The off-page core consists of link-building or acquiring hyperlinks. Search engines take backlinks as auxiliary indicators of the target content.
There are three main types of links depending on how they have been obtained: natural links, manually created links, or user-created links.
▪ Natural links are obtained organically without our initiative toward the reference source. I consider these links most beneficial.
▪ Manually – built links are obtained through planned activities associated with creating links. We get these links at the request of our customers, suppliers, fans, influencers, and otherwise motivated entities.
▪ Self-created links are acquired by our own activity, adding links to catalogues, discussion forums, commentary marketing, or press release.
Google wants to distinguish individual groups of links, so since 2020, it has required content creators to clarify the type of link.
The links that transmit the most significant LINK EQUITY (value/strength of the page) are searched in link building. The following indicators usually give the benefits of these links:
▪ Popularity of the page
▪ The way the topic of linking the page correlates with your content
▪ The age of the link
▪ Anchor text (text of the link)
▪ Credibility of linking pages
▪ The number of external links from the referenced page
▪ Domain authority and specific referenced pages.
My personal opinion on link building
I assume that with my opinion on this matter, most SEO professionals will not agree, but I think the creation makes the best link-building of useful content. Buying and exchanging links does not make that much sense today.
Search engines can detect purchased links and dubious registrations in the catalogues and then consider them, which is logical because such links have no value.
I perceive backlinks (external but also internal) as very beneficial signals that help search engines, for example, to determine (confirm) the target topic.
Unnatural links from projects with dubious content irrelevant to our content are a waste of time and money.
Distance from faulty backlinks
If your link profile contains a large amount of spam, artificial or poor incoming links that could damage your rating, and you have no option to remove them for a legitimate reason (e.g. a link exists on a site that you have no control of), you can use Google Disavow Tool to tell Google to ignore these links. Google is trying to keep the website to have no negative impact on other sites.
Under certain circumstances, however, incoming links, according to Google, on a specific page or site can have a negative effect. This happens, for example, if you or your hired SEO link-building services, by professional that has created bad links to your site through paid links or other fraudulent practices with links that violate Google’s instructions to ensure quality. In this case, Google recommends removing as many spam or poor-quality links from the site.
Use the Google tool if it is really needed
In most cases, Google can assess the credibility of the links with boundless help. Therefore, this SEO tool is not needed for most sites. You should only distance yourself from backlinks if both of the following conditions are met:
- You believe that your website is aimed at a significant number of spam, artificial, or poor-quality links.
- Links have led to manual intervention or are likely to cause manual intervention to your site.
Sending faulty links and domains to Google
An ordinary text file with a .txt end is sent via Google Disavow Tool. The condition of its use is that you have your project guided in Google Search Console.
File format with links:
▪ In each row, specify one URL or domain from which you want to distance yourself.
▪ To distance yourself from the domain (or subdomain), use the prefix domain: (for example, domain:example.com).
▪ It must be a text file with UTF-8 encoding or 7-bit coding ASCII.
▪ The file name must end with .txt.
▪ You can include lines with comments starting with a character #. Google will ignore lines beginning with #.
# Two pages I want to distance myself from:
http://spam.example.com/various/comments.html
http://spam.example.com/various/paid-links.html
# One domain from which I want to distance myself from
the domain: dubious SEO.cz
If you have found URLs or websites from which you want to distance yourself, in the links for your website in the console, you can download the data from the reports by clicking the Export button.
Remove all URL addresses from which you do not want to distance yourself from the downloaded file.
What exactly are off-page SEO factors?
Off-page SEO factors are defined as any elements or modifications not performed on a specific internet address. Off-page factors include the purchase of backlinks, catalogue registration, and other activities described in this section. If you owned the website www.tipsandtricks.com and made any changes to this page, this would be an on-page factor modification. However, if, for example, you agree with another website to link to your web page, this will be an off-page factor.
When optimising for search engines, you cannot concentrate solely on on-page or off-page factors. Both parts create a single whole that must be well implemented.
Professional web design studios now focus on the right on-page factors even before the website is built. A good search engine ranking is often determined primarily by the subsequent quality of off-page factors, which must be constantly improved.
What is meant by link building?
And one of the off-page factors is link building. This term can be used to describe the activity of obtaining links for our website. There are two parts of link building:
Passive – we try to get people to link to us based on good content, a link in a template, and so on. The acquisition of inactive links, for example, can be influenced by publishing high-quality articles. The website will grow in popularity and receive more links from other websites.
Active – we ask other website owners to exchange links with us, we buy links, and so on.
What is a backlink?
Any link that points to another website is referred to as a backlink. SEO backlinks can also be images or flash banners. However, from the standpoint of search engine optimisation, these formats are not the best (the reasons will be given in the following points). We will use the term “backlink” in the text of our guide to refer to the so-called “text backlink.”
In the page code, the link is mainly in the paired HTML tag <a>, e.g., <a href= “http://www. address-link.com”>Text-of-the-link</a>
Where are internal backlinks linking to?
An internal backlink is a link to another page on your own website. For example, on the main page of the recipe webpage, there will be internal links to various recipes. Individual recipes will be described on their respective subpages (an internal backlink from the main page will lead to the subpages).
Where do external backlinks lead?
An external backlink links to another domain or subdomain. You can improve the rankings of another website by using external backlinks. Consider the websites to which you link. In some cases, linking to other websites can be harmful.
What effect do SEO backlinks have?
Each link adds “value” to the page to which it points. Several factors influence the size of this value, which will be discussed further below. This value depends primarily on the following factors:
- The SEO ranking of the page to which the link leads.
- How many external and internal backlinks are there on the referring page
- The location of the link on the page (SEO header tag, footer tag, or directly in the text of the page)
- The linked page’s thematic similarity
What is SEO ranking and page rank
Search engines use different evaluation systems to evaluate websites.
One of the evaluation systems is the allocation of the so-called rank. Website rank is a quantity that determines the importance of the site on the Internet. Page rank is calculated from off-page factors, and search engines officially do not publish its exact value. However, at least an approximate value can be determined. The utterly accurate algorithm of the rank calculation is not publicly known. You can measure your ranking, for example, on one of the specialised sites.
Why having the highest ranking is not the goal
Many people try to have the highest ranking. However, this effort should not be the primary goal of link-building. The aim should be primarily to obtain a client, which will provide us with the so-called conversion (orders of goods from our store, demand for certain services, filled questionnaire, etc.).
When building links, it is good to think about this rule. Therefore, do not just have ranks in link building as a significant scale. However, the amount of the rank affects the price of links from the page.
Some site owners also compare link-building results according to the number of links directed to their site. You can get a considerable number of links when you get a link from an area that has a large number of subpages (e.g. 10,000). Nevertheless, their efficiency is quite different than if only 50 links lead to your site, but each was from a different domain.
Focusing only on page ranks or the number of incoming links is the wrong way.
How to raise the ranking of the whole site
The more links are linked from other sites to your web, the more likely it will get higher ranks. The real contribution of links depends on multiple factors:
- The value of ranking the linking page
- Number of links linking from the referenced page
- The way of linking
The links that are directed to you increase your ranking. If your goal (not very recommended) is to get the highest ranking in order to, for example, sell links at higher prices, you should try to get as many websites as possible with the highest rankings to link to you. It is important to note that no incoming backlink can damage you. If your mind that links from pages dealing with erotic or gambling are directed to you, there is no reason to worry. If the search engines were bothered by these links, it would be too easy to harm the competition. However, the situation would be different if you would return the link or refer to the site with content that the search engines do not like (erotic, gambling, etc.). Avoid referring to them.
However, you need to be aware that only in some cases, the outgoing links from your website are under full control. In particular, this applies to the links from comments, etc. However, you can prevent it by moderating the comments, forbidding HTML marking, or letting the system automatically mark outgoing links with the “no follow” attribute to have less value for search engines.
How to indicate outgoing links to make the search engines ignore them
The easiest thing is when you put in the introductory mark <a> text rel= “nofollow”. This gives the robots a sign that this is a link that makes no sense to follow. As a result, your rating will not be handed over to such a website, nor will you be penalised for referring to a “bad neighbour”.
The standard link code looks as follows:
<a href=”http://www.link-address.com”> Link-text </a>
The link with the nofollow attribute looks like this:
<a href=”http://www.link-address.com” rel=”nofollow”> Link-text </a>
As you can see, the code looks almost the same. On the website, the link even looks exactly the same. However, the difference is considerable in terms of search robots. Search engines take the link with the attribute NOFOLLOW differently. They will not give any ranks to the linked page; some search engines do not even follow the link with nofollow.
How to redistribute the ranks on your website using internal links
At the previous point, it is said that each link affects the site’s rank. This rule applies not only to different sites but can also be applied to a particular website with subpages.
It is usually recommended that each subpage leads to the primary side. This tells the search engine that the main page is essential, and at the same time, the ranks from the individual subpages are passed to it.
On the contrary, more than one link is required for subpages, which you consider insignificant. In this way of creating internal links, you can significantly influence what subpage will have a higher ranking = what subpage will be more important to search engines.
Suppose you own the information pages that include the offer of the product that can be immediately ordered by the order form. In that case, it will be the best way to direct as many links from the web to a product description with the possibility of ordering.
What is the influence of external links on page rank
Individual external links can be divided into two groups:
■ Incoming external links
■ Outgoing external links
Incoming external links significantly impact the ranking of your Internet presentation. These links are directed to your website and are very important for getting ranks. If you would like to get the ranks just by internal links, you would not get any rank because you have nothing to redistribute, and search robots (search robot = crawler) would not even find the website. The more incoming external links lead to you, the better.
External links affect the redistribution of ranks. For example, if you link from the main page of the site to ten other websites (e.g. business partners) and at the same time to five subpages of your own site, you actually forward to the partners a more significant part of your ranks than to yourself.
As we have already pointed out, be careful what websites you refer to for external links. These are mainly links to the pages like porn, gambling, virus–infected pages, and other types of webs that the search engines do not like. Think about why you refer to the specific website and what you get from it. Be sure not to create many unnecessary external links to foreign pages.
On the other hand, do not avoid referring to other sites. The fact that a bunch of pages link to your site and on your page, there is no single external link looks suspicious.
What a typical two-way link exchange looks like
This is a typical interaction between Internet users.
Search engines value links that appear natural. The standard two-way exchange is unnatural and easily identifiable. Because of advancements in search engine algorithms, the effect of such links is minimal, and I do not recommend these exchanges. These days, they are far too inefficient.
Although they may be useful in low – competition areas, you are unlikely to succeed with such an exchange for keywords that optimisers “fight” for.
Why is a three-way link exchange preferable?
The three-way exchange, as the name implies, involves three websites.
Three-way interactions are more efficient than two-way interactions. However, I recommend proceeding with 4-way to x-way exchanges, which are essentially indistinguishable from natural links.
Who should I exchange links with?
Exchange links only with websites that meet the following criteria:
- They have good traffic or ranking
- They are thematically similar
- They do not have a large number of external links
- They do not link to websites that search engines do not like (porn, gambling…)
Do not exchange site-wide links. Concentrate on exchanging from specific places.
Make sure that the page you are linking provides a genuine benefit to the visitor. Always try to put yourself in the shoes of a site visitor and offer assistance. Consider whether each exchange is helpful to the visitor and will benefit them. This is how a successful website is built.
A simple trick can help you find sites suitable for exchange. You can search on Google: “related:address-your-web.com”, and you will get websites that Google believes are related in theme.
How to request a link exchange properly
The question of how to get powerful backlinks is very complex. A request for a link exchange may be considered spam, so please exercise extreme caution by exchanging.
Every day, I receive several requests for an exchange. In essence, they are always disadvantageous because they provide placement in the footer or, worse, on a page with a large number of links. I immediately delete such e-mails. Do not send such offers to anyone. This alone casts a negative light on society. Send offers only to carefully selected partners and not like mass e-mails.
The procedure for writing an e-mail:
- First, select a straightforward and self-explanatory topic. For instance, a link exchange proposal with www.address-of-the-web.com.
- Send the proposal to the person in charge of web content management.
- Send in your bid. Do not forget to include any bonuses the other party will receive if they accept the exchange. In the e-mail, specify where you want the link to be placed.
- Pay attention to different anchor texts when exchanging links. Do not require that all exchanges use the exact link text.
- Say your goodbyes politely and include your contact information.
- Offer a win-win exchange solution. Both parties must be satisfied with the “transaction”. Consider what you can specifically provide the other party.
How to send a link request
Every day, we receive several requests for link exchanges. These offers are typically annoying and finish in the trash. And at the same time, I get a negative impression of the company that sends these requests. If you want to exchange links with someone, you should only contact people whose websites explicitly encourage this activity.
Proceed with extreme caution if you want to exchange links with a site that does not mention the possible collaboration with another site. Provide enough compensation to the other party to make the exchange worthwhile. When exchanging, look for multi-way links that will benefit both you and others.
How can I direct the placement of links?
I strongly advise you to double-check all exchanged links. Foreign website owners are not always fair, and sometimes they delete the link, the website may disappear, its structure may change, and so on.
Entering all exchanges into Excel and then manually checking them, say, once a month, is one option, but it is inefficient. It is preferable to use specific automatic software in which you enter all of the exchanges and then check to see if the links are still leading to you regularly.
A more sophisticated system for checking exchanged links (backlink checker), not only two-way but also multi-way, can be found at www.blinktool.com. It can not only check for links leading to your site, but if the partner site is unavailable or does not have a link to your site, it will automatically prevent showing your link to the partner (because you insert the link to the partner via the Blinktool function, so you insert on your page only the PHP code that takes care of displaying the given link). Simultaneously, based on PR and S-rank, it informs you whether the exchange is advantageous, disadvantageous, or even.
How to avoid the negative impact of link exchanges
If you link to sites from areas that search engines dislike, your site may become “infected” and be assigned a so-called bad rank. It is, in essence, an abstract concept. However, the website’s position and page rank may suffer as a result. So be cautious about who you refer to. You can be referred by anyone. However, double-check the websites to which you link from your site.
What search engines have to say about the link exchange
Search engines do not reject the exchange of links; they simply consider such an exchange inappropriate when the intermediary for providing links is some automated system that distributes links to a large number of otherwise independent pages. Suppose you have such a system on your site. In that case, the administrators of search engines recommend that you remove it completely, set an attribute (rel=” nofollow”) to the links, or insert them using JavaScript. Otherwise, you risk being penalised.
It should be noted that with automated systems, you usually don’t have the option of changing the attributes of links. If these are inserted, for example, via JavaScript or functions such as embedding or iframe commands, they do not affect search engines. Because the robot is unaware of them, the desired effect for the other side is not achieved.
Why is it essential to obtain authoritative links as well?
Remember to exchange links with authoritative sites in your field. People recognise them, and if they see a link to your website, it will boost their trust in your website.
Is the relatedness between the referring and referred websites significant?
Search engines are increasingly emphasising links from content-related pages. Too many links from sites with no relation to your site, on the other hand, appear suspicious.
Attempt to obtain and find backlinks from sites that are dedicated to the same subject. You will notice that they will be much easier to obtain for you.
How do links help search engine rankings?
Google employs several hundred factors to determine a website’s position in search results. One of these factors is public relations (PR).
On the other hand, without quality backlinks, you will not rank well in competitive areas. Having enough (ideally natural, i.e. not bought or exchanged) links is still an important factor for good ranking in search engine results.
Appropriate link building for increased traffic
The more links that point to you, the more traffic your website will receive.
As you are aware, the more links pointing to your site, the more trusted it is by search engines and thus receives higher rankings. The traffic to the site will, of course, increase as the site’s ranking in search engines improves. When people search for something, they usually don’t have the patience to scroll through several pages of results, so they’ll only click on a few links on the first page.
However, this is not the only way to boost site traffic using backlinks. Proper SEO link building should be done in such a manner that it is appealing to site visitors rather than search engines. It should entice them to click on such a backlink and visit your website.
As a result, such links are appropriate if they:
- are logically placed in the text of articles related to the topic of your website.
- are located on thematically similar pages.
- are visible.
- do not act as paid advertising links.
- do not have too many “competitors” on the site, i.e. links to other sites.
- they are not hidden in the bulk of different links to other pages.
One of the most common problems in today’s link building is the last point, i.e. making sure the link does not get lost among other links. Whether it’s various footers or bulks of so-called site-wide links. If your link is in a section of the site where there are ten (or more) other companies, it becomes “invisible” and loses value. The number of links on the page breaks the referring page’s rank.
You can influence the “visibility” and traffic to your page with the correct links. Link effectiveness can be measured.
A backlink that receives no clicks is a bad backlink.
What about the page’s link count?
The number of links pointing out from the page is essential. We discussed how page rank is an indicator of a given page’s trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines.
The number of referrals (links) pointing to such a page increases its credibility. So, if we have a specific “amount of trust” as a site, we can continue to pass it on to other sites, we believe, deserve it. We do not lose trust due to this (if we do not refer to sites that the search engine believes are bad), but you redistribute this package – you forward the rank.
It is similar to forwarding an e-mail with a great investment opportunity. You simply took it, invested, and made money as soon as you got the e-mail.
There is still time to invest, no matter how much you have already invested. So you forward the referral to your family members, who will also earn, but you can still forward the e-mail further. Your friends will be able to invest and make money as well. However, the more people you send an investment recommendation to, the less valuable that recommendation becomes because each of them has a smaller share of a profitable investment.
If you have a rank of 3 and link to three pages, each will receive an equal share, i.e. 1/3 of your “amount of trust,” i.e. a rank of 1. The more links that point to your page, the lower your share, and vice versa. When we talk about links, we mean both external links to other pages and internal links (links to other pages on the same website).
As a result, if you are attempting to build and find backlinks, a page linking to your website should have as few outbound links as possible.
As an outcome, when buying or selling links, the number of links coming from a website is very important. The number of backlinks affects the forwarded page’s rank.
The more links there are on the page, the lower their price should be. The number of external links on the page should not exceed 20 in order to maintain efficiency. With a higher number, search engines may give such links very little weight. SEO link building should be organic and long-term.
How to use SEO and increase website authority
Suppose quality websites (authorities in their fields) link to you. In that case, visitors of these websites will realise that your website is also of high quality (when their favourite authority links to it). Your website will gain authority through high-quality linking.
How to Boost the Ranking of Individual Pages
Link building will help your website improve its ranks. There are several advantages of increasing your page rank:
- You can earn more money by selling links from websites.
- You can improve your positions in Google search.
More high-quality backlinks equal a higher page rank.
How powerful is SEO link building?
The efficiency of SEO link building depends on its implementation and the website. However, compared to other forms of advertising, its effectiveness is among the best.
How much will your orders increase after radio or television advertising? Do you know how much profit a single site visitor will generate? If you do not already have this information, you can easily find it on the Internet.
Link building is frequently compared to PPC advertising, which brings instant results.
Let us look at a simple example. You launch a PPC campaign that drives 200 visitors daily to your website. As a result, there will be 6000 visitors per month. You might pay one cent for one visitor. The monthly campaign will cost 60 EUR in total. It is sufficient to reduce the cost of link building, and it will pay off (it is often cheaper). With proper link building, this work has the potential to be the most effective advertising tool on the Internet.
Where to place backlinks?
We mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that link building can be divided into passive (where we try to get people to link to us) and active (where we actively acquire links).
The passive way means we can get links:
- In a natural way – site visitors like your content so much that they spontaneously link to it.
- Using RSS channels – RSS technology (really simply syndication) is, as the name implies, a straightforward platform for content distribution.
- Via product comparators – servers specialising in product comparison collect the so-called XML feed.
- By distributing your content (photos, video, audio, and texts) – you can enable others to share it (together with the content, you also share a link to your website).
- By organising events or competitions.
- Establishing your own affiliate program.
- By linking to social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
- By producing appealing content – link baiting (attracting attention).
All of the methods listed above have one thing in common.
You lay the groundwork (allow RSS downloads and video sharing or place a quick-click icon under the article to share the link on Facebook), and the links will grow from there. You have probably heard of the term “passive income.”
Passive income is income that generates money for you even when you are not actively working. A passive backlink building is based on a similar principle.
Active Link building
In contrast, the active method of obtaining backlinks requires, as the name implies, an active approach. The primary methods are :
- Site registration in catalogues
- Targeted website search for the placement of press releases and articles
- Registration on “contest” servers
- Active involvement in forums and discussions, as well as conferences
- Inserting links to one’s own satellite websites, known as microsites
- Linking to other people’s websites
- Blog posting
- Link exchange with related sites
- Auction and advertising
- Link publishing
- Link acquisition
- Publication on other websites, professional websites, and e-zones
- Advertising in headers and footers
- Active submission of new articles in bookmarking services
- Indirect link building
- Passive link building
We cannot forget the so-called black hat SEO, a collection of illegal practices. Obtaining links through SPAM, particularly comment SPAM, spamming discussion forums, creating large link farms, hidden links, or hacking and parasitising other sites are examples of such practices. However, these are the methods that we do not approve of, do not encourage, and, in fact, warn against.
How to create a web for passive link building
The goal of passive link building is to get other websites to link to the content you have created.
You do not have to worry about the links or arrange their exchange or purchase. Search engines prefer this type of natural linking. Search engines assume that site owners link to other sites because they have relevant content for site visitors. However, website owners realised that backlinks have some influence on search engine algorithms, which can be considered the start of link speculation.
In the case of passive link building, you must communicate with site visitors. Prerequisites for effective passive link building include:
- Quality information content – website texts must attract visitors’ attention, convey new information, or assist them; texts must be copyable.
- Use a unique and concise title for each subpage; do not use the same title or meta description tag for all subpages.
- Permanent URL – easily linkable specific content (a problem with some flash solutions; avoid using frames).
- Link baiting – adding videos and developing various applications
How to Avoid BadRank
BadRank works similarly to PageRank. However, it is based on outgoing links rather than incoming ones. If you link to a page with a BadRank, a portion of the BadRank will be passed to the referring site.
Although the existence of BadRank has never been officially confirmed, the word is spreading that search engines are using similar algorithms. This is an effective method for combating website spam. You will not want to link to suspicious sites because of BadRank, even if these sites offer you an exciting reward for the links.
There are so-called “bad words,” which include words from the gambling or eroticism fields, for example. If a search engine discovers such a phrase on a page, it may treat it differently than other pages. As a result, search engine results may be penalised.
What exactly is a Google bomb?
A Google bomb works by creating numerous links to another web page with the exact anchor text. As a result, you improve the visibility of another page in search engines for a specific phrase.
The following are the most well-known Google bombs (the query on Google is listed first, followed by the linked page):
- Big Brother – Stanislav Grosse’s biography
- Miserable failure – George Bush
- Buffone’ (clown, in Italian) – Silvio Berlusconi
When searching for the words listed, the pages in the examples appeared first. There were numerous more Google bombs (even more vulgar ones). People who gained unwelcome fame were dissatisfied with the outcomes. Larger scandals in other countries were also documented, so Google had to intervene and modify the search algorithm to limit the influence of the links.
Anchor texts frequently contain non-competitive phrases that no one else is focusing on.
Getting to the first positions is then quite simple. It is more effective to launch your own Google bomb by linking to a website that contains the exact phrase as the future anchor text directly in the text. This will provide at least some assistance with the on-page factor.
How to choose the form of the link (so-called anchor text)
The visible part of a hyperlink is the anchor text.
The form of the anchor text is critical for increasing the visibility of the linked page in search engines. A “car” link will help the linked page rank higher in search engines for the query “car.” A link to a page will help if the linked page is about cars.
Because anchor text informs the search engine about what the linked page is likely to be about, the search engine will prioritise this page with this word over other pages without those links.
Is it possible to learn how Google ranks pages based on anchor link text?
In the Google search box, enter a keyword, and next to it, the operator allinanchor or inanchor. For example, “allinanchor: sell thoroughbred” would be the query. Google will show you the pages with the most high-quality backlinks using the anchor text for sale thoroughbred. By the way, you can also find pages with a specific word in their title (allintitle: keyword). You can easily find competitors focusing on the same keywords or terms this way.
How can I find out what link text people who link to my site use?
This time, Google Search Console will come in handy. This application will tell you not only when the Google robot last visited and indexed your site but also what errors it finds on your site and, of course, what anchor text those who link to you used.
Keep in mind that anchor text is extremely important. The more closely your wording matches the keywords you want to be found for, the better. Domains that are synonymous with these phrases or words benefit in this case. As you will discover, people frequently link to your page simply by using the URL. If it is in the form of www.keyword.com, you have the correct anchor text almost automatically and effortlessly.
How to select a link location?
There are two kinds of link placements:
- All links are created to point to the website’s main page.
- Created (bought) links lead to specific subpages.
Each type has advantages and disadvantages. In the first case, you will achieve higher rankings on the website’s main page because all links will point to it. The issue is that it is difficult to optimise a single web address to rank as high as possible with a large number of words (e.g. with 20 competing words). The first backlink direction variant is appropriate if you want to strengthen a few keywords (e.g., 3-5) on the main page.
Linking to the website’s main page
The advantages of directing all links to the main page:
- Higher main page ranks
- The ability to focus on boosting highly competitive keywords with more links.
The disadvantages of directing all links to the main page:
- You cannot concentrate on reinforcing more words.
- It isn’t easy to compete for good positions among competing words.
Linking to subpages, sections, and products
In the case of the second variant, you link to your website’s subpages. You can direct links to specific products or categories if you have an online store.
This method of link-building offers the following benefits:
- Users who click on a link to your page will be taken directly to their destination.
- You can concentrate on improving a large number of words (depending on how many products or subpages you have).
- Using this technique, you can concentrate on less competitive (but still searched for) words, also known as the long tail.
The disadvantage of linking to your site’s subpages is that you will not receive as high a main page rank, even though each subpage will undoubtedly link back to the homepage in the end result.
When should you link to the main page, and when should you link to subpages?
Suppose you run an e-commerce site with many different products, especially those people search for by brand, label, or type. In that case, it is definitely more appropriate to link not only to the main page but also to individual categories (cameras, refrigerators, washing machines, jewellery, handbags, and so on), and in some cases, even to the products themselves (Toyota RAV4, Nokia, Dolce Gabbana, Swarovski necklace). This will result in higher subpage rankings as well as higher search engine rankings for those specific phrases.
We should link to the published subpage if we want to promote a second site for the phrase “cheap accommodation in Chicago.” If you have a site focused on accommodation in one specific hotel and your website includes several subpages such as a price list, trips to the area, and a photo gallery of the rooms, link building on these subpages is almost useless only if you want to attract customers looking for attractions in your town or village.
What should you do if catalogues refuse to register a subpage URL?
True, some catalogues do not accept links to site subpages. In that case, a third-level domain can come in handy (bags.shop.com, nikon.shop.com). Catalogues and search engines will treat this URL as a separate website and will not cause registration issues. Remember to remove any duplicates. So that www.shop.com/bags does not contain the same content as bags.shop.com, it is preferable to make it by redirecting via htaccess or creating a separate landing page with slightly different content.
Why should you link to thematic pages?
Search engines try to like what ordinary people like. If a user is browsing the website about dog behaviour, he may want to look at other websites with a similar theme.
However, if there is an advertisement (backlinks) for building houses or selling mobile phones, it is unlikely that many people will click on it, and it will appear unnatural.
It is preferable for the search engine if the links do not detract from the site’s character. Put links to sites that are similar in theme to yours. At the same time, it is better for you if the links are on sites about a related topic because more people will click on them, and you will get more quality visitors. On a dog-related website, far more people click on a link promoting dog food than on a link promoting the sale of mobile phones. Search engines do not yet have such perfect algorithms for determining how topical a link is. However, it is preferable to follow this rule now because it will save you time in the future and will benefit visitors to the pages to which the links lead.
When should links be placed in the header or footer?
I do not recommend including links in the header or footer bar.
If there are several links in a row, even a layperson can tell that these are advertisements rather than natural links. Search engines are also aware of this fact and attempt to recognise these groups of links while giving them less importance. Google recognises footer links reasonably well.
Look at the links from the perspective of a frequent visitor. You arrive at a page with 30 or more links in the footer. What is the likelihood that one will pique your interest and prompt you to click on it? Almost none. There can be links in the footer, but they should be surrounded by relevant text and not be too numerous.
When should links be placed directly in the text?
The best links are those that are placed directly in the text. Users may interpret them as a recommendation of quality content rather than advertising. Such links are also taken into account by search engines.
If there is a high-ranking article in which you can include your link, that link is far more valuable than a link in a website’s footer or header.
However, linking to an article on some other website is more complicated. However, it’s also not impossible; we’ll discuss it later.
What is the best location for the link?
There is no such thing as an ideal link environment. Nonetheless, it seems to be necessary. It is possible to deduce how it should look roughly from the preceding points:
- The link should not be surrounded by many other links (mostly in SEO header tags or footer tags).
- The link should be on a page with a similar theme.
- The text should be embedded directly into the text that relates to the linked page’s topic.
There are additional guidelines. For example, there should not be many other links on the page with the link.
What does a site-wide link look like?
A site-wide link is one that appears on all of the site’s subpages. So, regardless of which subpage (or main page) you visit, you will find the same backlink. Links in website footers or headers are examples of site-wide links.
However, the situation is different from country to country. A site-wide link is rarely requested in some of them. When purchasing links from abroad, most people want a single link, i.e. a link that will only appear on one internet address and will not appear anywhere else.
Site-wide links are typically found in footers or side navigation menus designed explicitly for links. The disadvantage of these placements is that few people click on them. How many site visitors will click on a link if it is surrounded by 15 other links?
In what situations should I use site-wide links?
In some cases, a site-wide link is beneficial. This is the case when the link is visible and placed on the visited page. With such a placement, real visitors are likelier to click on it. Again, it is advantageous if the page with the link is thematically similar to the link’s target. At the same time, the rule of not having too many site-wide links close to each other applies.
Effective backlink time
It is not worth it to post links for only a week or two. When it comes to links, it is critical to wait until the search engine bots index them, preferably repeatedly, and then give the links some importance. If you purchase one-time links and want to test their effectiveness, I recommend a three to six-month test period. You do not even have to wait a month after buying links to notice a difference.
How to determine whether a page is banned in search engines
Sometimes an unpleasant situation occurs, and a search engine bans a website. The result is straightforward: your site is no longer searchable in the search engine. When prohibited SEO techniques are used, a BAN is usually issued (hidden text on a WWW page, doorway page, pointlessly repeated words, etc.). Websites that have been banned can be easily verified. Simply enter “site:www.yourdomain.com” into your search engine. On Google, the command mentioned above is valid.
In some cases, a page can be banned despite having a large number of links pointing to it. If a search engine refuses a page, the ranks awarded by that search engine will also be reduced to zero.
Before changing or purchasing links, you can quickly check to see if the page is not blocked in any of the search engines. A ban is usually granted for a few months, but it can also be granted for a whole year.
How long does it take for a website to be removed from a search engine’s blacklist?
It can take several months, if not a year. In any case, it is always a good idea to investigate why this occurred. It could have been black optimisation practices, illegal content, or a virus on your website (you can easily find this if you save FTP server passwords for your FTP clients, such as Total Commander, or if you do not have the possibility of inserting HTML code and JavaScript into your form fields). Find and eliminate the source of the problem. If that does not work, and if your primary source of traffic has been search engines up to this point, you might want to start over on a different domain.
Is rapid link growth risky?
A sudden increase in links may appear suspicious. For example, if it is a new site with thousands of sites linking to it at the same time, the search engine can detect some tricks behind it.
On the other hand, do not expect search engines to index all of the sites that link you in a single day. So you don’t have to be concerned.
If a website appears and in one moment is linked by many pages, as happens, for example, in the case of various community or social websites, which at one point appear very interesting and many people let the world know about their existence through a link from their website or blog, the increase can be expected to continue naturally. In that case, there is no reason for the search engine to penalise the website in question.
However, if you create pages, immediately index them in catalogues, and buy, for example, links on several hundred websites (which will also disappear after some time because you only purchase these links for a limited time), the search engine will index the given website and assign it a rating; however, its position and ranks can be expected to decline over time.
As a result, link-building must be done on an ongoing basis. If you have appealing and up-to-date content, it is reasonable to expect that as your website grows in popularity, the number of natural links will also increase. They are the most important to you.
How to avoid links from sites with a fake PR?
Websites may have fake PR. This is a situation where the page’s PR is higher than its actual value, based on indicators (Google Toolbar, Internet rank meters). As a result, you may end up purchasing a link from a page that you believe has a PR of 6. However, the page may actually have a PR of 0. What causes this situation? If you redirect any domain to another domain, the redirected domain will receive the same PR as the domain it is redirecting to at the next PR recalculation.
For instance, suppose you own the domain www.supercar.com, and it has a PR of 1. This domain is redirected to www.carbazaar.com, which has a PR of 5. After recalculating the PR, the domain www.supercar.com will have the same PR as www.carbazaar.com. So, if www.carbazaar.com keeps its current ranking, www.supercar.com will also have PR 5. However, this publicity will be fake. If a page has a fake PR, you can tell by the number of links that lead to it or by using online seo tools. The “fake page” will regain its PR following the next recalculation.
How can I tell if a page has a fake PR?
Again, there are free services that will tell you whether a website’s PR is legitimate or not. Checkpageranking.com, for example, provides the service mentioned above.
When purchasing more expensive domains with high PR, use “common sense” and do not rely solely on PR SEO validity meters. They are not always correct. Examine the number of links that point to the site. Then, compare this figure to other sites with similar PR in SEO.
Fake PR can also be detected using the operator “info:” and entering the checked URL into Google.
