, I’ll point someone in the direction of the page, and I’ll point out that linking to it might have some benefit to their own audience. On some occasions in the past, I’ve offered to reciprocate the link IF it is of benefit to the readers of the other page. I never specify any attribute of the link either e.g. whether or not it is search engine friendly, or not. I would not go on record these days sending an email out saying:
Link to me using the following keyword text on a page with Pagerank of minimum 2….… and neither should you. You never know who will end up reading that and it makes it clear you don’t have a clue what you are on about and will take links from and link back to anybody. If you want people to link to you in a particular way, make sure the title of the page you want links to, has the keywords you want to rank for featured, and a lot of folks will use those words to link to you. I sometimes change the title of pages for this exact reason. This is presuming, of course, the page is useful in some way! And don’t send out spam email requests. I get hundreds of bottom feeder link requests and don’t answer any of them. It is a waste of time. There is many ways to skin a cat of course, but this is how my linkbuilding company does it – and I’ve said before, we’re a content focused link building agency. We don’t build links to crap anymore (not even crap links). How do you tell the world about your site? Twitter. Stumbleupon. Facebook. TV. Press Ads. Articles. Blogging. Linkedin. You pick – but start with building something on your website somebody will get use out of.
Get Links From REAL Sites (Sites That Do NOT Exist JUST To Link To Other Sites)
Sometimes it’s hard to explain to people what a quality link is but in
simple terms in 2014 Google wants you thinking nothing but a natural
link is a ‘good link’. Links do not have to be relevant to your industry
to build your domain authority (far from it), the linking site you earn
a link from doesn’t have to be an authority in it’s niche, and
it doesn’t have to be the same links as your competitors’ to get the
same rankings. Even if the site is irrelevant to your site (and you just
bagged a lucky link) – THAT is a good link. Any type of editorial link
is a good link. What it should NOT be is a website (or websites) that ONLY exist to provide links to other sites to boost rankings. This is what is defined as a link scheme – and Google has a bit of an after hours hobby of going after a lot of link schemes in
these days. Every link building specialist LOVES EARNED LINKS –
although a lot of experienced link builders just won’t give up on
manufactured links while spam prevails in Google’s listings – and
there’s a lot of that. I think about how I get links from real sites,
and the more authoritative the site, the better, of course. Ideally: - You don’t just want a link on a useful links page, but as long as the links page is a useful resource, and not abusing anchor text, then it could still be a good link
- You don’t necessarily want it on a page on a site obviously selling links as chances are the links will not age well, at least
Go Off Topic & Get Natural Links From Trusted Sites
A lot of SEO & Internet marketing blogs will say pump out a lot
of relevant content on your blog, build a resource all around a specific
subject. Even Google says to do the same. What you won’t normally hear
is to improve your traffic, improve the number and quality of your links
to your website is to go off topic…. write about
anything that is timely – especially when it’s even slightly topical.
News jacking stories in related niches (or your own) is still a great
way of picking up natural, socially driven links. When you
go off topic into less competitive niches, you can sometimes have a
better chance of ranking on the first page of Google. The Best Way To Earn Natural LInks Is TO Be Top Of Google
If you are the number 1 link in a SERP, you wouldn’t believe the amount
of natural links you get just because you are already No1 – it truly is
a self re-inforcing effect and can be a powerful way to attract links
over time. The number 1 position truly is a self reinforcing position
especially if there’s any semblance of a natural linking profile in that
particular keyword vertical – ie tutorials, research, how-to etc. So – a
strategy is to rank for as much as possible from the start – even if
that is LONG-TAIL queries – and so that starts with IN-DEPTH CONTENT on
YOUR SITE. If you are building links to 500 word articles – that’s not
going to stand the test of time over even the next year or two. These
links from trusted sites help ranking your content – especially your new
content. A natural link from a trusted site (or even a more trusted
site than yours) can do nothing but help your site. I would think when a
trusted site links to your site, the trust Google places in your site
because of that link raises your own trust levels, and while not helping
you rank immediately for your main terms, can help you when you publish
new content in the future. Of course if the off topic trusted site
links to you with good keywords, you don’t get much better. The art is
to pull all that together in a way that benefits you the most, without
giving Google a reason to place less trust in your site. Now for sure, I
don’t go that far off topic and expect to get links that will really
count. But certainly, going off topic every now and again, especially with a helpful article on your blog certainly
gets you links, sometimes tons of traffic, some you wouldn’t normally
receive in your boring niche. You know you can monitise anything if you
can be bothered and take advantage of any page that’s been linked to
heavily, but the point is the natural links you earn from this type of
activity might well be the only links you need to beat off a competitor.
Sometimes it’s surprising the quality of links you get with a bit of
off-topic content.
Links That Effect Ranking Change In Google SERPS
Any link that sends you traffic could be seen as a good link,
but what are quality links, what are good links and what are crap
links, when it comes to improving the actual ranking of your own pages
in Google SERPS? First, you need to be aware that the quality of a link (that effects a ranking improvement for your own site in Google) is dependant on the page and site it is on.
Is the site trusted, is the page trusted, is the page in Google’s index
at all, how many links point to the actual page your link is on, are
people actually going to click this link (that in itself is a good
measure of the quality of a real link)? Most importantly, it’s all about
the page the link is on. Just because you get a link on a high PR
domain does not automatically make that a good link. It’s the page you
need to be interested in. You should have a light mixture of focused anchor text links, unfocused anchor text links and URL citations (www.hobo-web.co.uk etc) in your link profile to ensure long standing rankings (ie a natural link profile). What follows is my general rule of thumb:- Your internal links Not THE most important links, but the best place to start. Get your site in order before you get links. Google loves a good site structure with plenty of text links pointing to each page on your site. I prefer a minimal sitewide navigation and a lot of in content links if you have a lot of useful content, and I consider all the time if Google is only counting the first link on a page. Don’t forget to link to your important pages often - ENSURE your get them into Google’s index in the first place.
- Links on mainstream news sites, and other types of authority sites – or in short, links from Brands - the holy grail in my opinion – promotion, old style. Purely because they are trusted and have a lot of links to them.
- Related industry site (the aim of seo, and excellent quality, but depends on the site, niche and the type of link – can be very useful) – usually, they too have a lot of links.
- Link on a high PR old style aged trusted page - like a university or government resource page – excellent if you can get the webmaster to link to you
- Links from unrelated but non abusive sites (depends on the site and the type of link – can be very useful for improving your Google ranking & PR)
- Link on a blog post (good, dependant on the site, but easily deteriorates over time as a post is gobbled up in sometimes very crap site architecture.
- Social media site links (opinion, I think these are very very weak as a ranking signal in themselves, but they do get your page out there, and that’s how you pick up organic links.
- Link on a useful links page (often very low quality, but sometimes very high quality – it’s all dependent on the INTENT of that page in question)
- Reciprocal links (often very very low quality, but sometimes just a natural part of the link graph, if it’s done with user experience in mind)
- Dofollow Blog Comments - PENALTY MATERIAL
- Site wide links & blogrolls (generally low quality in terms of anchor text transference – used to be good for PR transference but not nearly as effective as it used to be) PENALTY MATERIAL
- Article submission & syndication services - PENALTY MATERIAL
- Directory Links - PENALTY MATERIAL
- Forum Signatures (generally low quality, dependant on page and forum, perhaps dependant on number of links too) PENALTY MATERIAL
- Widgets - PENALTY MATERIAL
- Unnatural Sitewide links - PENALTY MATERIAL
Assimilate Competitors Successful Strategies For Natural Back Links
As part of my analysis, I ALWAYS scan competitors back links to see if they have managed to earn any quality links and determine how they did it and if it can be replicated. In 2014 – you are only looking for the very best links. You don’t want to engage in any low quality seo techniques just to take on one or two competitors. It’s not worth it – you’re probably better off just outing your competitor on Google’s forums. Seriously.
Should I Buy Links To Improve Google Rankings?
SHORT ANSWER - NOT IF THEY LOOK LIKE PAID LINKS! Buying links that
are search engine friendly and “flow Pagerank” is against Google TOS.
If you buy links you take the risk that Google will penalise you for
unnatural links.. If buying links was ineffective, it wouldn’t be
against Google TOS. Think about that. I can’t remember the last vertical
I checked there wasn’t people buying links to improve search engine
placement – so the competition is doing it. Last time I checked, they
were ranking pretty good, but it’s not all plain sailing in 2014. Google
is getting better at dealing with some form of paid links. It depends
what you are trying to achieve – although I will point out again Google
will take you down if it finds out. If you are buying links, make sure
your links aren’t obviously paid links, though. That is, don’t buy links
from obvious places. If Google gets better at detecting these, it’s the
obvious paid links that will be hit first. I can say, I don’t buy
links, and I would recommend you not do either. It is too risky in
2014 and there are still plenty of ways to get links without paying for
them.
Link Sellers Are Rarely Discreet
I don’t out individuals for seo tactics, and I don’t out the myriad
of purveyors of link prospects who contact me every day, non-stop. This
one takes some beating, from a MIDDLE EASTERN NEWSPAPER:Hello, The (A MIDDLE EASTERN NATIONAL NEWSPAPER) is currently offering outside companies to purchase links from within our articles. To place a bid, simply send a document with the keywords you would like to purchase, and your price bid. Feel free to search the site for yourself, to find the perfect article for you. Since we are just starting this venture, we have no fixed price, thus you can choose the amount of links, period of time, and so on. We are allowing the first 1000 S.E.O. companies to send in their bids, without the limitation of a starting price. We will accept lucrative offers. Mind you, we also sell conventional links, such as: * Link on “sites of xxxxxxxx” (footer of master page) priced @ $500 per month (6 months minimum). * Text link on the home page priced @ $1,300 per month. * Text link on the inner pages priced @ $1,000 per month. Once a bid is accepted, you will be contacted by a sales representative, to process the campaign’s details. Have a good day, (REMOVED).Hmmm… I looked at where some of the links are featured, and sure enough, a list of totally unrelated sites. Paid links. Now say I see one of my competitors in there? I could just report the site for selling links and my competitors for buying them (not that I personally bother with that). Or I could out them on a public blog. Lucky then I don’t out SEO tactics is because I think outing seo tactics themselves is a little self serving, and slimey, these days. Everybody knows selling links is against Google TOS whether you listen or not. AND if I did buy links in footers like this (which I don’t), I wouldn’t be happy there was an email to 1000 seo companies telling THEM my clients was buying links. Would a rival newspaper use this information against you too if they new, especially given the polarising nature of the content (again, not that it bothers me)? If you are buying or selling links that are search engine friendly you better be doing it more covertly than this….. you need to build relationships to get decent links, even like the ones above. Start, for instance, with a private email address, and open up a conversation before you show folks what you have got? I sent the email back with a link to this post to see what they say….. DOH! UPDATE 22 February 2013 – News Media sites get a Pagerank penalty.
The rest of this article is from 2010 I’ve long thought it quite funny the situation between the mainstream media v Google. Some media sites say it’s all one sided and Google are stealing their content, are putting up pay-walls, even when seo have been saying for years about how Google is falling over themselves giving them tons of trust, tons of traffic AND making their links some of the most valuable on the web. Google uses big trusted sites like news media sites, and their links, to help them sort out the cess pool of the web. A quick look around some newspapers websites (the top UK ones) and some of the seo efforts are shocking – they don’t even seem to know how to make sub domains rank well. Yes, some newspaper sites HAVE cottoned on to the fact they have massive domain authority and are rolling out everything from dating sites to – jeez – low quality business directories. I would do some of that too I suppose. I mean Google has made newspaper sites authority sites in niches like online dating. Um. Right. A quick look around some local newspapers too and you see they don’t link out to anyone, anywhere. Oh wait – there’s some paid link articles to personal injury lawyers lol and an advertising network of links that have clearly affected the site’s ‘trust’. Yeah – you need to know when to get out of those things before it goes t*ts up as they say in Scotland. I don’t buy links but at the same time I don’t think it’s hypocritical to say the least that search engines frown on bloggers selling links and do little to deter newspaper sites obvious link selling tactics. Some newspaper sites are so stupid they send out crazy link selling emails too, like above, and indeed, some folk do out them. The fact is - only SHOCKINGLY bad – not just bad – seo will get these sites penalised in a NOTICABLE WAY – and even then – only if outed, then a discussion about inappropriate domain authority in particular niches might focus the spotlight. I don’t out seo strategies, but I wonder if it’s worth examining newspaper seo in the future. They do make a business of outing other folk. Right? To be honest at this time, I think as a link builder, it’s more appropriate NOT to out others under just about any circumstances but it is something I think about. It’s probably more useful to think how you are possibly going to combat mega domain authority gate crashes impact on your business, or in turn work out how you can look like a brand to Google. Guess what – that involves newspaper websites at the moment…..
Reciprocal Links With Unrelated Websites
Another question I get asked daily. Many new clients send me
unsolicited emails from companies that ask for “reciprocal links between
their site and yours”, usually because it will “improve search engine
rankings” for both websites. I can tell you I usually ignore all reciprocal link exchange requests via unsolicited emails and recommend you do to. I spend my time looking for quality links and
believe me, I’ve not found ANY in any email like I describe above. It’s
actually against Google TOS to do this type of reciprocal link spam:Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include……Now I suppose that’s rich advice coming from a seo (whose supposed to be manipulating search engines if you listen to some of the bollocks some big name web designers linkbait with these days), but reciprocal link exchanges like the one I mention above offer NO REAL SEO benefit to YOUR site (especially when they are on link partner pages) and Google says it might NEGATIVELY impact your rankings. IF YOU TAKE A SECOND AND VISUALISE in your head the link scheme in place and the relationship between pages via links in the reciprocal links hub scenario, you can see how easy it is to do so. Google can probably compute and identify that one a lot faster than you can its so obvious. I IGNORE ALL SPAM EMAILS ASKING FOR RECIPROCAL LINKS especially if they are from some company who sells something totally unrelated to my site. I honestly can’t even remember the 0.1% I’ve responded to but I assume I did at least once back in the day – I know I asked for them when I started out 10 years ago but that’s when this type of link was of some use. Usually they will put your link on a “useful links” page. A useful links page out to unrelated sites on a low quality domain is just spam to Google and more often or not the pages your links are on will just be ignored by Google so there is no point getting a link from these pages. Too many of them and you WILL get a notice of unnatural links. Unrelated Sites
- Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
- Should you reciprocate links with irrelevant unrelated websites? NO – It’s a waste of time and potentially damaging.
- Should you link out to other unrelated sites at any other time? OF COURSE YOU SHOULD BUT NOT JUST TO MANIPULATE SEARCH RANKINGS. If the page is relevant to an article on your site, then it’s a good link. These types of links are the currency of the web.
- Should you worry if unrelated sites link to you? No.
Should I Always Avoid Reciprocal Links?
Theory – If someone
links to my site, and I don’t link back to them, that’s said to be a
good link. A one way link. When you link back to that site, that’s what a
reciprocal link is. If a very trusted site links to my site, and
gave me a ranking boost, am I expected to believe that linking back to
them will remove my ranking boost? I don’t believe that to be the case. I
don’t think it aligns what Google is trying to do (when not trying to
make money) – ie improve their search results for the end user. When a
trusted site, or a site with online business authority, links to a site
it deems trustworthy, and boosts rankings to improve it’s SERPS in line
with it’s algo, it’s not going to dump that site back down the rankings
just because it reciprocates. I don’t think, anyway. Linking back to a
site that links to you is actually a very common thing on the web. All
these links build your own sites trust and authority in Google, which
you can unlock with fresh topical content via a blog for instance –
which I think is more useful these days than ranking for a major key
term. Consider the small site that links to it’s industry body, and a
year down the line the small site is a big player, with links from the
industry body. Is that link useless? I would think Google is a lot
smarter than that, at some level anyway. I think Google would at all
times take into account the trust and authority of the sites in question, and wether or not it has any reason not to trust the sites. My
rule of thumb is I don’t mind reciprocating links at all, especially if
the other site is more authoritative or is highly relevant to my
audience. I never use low quality reciprocal linking between untrusted sites as an actual ranking improvement strategy.
I never link to a site JUST BECAUSE THEY LINK TO ME, because the
chances are, they are linking to any site out there regardless or not if
it is in, or has the potential to be one day, a bad neighbourhood, and Google reserves the right to penalise you badly if you link to one of these, or are linked from one of them. So:- avoid low quality reciprocal links where possible, and avoid get-links-quick schemes
- try and get other sites to link to you first
- don’t worry about reciprocating links with real trusted sites
- don’t use reciprocal links as a ranking improvement strategy
- don’t just link to just anyone, especially just because they link to you
The Perfect Link Building Strategy Is To Mix It Up
The best piece of advice I can give you is to vary your linking
strategy. It’s the only way to be sure you’ll achieve good rankings, and
keep them. Remember that what works today might not work “tomorrow” –
so it’s worth experimenting while all the time hunting for those
“quality” links. Surely everybody knows by now, Google, and indeed the
Internet, is powered, by HTML Links. Good rankings, and success, in all
the search engines results pages, eventually lies in getting links from
other sites to your site. Effectively, the more the better. Bearing in
mind “Content Is King” on the web, no matter how great your content is,
no matter how search engine optimised your page is, if you don’t have
inbound links, you’re usually next to nowhere in the Google SERPS –
especially in competitive markets – probably because a competitor has
got in there first and generated some content and links before you. But
what is the perfect link? What is the best linking strategy? The answer
is – everybody has a different view of a perfect link, and everybody has
different ways of measuring exactly what a perfect link is. Here’s my
take on what I look for when i am link hunting (all, I think worth
thinking about and in no particular order). 1. Pagerank
Did I say Pagerank? Yes. Google Pagerank is still important regardless
of what some seo people claim. Google (well, Matt Cutts, said (a long
time ago admittedly) the easiest way to get your internal pages out of
the supplemental index (Google’s back up listings) is to get PR to those
pages. A high Pagerank can also mean your site is crawled more
frequently than it might be (good if you are constantly adding content
to your website – which of course, you should be doing.) Don’t blindly
‘trust’ Pagerank – but it can be a good indicator. If it’s real – great.
2. Anchor Text Anchor text is simply the text in the
link. If I want to rank for something and I have an optimised page
waiting to get links to it, I’d like a link with my actual desired
keyword or keyword phrase in the actual link ie “link building expert”
instead of “click here” or something. My thinking is, I’m not trying to
rank for “click here” am I? I would be VERY careful though – Google is
on the look out for anchor text abuse. I would encourage it, rather than
overtly advertise it. For instance – what you put in your page title
often ends up in links…. so changing your page title every now and again
can mix this up. 3. Contextual Link within text, surrounded by text
Google can easily spot a long list of links (like navigation arrays
etc) so I would always try and get a link from within the actual text on
a page so it looks more “natural”. Ideally the surrounding text would
also be relevant to my page. Sometimes the only sure way of generating
these links is to write good content on your site to “force” people to
link to you (unless you own the other site of course). These type of
links are in my opinion the creme de la creme of links (which is why
some seo’s actually buy these type of links (I don’t). 4. Trust / Authority
Trusted sites pass “trust factor”. Basically the thinking is, trusted
sites rank well in Google, because they are, well, trusted! (stop me if
this gets too complicated!). Trusted authority sites rarely link to
spammy sites – they only link to quality, probably related, sites. If
you can manage to get a link from a trusted site in your niche, this
could be worth it’s weight in Gold. How do you tell if a website (or
page within a website) is trusted? Well that’s the question that’s on
the lips of every seo! How do i determine it? Well, if you think simply,
if it’s all about HTML links, then trust would be calculated by Google
by the number and quality of links to that site / web page. Simply, get
links from sites with links and pages with links! 5. Relevance / Relationship / Theme
How relevant is the page that is linking to you? I mean, if you have a
seo site, are you trying to get links from search engine optimization
related websites? Where possible, I’ll try and get a link on a page that
is actually about the same subject matter as the web page i want a link
to. HOWEVER – a site with massive domain trust that has NOTHING to do
with my site is still a very powerful link in building your sites
REPUTATION. 6. Hub / Neighbourhood Every niche has an
authority hub, an inner network of sites every other site in the niche
links to. This is the “neighbourhood” a (remarkably!) few seo, including
myself, harp on about. Getting a link from these sites has got to be a
good idea in any campaign, as these sites, that Google already trusts
and rates, pass along a portion of this “trust” thingy Google
calculates. Linking out to these sites is also thought to be useful, as
these links determine the online neighbourhood your site resides within.
7. Any old link! Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take a link
from anyone! Feel Free! But links vary in everything from quality and
trust etc – I just spend my time trying to get quality links where
possible, and at least from relevant pages. It’s these kind of links
that will help you in Google. And don’t think I dreamt all this up
myself. I read a lot of seo blogs on the subject and try and take a
subjective view on what’s best for my purposes and what mood I’m in that
day and what sounds “intelligent” to me, and I’m always experimenting with
every option! It’s always a good idea to vary your link building
strategies, so your not susceptible to massive ranking algorithm changes
when one strategy is devalued. The best piece of advice I can give you if you are intent on coming at backlink building from this angle is to vary your linking strategy.
Mix it up. It’s the only way to be sure you’ll achieve good rankings,
and keep them. Remember that what works today might not work “tomorrow”.
While you’re mixing it up, you’ll also make it harder for others to
reverse engineer your hard work, creating “noise” in the search engines,
but I would be VERY CAREFUL in 2014 – avoid unnatural links.
Why Vary Anchor Text When Building Links?
Imagine you could see Googlebot record your links as it finds them by spidering sites in real time.
Even, consider, that’s your link profile recently generated. Hmmm. I wonder how hard it is for the brainiest people in search to pick out your natural links and ignore / devalue the rest :) -but can you spot the worthwhile manufactured link that might slip past? Unnatural mass link acquisition might well be discounted or be totally ignored. I think it totally depends on the site you are getting the links from though. 5 trusted sites? Hell, don’t bother mixing that anchor text up at all. Most times you need a gun at a gun fight, but you have to do it smarter than the above in 2014. Note – This is a visualisation I use. I don’t know if this is the way it actually works of course, nobody does. (Check out our beginner’s guide to search engine optimisation for more).
Are Directory Links Still Worth It?
In 2014, I would avoid most, if not all directories. I don’t think the
links are worth paying to be ‘reviewed’ by, and many of these seo
friendly directories end up turning into low quality link farms. One
thing’s for sure, most directories send you little or no traffic and on
their own in little numbers have little impact in SERPS. Directory links
are clearly not the type of links Google wants to count as a ‘vote’. In
summary – I wouldn’t bother with directory submissions at all if you’re
focusing on creating good content on your site. It’s worth remembering
that just because a strategy may work on some level,
it still might get you into trouble further down the line. You’ll
probably end up paying the same company to remove the link next year!
Broken Link Building
It’s all about spotting opportunity.
A log time ago I used a very simple method to get 500 links from a PR 5
site with over 3000 links to it. Yes a real site. Best of all, I’ve
used the same method to contact 10 other sites with exactly the same
request about the exact same matter. I’ve used this method a bit over
the last couple of years. Looking at the SERPS I was interested in, I
spotted an expired suspended domain that was ranking for a term I
cherished. The site was actually suspended, and had been like that for
the last six months. There was no content on the site, so I knew
immediately it was the strength of the incoming back links alone that
was keeping this high. I could of course look to buy the expired domain
(but it belongs to a competitor – I’m sure if I expressed a value in it
I’d lose out!) So i ran the expired suspended domain through a back link
checker, identified the most powerful links, contacted the site owners
in question and explained to them:- They were linking to a dead site (and had been that way for 6 months)
- I had exactly the same (nay better and up-to-date) content on a site that they could link to if they wished.
‘Links To Useful Sites’ Pages
Consider how much value these links really
are, especially if there are lots (100+) of links on there – any benefit
to your site could be microscopic (EDIT 2013 – and potentially damaging
to your rankings if the site in question is of a very low quality).
Certainly – do not buy any of these type of links, and I would AVOID
like the plague any of these types of pages where you can spot obvious
anchor text abuse, often to unrelated sites.
When you have a choice of where a link is going, don’t just take a
link from “useful links” pages, unless the ‘useful links’ page is a on a
reputable site, with a lot of back-links itself. The more relevant the
page is to your business, the better. There are some indications the
‘useful links’ pages is a ‘decent’ link:- Check if the links page is indexed by Google at all utilising the info operator - info:www.hobo-web.co.uk
- Consider how authoritative the site in question is – is it an important site within your industry or known as a reputable source throughout the world? (If it is, get a link if you can!)
- Check the Google Toolbar Pagerank of the actual page the link is going to feature on – not just the PR of the home page. Note that Pagerank, or what we see of it, is not a 100% positive proof of the reputation of a website, but it might be an indicator of recent quality.
- Check how many backlinks point to the links page from within the actual site (see list of the best seo tools)
Article Marketing Syndication
Article
syndication (for search engine optimisation purposes) is a big no-no
for me in 2014. You just don’t know where that article will end up, or
on how many low quality sites. I’ve learned to live without it,
after a few years of abusing it a little. I still think the place for
your articles should be on your own blog, on the whole, to attract
traffic and links, and to build your own reputation as an authority. But
I’ve always found article syndication useful for finding the odd
trusted site willing to link to your content, albeit on a more trusted
domain than your own. I once wrote an article that had a signature link
back to my site, and while testing how well it had penetrated the SERPS
and in how many instances, there was one trusted domain with the content
republished, and THAT had attracted a link from a then PR 9 page on a
very old trusted site. Bonus! I immediately contacted the PR 9 (page)
site owners and asked them to link to the original source of the
article, on my site, and they did – which was nice. I also found another
couple of sites that were willing to link to that kind of content for
future reference. The moral of the story is – track where your content
is being published, if you publish a lot of it, and watch out article
syndication does not backfire on you, if you’re using it for seo
purposes. Be wary of
extremely low coast article marketing services, article submissions
services & free press releases. In todays SEO, you do not want your
article links duplicated across only low quality domains – and that is
where most of these type of articles end up. Use sparingly and with
caution. The problem is you lose control of where you syndicate your articles to, and that can turn problematic very quickly.
I avoid article submission sites these days. Period. The first place
for your articles is your own blog, next, it’s getting those article
noticed via social media sites.
Press Releases & Advertorials
Some traditional companies create press releases and don’t think for a
minute how these could be used to successfully promote their website
when syndicated online. Every time you send out a press release, you
should be ensuring you’re getting a few things right. For instance, you
should know by now you should always include your web address. A
big thing to remember in 2014 is to watch Google doesn’t think you’re
intent is to spam their algorithm with press releasees. A responsible
press release agency will add rel=nofollow to
your links to prevent it from passing Pagerank (and possibly prevent
you from getting an unnatural links warning in the future). Google wants
the secondary links from buzz about the news in your press releases to
count toward your ranking, not the actual press release links.
Example: If I were sending out a press release to a third party and
relying on them to publish it (which I don’t but hey!) I’d ensure my web
address is in it! I’d ensure my website address was written in the
correct manner ie http://www.hobo-web.co.uk (with
the http:// because on some sites they’ll automatically make this a
link.) Your web address appearing just like www.hobo-web.co.uk (not a
clickable link) won’t help in Google rankings. Be careful publishing too
many press releases without rel=nofollow on the links. Stay WELL AWAY
from anchor text rich article marketing, press releases and
advertorials. Google made that clear when they added the following to
their guidelines:Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.
Tweets & Facebook Likes
Some traditional companies create Press Releases and don’t think for a
minute how these could be used to successfully promote their website
when syndicated online. If you do a lot of these, don’t just send out your press releases without considering a link-to strategy for
your company. Every time you send out a press release, you should be
ensuring you’re getting a few things right. For instance, you should
know by now you should always include your web address. It’s amazing the
press releases I see and I see no clickable web address. A big thing to
remember in 2014 is to watch Google doesn’t think you’re intent is to
spam their algorithm with press releasees. A reputable press release
agency will add rel=nofollow
to your links to prevent it from passing Pagerank (and possibly prevent
you from getting an unnatural links warning in the future). Google
wants the secondary links from buzz about the news in your press
releases to count toward your ranking, not the actual press release
links. Example: If I were sending out a press release
to a third party and relying on them to publish it (which I don’t but
hey!) I’d ensure my web address is in it! I’d ensure my website address
was written in the correct manner ie http://www.hobo-web.co.uk (with the http:// because on some sites they’ll automatically make this a link.) Your web address appearing just like www.hobo-web.co.uk won’t help in Google rankings. Be
careful publishing too many press releases without rel=nofollow on the
links. Stay WELL AWAY from anchor text rich article marketing, press
releases and advertorials. Google made that clear when they added the following to their guidelines:Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.Is traditional linkbuilding dead? Are tweets the new links? Not for me, just yet….. I don’t think Google is about to throw away it’s $10bn a quarter link-count scraper to rank tweets above links. Not just now anyway – and not in isolation. The idea of people picking the best sites, rather than counting links the traditional way, is an ideal situation, of course – but I don’t see much real evidence of this in competitive verticals so I need to say traditional links are still relied on HEAVILY, by Google at the very least – and what I would prefer if given a choice. While I don’t think I see much of evidence of tweets having a massive impact (compared to traditional html links) in Google’s competitive SERPS – it is worth considering what search engines SAY they are working towards with regards to social ‘buzz’: The following table was compiled by web seo analytics based on an article (about a year ago) at Search Engine Land:
| Bing | ||
| Are Regular Search Results affected by social media buzz? | Yes. It is used as a signal especially for news. | Yes it is a signal. Some weight is passed and regular results are affected. |
| Are Social/Realtime Search Results affected by buzz? | Heavily affected | Heavily affected, Authority metrics are used to determine the hot posts. |
| Are Twitter links taken into account (aka do they pass link juice)? | In some limited situations the data are used. | The data are used. The weight depends on how often a link is posted, the number of tweets & retweets and the authority of the people that post it. |
| Are Facebook links taken into account? | The shared links from Fan pages are treated similarly to Twitter links. No links from personal walls are used. | Only the publicly shared links from Fan pages and Profiles are taken into account. |
| Is there an Authority Rank for Twitter Profiles? | Yes, the author quality is measured. Google calls this Author Authority. | Yes. Several metrics are taken into account. Bing calls this Social Authority. |
| Is there an Authority Rank for Facebook Profiles? | They are treated similarly to Twitter Profiles.Note: Normally if this is true, they measure only public profiles like Fan pages. | No. They take into account only the Facebook data that are publicly available. |
| Does the Twitter Authority have an impact on the weight of the links that are shared? | Yes. The weight depends on the authority of the person. The Author Authority is used in limited situations and it is independent of PageRank. | The Author Authority affects the link weight. |
| Does the Facebook Authority have an impact on the weight of the links that are shared? | Similarly to Twitter. The weight of each link depends on the authority of the profile. | They don’t use Facebook authority. Instead in order to find if something is really popular they compare Twitter & Facebook shares. |
It’s clear search engines are looking at social signals and these WILL only increase in value. We’ve been saying this for a long time, though. Eric Ward calls it right for me:
the rankings effect can be directed at specific known circles, friends, connections, etc. The one size fits all search result is headed for the museum. Also, I believe the highest caliber most credible link sources will become that much more important as a trust signal for engines.The rewards from building artificial links will narrow – as the rewards from social increase – that’s for sure. Even at the moment – to compete in Google organic results, a top 2 or 3 is essential – and you need links from websites to do that. I actually agree with Eric on this too:
I’d take the blog post link because it can continually provide traffic, new tweets, shares, etc., whereas a single tweet, even if by an authority, is fleeting and has a shorter half-life. Much more hit or miss.If I get a choice between a 100 Tweets and a 1 link on a real website, today - I would take the links from real websites or blog posts every time. The safe answer is, yes, you should be on social sites - and you should be getting your site mentioned on these sites, regardless of exactly where the search engines are on social links at this point – as they will only get better at determining links to trust. ‘Great content’ probably has lots of links from many sources, and lots of tweets, too. I will tell you, though, I am not active on Google+, Facebook or Twitter to help my search engine rankings improve - especially with my new sites. I may use Google+, Twitter or Facebook to get new content INDEXED (Bing certainly follows FB fan pages links and there is evidence Google Plus gets a page indexed) but I don’t expect aged content to rank that much better because of tweets- NOT at the moment, in Google, at least. I much prefer to use social sites to reach real people.
Build Links Via Testimonials – Like Google (Did)
(NOTE – Google has since removed the page I held as an example)
I’ve seen a few people mention this kind of tactic in the past but i
thought seeing as Google itself does it for others, it’s an example
worth highlighting, and perhaps copying. This looks like a decent link for those linked at- Link to the home page
- Use The URL keywords or domain name as in the example
- You don’t need to identify the person who gives the testimonial outright
- One external link to a non related property on a page? (I surmise)
Blog & Forum Baiting
If‚ you’ve followed the advice and got some articles to the top of
Google – you might now be starting to get links to your article from
forums and blogs? Of course you know when you are at the top of the
SERPS for particular keywords, particularly how to tutorials, you start
picking up organic links from forums and blogs who see these articles as
trusted articles because, well, they are at the top of Google. When
helping each other out, forum members often use Google to find an
authority article, and link to it to help newbies. Often they will
usually just copy and paste the URL like so:
http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/***** Not ideal. Sometimes it’s worth it go
one step further and provide them with the BBcode and HTML versions of a
nice anchor text rich link to start getting those keyword rich links to
your site. Every now and again, change the anchor text to mix your back
link profile a little. Sometimes you do pick up that natural looking
keyword rich link. Link to this page using BBcode
Check Out[URL=www.hobo-web.co.uk/blog-forum-baiting-get-anchor-text-rich-links/] Blog & Forum Baiting - Get Anchor Text Rich Links From Forums & Blogs[/URL] on the Hobo website.
Link to this page using HTML
Take a look at <a href=" http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/link-building-strategy-for-beginners-a-month-of-free-tips/"> Blog & Forum Baiting - Get Anchor Text Rich Links</a> on Hobo.
I have used this with varying degrees of success in the past. Might work for some of your very best articles, especially if desperate to get particular anchor text in your profile.
Local Links For Local People
- Your local Council - a lot of council sites have local business directories
- Your local College or University - offer a student discount
- Your local Chamber of Commerce - join, or offer a discount to members
- Your local Newspaper - you should always be trying to get a mention in the local press – consider a competition
- Local football club & supporters club - discount = mention on their site
- Local sports clubs - there’s a ton of them in every town usually with crusty old sites – offer them a discount, donate or sponsor them for a mention on their site.
- Local Business Directories - More often than not, somebody has built a local biz directory covering your local area. Get in there, as long as they are not a low quality directory just made to spam Google.
- Local faith groups or other local community groups - When it comes to business, I ain’t got no denomination. Discount anybody?
- Local charities - a link you can probably buy! Sponsor a charity site for a mention – Google would be REALLY MEAN to penalise this sort of link buying on a small scale – and anyway, their attention is probably on bigger sites.
- Local businesses - offer a discount to staff
Beware Building Low Quality Links
When you build a wall, you do it bit by bit, with the same kind of identical bricks until you have a lot of bricks that all look the same… presto, you have a wall. That’s building. My mate does that. You can’t build links that way and EXPECT to win the ranking wars in Google as Google is actively fighting you. Your ‘bricks’ kind of need to be different, ‘brick’ to ‘brick’, to avoid annoying Google or a competitor. There’s a thought out there. Get 200 or 300 or 400 links and you’ll rank. So it’s natural that you think I’ll buy some links from that mob (and I mean mob) for $200 and I’m sorted. You’re not. Those links are s*&t (sorry no other word to describe it). Depending on how good the search engine optimisation company is of course – there’s different varying colours of s*&t but generally speaking you stand in it when you open your email and it says:
We noticed you don’t rank for any of your keywords. We are an expert link building company…..They’ll come from spammy blog and forum comments that might hurt your brand, or web hosting companies with an obvious paid link profile. Even if they are decent at their job – a competitor will just report you for buying links if you do it too much. It will stick out like a sore thumb you’re buying links and that’s against Google TOS. Stop thinking about building links. Start thinking of creating and promoting useful content. Beware buying any ‘affordable’ linkbuilding service promising you guaranteed top rankings, even if they do have apparently great reviews on forums or blogs. There’s no automated link building software that will not get you penalised, eventually, in my experience, but maybe I wasn’t doing it properly. Conversely, I’d give advanced link building courses a miss too, and just focus on making your site a better landing page. Free link building software will probably have lots of free software you don’t know you’re installing on your pc.
Source: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/link-building-strategy-for-beginners-a-month-of-free-tips/
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