Link
building is the process of creating links in order to promote a website and to
improve rankings in the ‘search engine results pages’ (SERPs).
Search
engines interpret links as digital “votes” in favor of the destination site. In
general, the more links you have from quality sites the higher you will rank in
the search engines.
Q.2- How long does it take for link
building to improve my site's rankings?
Do not
expect overnight results from link building. First, it takes time to build
quality links. Second, search engines do not always pick up or index new links
immediately, which delays improvement in SERP rankings.
Typically,
it takes several weeks before one sees any movement in keyword rankings. It is
also very common for keyword rankings to bounce up and down at the onset of a
link building campaign. The difficulty of the keywords, competitiveness of the
industry, age and authority of the target site, the aggressiveness of the link
building campaign and the types of links one builds are the primary factors
that determine the velocity of ranking improvements.
Q.3- What key metrics are important
to understand in link building?
Not all
links are created equal – search engines consider many factors when determining
the value of a link. Those factors include, but are not limited to:
- Domain Authority – It is a measure of the importance of a link and take into account the site’s age, its content and its popularity (Social and Links) among other factors. There is no single metric that defines domain authority, but here are some common stats/tools to use:
- Number of Ranking Keywords – How many keywords the site ranks for in Google. One tool to find this data is SEMRush.com
- Backlinks – Is the number of sites that link to a page or site. Opensiteexplorer.org, MajesticSEO.com, and Ahrefs.com are sites that provide backlink data.
- Traffic – Is the number of people that visit a site via target links. Alexa.com and Compete.com both provide traffic estimations and rankings of websites.
- Domain Age – Is the creation date of the site. There are many tools on the internet that will share the registered date of a domain including Domaintools.com, Whois.net and Archive.org.
- Google PageRank – Is Google’s estimation of link popularity. Google provides a toolbar that shows PageRank. There are many other SEO tools that show Google PageRank.
- Social Popularity – Is how many likes, tweets, shares a site receives from Facebook.com, Twitter.com, Linkedin.com, etc. Sharedcount.com is tool that provides social stats estimates.
- Relevance – Is the degree of the relationship between the target site and the content of the originating linking site. Links from topical authorities are very powerful. For example, a link from a sports news site is very beneficial to a site selling athletic apparel.
Q.4- What is PageRank, and is it
important?
Google
PageRank is a key element in Google’s original and current search algorithm.
PageRank is a measure of the value of a particular page based on the quantity
and quality of the pages linking to it. PageRank is a numeric value that ranges
from 1 to 10.
All
factors being equal, links from pages with higher PageRank carry more weight
than links coming from lower PageRank pages, hence its importance to link
builders. Many SEO practitioners consider PageRank an important factor however;
it is only one component among many other factors including content quality,
social signals, website accessibility, etc.
Q.5- What is link popularity? What
are backlinks?
Link
popularity is a measure of both the number and the quality of links pointing to
a webpage.
The term
“backlink” is interchangeable with the terms “link” and “inbound link”. Each of
these terms refers to the html code placed on a webpage that allows a user to
navigate from one page to another. Search engines see links as votes; these
votes determine the popularity of a webpage. In general, the more votes a web
page gets the more the search engines value that page.
Q.6- What is anchor text
optimization?
Anchor
text or link text refers to the content in a link. Anchor text optimization
refers to placing target keywords in the links that point to your website,
which is an effective technique for ranking higher in the SERPs. Concurrently,
anchor text optimization is Google’s Achilles heel. While being a very
effective way for Google and individuals to determine the content of a target
page, millions of webmasters misuse its purpose in order to achieve an
advantage over their non-optimized competitors. To deal with the over-usage of
anchor text as a major ranking factor, Google dispenses various counter
measures. Specifically, Google launched its “Penguin” update in 2012, which
primarily focused on countering those who used anchor text optimization
aggressively. Anchor text optimization is still powerful and important when
done properly. .
Read this
article to learn more about proper anchor text optimization:
Q.7- What is link baiting?
“Link
Bait” is content posted to a website with the intention of encouraging site
visits; to earn natural backlinks, social shares and to furthering the sites
brand influence. Other terms for Link Bait include Share Bait, Social Bait and
Link Baiting. Link Bait is one of the few link building activities that search
engines endorse as long as the content is unique and that it provides real
value. This technique is costly since it requires a lot of time and talent to
do well. However, done correctly, it will have long lasting value.
Q.8- What are NoFollow links and
DoFollow links?
“NoFollow”
links refer to links that contain the rel=”nofollow” attribute inside the html
link code. A NoFollow instructs Google that this hyperlink should not influence
the link’s target page; i.e., do not pass PageRank. Google introduced this as a
method to combat blog spam.
Links
that do not contain the rel=”nofollow” attribute are often referred to as do
follow, DoFollow, or Followed links. These links pass PageRank.
Learn
more about NoFollow links in this article:
Q.9- What is the difference between
link building and link buying?
Link
building, as described above, is the process of creating links. Link buying is
a method of link building that involves paying a webmaster to place a link on
their site.
Q.10- What are paid links?
Google
states: “Google and most other search engines use links to determine
reputation. A site's ranking in Google's search results is partly based on an
analysis of the sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely
useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of
web search. Both the quantity and more importantly the quality of links count
towards this rating.”
Google
further explains that it does not want links purchased with the sole intention
of manipulating its search algorithm. Webmasters place paid links on their
websites in return for payment. Paid linking is a cost effective method for
increasing search rankings, but it is not without risks. Search engines will
devalue links that it believes are paid. Excessive paid linking, done poorly,
can cause a site to receive ranking penalties.
Paid link
building techniques range from very low quality automated link building, paid
link exchange programs, high end paid directory placements, rented in-content
links to manual link acquisition.
The
decision to participate in paid link building is for each site owner to decide
based on their own goals and risk/reward calculations. However, the majority of
webmasters that buy links choose to do so because it is a cost effective way to
rank higher in the search engines.
Anyone
interested in paid linking should fully understand that paying for links violates
Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. With that said, Google does not endorse any
sort of proactive link building even those techniques that do not involve
financial compensation.
TextLinkBrokers.com
provides some services that involve paying webmasters; more importantly, we
provide several services that do not involve financial compensation. If
financial compensation for links is something you wish to avoid, please discuss
the alternatives with your account manager.
Link Building
Strategies
Q.1- What are social signals and
how do they affect rankings?
Social
signals are another form of “votes” for pages. Social votes are quickly
becoming a more important factor in the search engine algorithms. Tweets, Facebook “Likes”
and Google “+1s” are examples of social signals.
A site
can increase its rankings by earning more votes. This will become increasingly
more important as Google and Bing continue to move to a search and social
integration. For example, Google+ users see enhanced search results that
reflect the number of +1s awarded by other users in their social circles.SEO Ques
Q.2- What is the best strategy
for building links to a new website?
A natural
link profile is essential for a new website. However, if search engines see a
site gaining large numbers of links with similar broad based anchor text over a
short time period, they may believe the site in question is manipulating their
ranking algorithms.
New
websites need to focus on quality over quantity and they should lean toward
utilizing a higher percentage of brand-based anchor text. However, the most
important technique to higher rankings is fresh, high quality content on and
off site. Search engines will follow links in the content to the target site
and the advertisers and the host sites will earn natural links and social
votes.
Q.3- What are the benefits of
using content marketing to build links? What are some examples?
Content
marketing professionals use top-quality, original content as a means of
complementing direct link building. The primary advantage of content marketing
is its ability to generate natural links and its long-lasting effect, which
often persists long after publication. If visitors find your content helpful,
enjoyable or informative, they are more likely to direct friends and followers
to your page by linking to it or sharing it on social networks.
Common
examples of content marketing include blogging, link baiting, authoring white
papers, expert articles, infographics, creating videos to utilizing
user-generated content. Encouraging users to write reviews or to leave comments
are popular examples of the latter technique.
Q.4- What is 2nd tier link
building?
Tiered
link building is the process of creating links to external pages that link to a
target website with the objective of increasing the authority of the linking
page. This, in turn, increases the value of the link popularity
that the site receives from that page.
Q.5- What is a reciprocal link?
Are they still effective as a link building strategy?
Reciprocal
links
follow a simple, “I’ll-link-to-you-if-you-link-to-me,” principle. This is an
ineffective method of link building, especially on a large scale, in 2012.
Risk Avoidance and Penalties
Q.1- What are the potential
risks/penalties for building links? Can my site get penalized or banned by the
search engines?
The risks
associated with link building depend on the kind of link building and the
strategy behind it. There are plenty of risk free link building techniques and
there are those that can get your site penalized or banned in the search
engines.
Risk free
link building techniques involve development and promotion of high quality
content. High-risk link building activities include participation in or use of
high quantity, low quality, automated systems or software. The majority of link
building techniques fall somewhere in the middle.
For
example, a site paying $49 per month to be part of a completely automated blog
network that creates and posts low quality duplicate/spun content on its behalf
in order to build hundreds or thousands of keyword rich backlinks, the chances
are that any ranking improvements attained will not last very long. Google’s
automated algorithms will likely devalue those types of links fairly quickly,
causing ranking losses. It is also possible that Google will temporarily lose
trust in the website causing additional ranking losses. In the worst-case
scenario, the site could trigger a manual review. If this happens, a human
reviewer will make a decision to maintain the site’s ranking, devalue its
ranking or to de-index the site. If the site in question is low quality and has
no existing natural backlinks, the site is at greater risk.
The case
in point above is an extreme example, but not unheard of. A penalty is possible
even if your site is not participating in an automated network. One of the most
common penalties is the over optimization of anchor text, which is more common
since the 2012 Google Penguin update. Even if you are manually building
in-content links on very high quality sites, you need to rotate your anchor
text properly or you could trip an automated filter. Automated filters will discount
the value your site receives from certain links, but not all.
Learn
more about anchor text optimization here: What
is the Best Post-Penguin Anchor Text Optimization Strategy?
If a site
triggers an over optimization filter, the site may lose rankings for a single
keyword, for all keywords on a particular page or several pages.
Engaging
in excessive link buying, too much focus on anchor text, employing poor
techniques and little research, participating in automated networks and using
automated software may prompt a site penalty or banning. A site may trigger an
automated penalty or worse, a manual review in extreme cases. Dangerous
techniques include buying links in sidebars and footers of websites (especially
those that advertise that they are “selling links”). Do not buy links from a
company that places your links via automated code on webpages. A reasonable number
of links placed in relevant content and that appear natural will achieve higher
rankings.
Understanding
the risks associated with link building is important. In most cases, and if
done right, the rewards far outweigh the potential risks. Completely risk free
link building tends to be very costly and slow to produce results while other
link building techniques may produce quick results but overly expose the site
to unnecessary risks. The trick is to determine the right mix based on your
goals and to select a link building company to deliver those services in the
most natural way possible under the umbrella of a well-thought out strategy.
Q.2- What types of link building
hold the highest risk for search engine penalties?
Bulk,
automated, and obviously artificial techniques hold the greatest risks.
Q.3- What link building
techniques are the safest?
Content-based
techniques, if done correctly, hold no risk for penalty.
Q.4- What is the difference
between white, black and grey hat SEO/Link Building?
SEO/link
building techniques that are compliant with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are
referred to by some as “White Hat”. SEO and link building techniques that are
not compliant with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are sometimes referred to as
“Black Hat”.
In
general, the majority of SEO’s agree that most link building techniques fall
somewhere in-between white and black, thus they are called “Grey Hat”. This is
the case because search engines do not explicitly support any sort of
artificial link building.
Q.5- What should I do if I
receive the unnatural links detected notice from Google?
There is
a lot of confusion regarding what this message means and what to do about it.
SearchEngineLand has written several articles on the subject, including this
one http://searchengineland.com/google-explains-new-link-warnings-says-dont-panic-but-dont-ignore-128888
We highly
recommend that you speak to us prior to taking any action. Many times no action
is required, in other cases we may need to do a backlink analysis to determine
exactly why you are getting the message. Click Here
to know more
1 comment:
Informatics thing is here.
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