This is a follow-up post to my Link Smarter, Not Harder Mozinar from last week. There was a great turnout and more than fifty questions asked. Thank you for joining!
During my Mozinar, we walked through a sample link building idea generation process. The point was to demonstrate that link development is only limited by our creativity and resources. While building a backlink to a credit card site may seem impossible, we must remember that we put a man on the moon, which means coming up with new link building methods for the credit card industry is achievable.
When reading through the audience Q&A questions from the Mozinar, I noticed a lot of folks who were still looking for a silver bullet for link building and SEO. This is when my brain got clogged with what I can only describe as an overwhelming pit of sadness. I recognize that SEOmoz is arguably the most recognizable publisher/tool provider in the SEO industry, which means the majority of PRO users range from beginners to seasoned experts. However, being new to the industry (or simply wanting to not listen to it) is no excuse for misinformation, the spread of spammy practices, and poor quality SEO services.
So, I hemmed and hawed about what to do. Should I take this opportunity to hammer the point of my Mozinar into everyone’s consciousness? Ultimately, I decided that it wasn’t fair to the majority of readers, so I took a different approach. This post is an opportunity to expound on some areas of the Mozinar, but more often than not, just general best practices and my philosophical approach to link building. I hope there’s value in here for everyone reading, and feel free to debate my points in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.
Link building and SEO tools
Tools mentioned during the presentation and Q&A:
- Search Metrics
- STAT Search Analytics
- Fresh Web Explorer
- Majestic SEO
- Open Site Explorer
- MozCast
- Screaming Frog (I may not have mentioned this, but should have. It rounds out our list of a few, highly used tools, which was another point of the Mozinar: you don’t need a huge toolset to accomplish big things with link building!)
Sponsored blogs
Image above taken from the Mozinar. Missing the context? Go watch it! I worked hard on that thing.
1. How does Google know if one blog is a sponsored blog vs guest blog? We only do guest blogs, because we don't want to buy links, but many blogs these days ask for money.
Sponsored blogs are like advertorials in magazines and should be labeled as such. If someone received compensation for their review/content, this should be disclosed and, according to Google, all outbound links to the purchasing domain should be nofollowed. By comparison, a guest post doesn’t include compensation; it should be based on the merits and relevance of the content, a relationship with the guest poster, or some other qualitative (versus monetary) factor. In other words, I think it’s important that you fully understand FTC and Google Webmaster Guidelines when submitting content through sponsored or guest posts.
2. What do you think about sponsored blogs (sponsored links) vs guest blogs (unpaid links)? Does Google punish you for "link buying"?
Yes. Google will punish sites that are caught selling links, buying links, or paid links agencies/service providers. Manual action usually occurs when it's done on a substantial scale. Of course, Matt Cutts posted the following today, which might help clear up some confusion about punishment by association (hat tip to Barry over at SERoundtable for sharing this):
3. Why is a mom's blog post about a product a threat to get you penalized, etc., if there is no mention of a sponsorship?
If there isn’t a sponsored post, the blogger wasn’t paid for the product review, and they weren’t compensated in another form then there shouldn’t be a risk. We often cite mom blogs simply because of the large quantity of them that exist purely for giveaways and sponsored posts. This is also a community that’s heavily solicited by companies and link builders, so they’re more likely to knowingly or not link to questionable sources.
Guest posts
4. How does Google see backlinks from guest posts?
5. Do you think guest blogs will be ignored by Google in the future as they are often fairly thin content-wise?
I'll answer both questions here. No, I don’t see guest posts as a whole being devalued by Google. The Whitehouse.gov accepts guest posts and so does every craptastic exact-match Blogspot. Google isn’t going to devalue content from the Whitehouse, just like they won’t devalue Blogspot, which also hosts incredibly authoritative communities and blogs like Google’s own Google Webmaster Central blog. Basically, we create spam websites, but that doesn’t mean Google devalues websites. The responsibility lies with search engines to develop an algorithm that determines qualitative sites vs spam. The same is now true of individual content on those sites and if my blog is hosting guest posts from payday loan, online college degree, and shoe retailer sites, it’s probably not a great blog. If the blog hosts guest posts only from wedding planners, bridal stores, and party favor sites, it’s probably still very valuable to that industry.
Agency life
6. What's been your biggest hurdle getting things done from an agency side? Any examples from an in-house's perspective?
Biggest agency hurdle: Let’s actually go with my top two:
- Technical restrictions (often an internal dev team that’s overloaded, poor CMS, or the site is in a code freeze)
- Approval process (difficult to get content or methods past strict legal teams/brand guidelines)
Biggest in-house hurdle:
Politics! It’s tough to get your work prioritized, especially when another department has the ear of so-and-so. At least, that how I felt when I was in-house. There were a lot more political moves than data-driven. That doesn’t mean all organizations function this way; the best companies lose the drama/egos and focus on the data. That’s how everything should be.
7. How long is your typical link building campaign? When can clients start seeing results? Do you ask clients to make a quarterly or annual commitment or other time frame?
We typically need 6-12 months to demonstrate strong results for our clients. We start to see results in 2-3 months, but structure monthly link building retainers for long-term investment in brand development. With that said, no one is trapped in a contract. We have fairly generous cancellation policies, because if it isn’t working or something drastic changes within your organization, it’s important that you/we do what’s right.
8. I work with a client that does not create dynamic content (blog, articles, etc.). Each page of their site is about a product or technology behind a product. How else can I help build links without the ability to create fresh/unique content on a regular basis?
How are these products being used? By who? Like we discussed in the Mozinar, look at those audiences to identify potential partnerships, testimonials, case studies, product reviews, etc. If the company is purely promotional, you could arrange interviews for the founder(s), have them speak locally/nationally, or invest in an online customer service platform for the products that builds up product-specific content and long-tail queries. Those are just a few ideas off of the top of my head, but look to how they’re marketing the business and where and you will find ideas even if you’re unable to place content on the domain itself.
9. What would you advise an SEO do when they are working in a really competitive and traditionally heavily-spammed niche, and they see all of their client's competitors are ranking consistently by using black hat tactics? Take the squeaky clean path and keep your fingers crossed that Google will smack them?
Yes. It isn’t worth your energy to focus on the competition to the detriment of your own marketing. Trust me, I’ve been there, done that. Just keep moving forward with your business and your approach. While the competitors are busy filing for reconsideration requests, you’ll be ahead of the game. If you’re focused on your mission and make a mistake, you’ll already be so far ahead of everyone else that you can recover from it. It’s part of the theory of OODA loops, which is probably loosely related, but I love to talk about OODA loops.
It's also important to manage expectations. We work with clients every day who are champions in their business. They're having to continually and tirelessly communicate the message that low-risk, high-quality link building will protect their brand and build the business. It's important to reset the expectation that link quantity and anchor text isn't the metric to measure, but link quality and your own internal performance metrics like conversions and qualified traffic are what truly matter.
10. What is best practice for linking to your own website from a client's site? (Footer links)
Linking to your client's sites isn't something I do, but I know other reputable SEOs who will do this. It's tough; in any other industry, it makes sense to list your clients. In SEO, I feel like Google looks closer at client sites when they're affiliated with known SEOs, and more importantly, so do your competitors. I don't want to make it that easy. If you want to know what our clients are doing, do your homework - we did!
Broken link building
11. Is broken link building still effective? Is broken link building with other relevant websites in your industry still effective?
Yes. However, I think this is a practice that is relied on too heavily. When done as a primary form of link development, I think the bigger issue is why you’ve hit a creative wall and don’t have other methods in rotation. Is this because of a lack of resources, internal/client approval, new ideas, etc.? Do broken link building, but don’t put all your eggs in this basket, because you aren’t investing the development of your brand at all.
Outreach
12. Do you think outreach is the future of link building? Should SEOs spend more time in this area?
Yes. It’s also the past and present of link building just like content is king, has been, and always will be. This is almost like saying, “Will communicating a message to someone be the best way to market your brand?” YES! Outreach is fundamentally about establishing a relationship with someone. The method and tools you take to achieve that may be different from season to season, but this will never go away.
13. How do you contact bloggers with no contact information?
If you’ve already looked up their domain information and still can’t locate a contact, then I would turn to social media. Do they have a Twitter profile? Are they active on LinkedIn? Do they accept comments? Keep in mind that they’ve limited their contact information for a reason. You’ll have to work hard to build up a relationship. Question whether you have the time and budget to invest in tracking them down, especially if they don’t want to be found.
14. Do you put time into considering the negative possibilities you want to avoid? E.g. how to be careful not to "earn" links from bad places
Yep! We have a lot of internal training and gut checking with our team on sites that don’t meet our quality standards. Those standards sometimes change for different clients and industries, but we have a lot of red flags that we avoid. I would develop your own internal list based on past experiences and industry-specific knowledge.
Link targeting
15. Should the links go to the home page or interior pages? If interior, how many words of text should the interior pages have on average?
16. For a business with a few very specific products, is it a good idea to build links to each product's subpage, or should links always go to the main domain?
I'll answer both questions here. I'm all for link diversity when it comes to backlinks to the domain. You should have links to the homepage, the product pages, the categories, your about us page, etc. Think of it from the perspective of a consumer. If they're mentioning a product online, they might link to the homepage, but they're more likely to link to the product page if they have direct experience with it; it's much more natural. When doing outreach for our clients we try not to dictate the location of the backlink, because it's more natural that they select what makes the most sense for their community.
Also worth noting: do the products expire? If the products aren’t going anywhere, then invest in building links to them. If it’s a product that expires or gets discontinued seasonally, then you’ll have a lot of redirects to deal with and lost value, so building links to the homepage and categories makes more sense. This doesn’t sound like your specific situation, though.
17. Do links to specific product subpages on a site have as much power as links to the main domain?
Where the link points don't drive "power," it's the link pointing to the site that drives that power and the content of the page it's pointing to, as well as its history and other backlinks. You'll often find that certain pages of a site that are internal can quickly overpower a homepage if there hasn't been much link building or brand promotion to the homepage, but a product or article gets really popular. So, the links are what determines the power of a page, not the location of the page itself. However, the majority of backlinks to a site do point to the homepage, which is why 99% of the time the homepage is the most powerful page. But, this truly is a "correlation isn't causation" lesson.
18. What are your thoughts on the link disavow tool?
The link disavow tool is a last resort. It's a tool that helps you communicate with the search engines after all of your other efforts to remove a backlink have failed. In the past, when working on a site that had a history of paid links, we'd have to try to do the cleanup and then tell Google what percent we were able to get fixed. That meant a number of the links never got removed, but Google would hopefully devalue those if they hadn't already.
Now, Google is making it clear that this responsibility rests with the webmaster to fully clear the offending backlinks through their manual efforts and then as a last resort, through the disavow tool. The tool shouldn't be used to just "get rid of" any backlink that looks questionable. It should really be used only when you have a clear problem that has been communicated to you by the search engines and you need to address a particular domain or page of that domain.
19. How important is the ratio between followed and nofollowed links?
Honestly, I don't believe there's a threshold here, but too much of one or the other probably looks unnatural. Regardless, I don't believe that the search engines use this as an algorithm factor. Simply think of it in terms of diversity and brand factors. If you only have followed links, this means you've never posted a blog comment, been featured on a news site or more established directories, received a link from Wikipedia or other high-quality article sites, etc. That wouldn't be very natural and I'd see it as a sign that the site is overly optimized. I very rarely look at this ratio myself.
20. What would you recommend as the best strategy for a licensee of a brand with multiple licensees targeting the same keywords/keyphrases and sources for backlinks?
This sounds like a situation affiliates and resellers run into all the time. It's a tough because you're competing against yourselves. Without knowing more detail, I would look for a unique perspective with the licensees. There has to be something unique if this business model even exists. Is it location, industry, customer service - find what makes you unique from the rest and emphasize that. Sometimes you'll have to invent the point of difference (POD), but inventing great customer service is the perfect way to do this! Want inspiration? It’s going to sound crazy, but watch “Bar Rescue” on Spike. I love how Jon Taffer takes an overly saturated market (bars) and always finds something special for each owner that will bring in customers. It just takes creativity and research, it doesn’t matter that the product is the same!
Algorithm updates and penalties
*Picture credit: Search Metrics
21. How can you tell if your site has been hit in a negative way by some of the changes Google has made?
Check out the SMX West 2013 Google Dance recap over at Virante. Marcus Tober and Mitul Gandhi both went into great tactics on finding and assessing whether you might have been affected by an algorithm update.
Internal link building
22. You talked a lot about inbound link building, but is there a good formula for how many internal links you use and the placement of the links?
23. What about internal links? Are keyword-targeted links ok, or do you still need to be concerned about anchor text diversity there?
24. I am wondering how Google sees internal linking of the content? Does it make any difference if it is over optimized?
These three questions could be their own blog post, but my hands are thankful that John Doherty already did a great write-up that addresses many of these internal linking questions on the SEOmoz blog.
Press releases
25. In your opinion, are press releases a great way to build SEO? How does your company charge?
No. I hate press releases for SEO. They’re over-saturated, and it’s rare that a press release attracts any press attention. Let me clarify: I’m speaking to press release distribution services (not the press release itself). I think that press releases as a public relations tool are incredibly important, but you should have a list of media outlets that you’re personally sending these to. Many of the distribution and wire services have been gamed so heavily that they’re virtually worthless and the press release will get buried after a few days of freshness in the SERPs.
On the second question, from my philosophy on press releases, you can probably tell that we don’t charge for this specific service, but we will work with clients to optimize strategic press releases and PR campaigns. We love coordinating with qualified PR teams! What you won't find is Outspoken Media listed on a directory of SEO companies by a press release distribution site in their footer. That's probably a good sign that you should run far, far away.
Social bookmarking and directories
26. Are traditional link building methods such as social bookmarks and directories no longer effective? What is your take on this?
27. Besides themed guest posting, does social bookmarking still help vary your link profile?
I'll answer both questions here. There are still a lot of active social bookmarking sites that range from generic to special interests. Many have nofollowed backlinks at this point, but some remain followed. My recommendation isn’t to find those followed social bookmarking sites and spam them, but to recognize that if the community is active, you’re spreading your visibility and reach and that’s a good thing. This will often result in the discovery of your content that may lead to a backlink.
Personally, I don’t encourage my team to go after social bookmarks as a backlink for client work because we’re being held to a higher standard for link quality. Unless we know that link has the potential to get picked up by the community, seeding it through social channels doesn’t make a lot of sense.
When it comes to directories, these are still effective, but yes, they’re over-saturated. This means that your competitors will probably be able to easily acquire the same backlinks and the directory may have been devalued for linking out to an unusually high number of questionable domains. There are still many great directories out there though, especially industry-specific directories, so don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. When I talk to my team I look at directories in this way:
- Get good web directories.
- Get good social media and blog directories.
- Get good local directories.
Directories are still a great way to find reputable websites, social profiles, blogs, and local business listings. Not being included in them is just silly and a bad business practice. You should determine your own metrics for assigning value and authority to the directories. I’m probably more picky than most would be!
Redirects
28. Scenario: site A has loads of backlinks and is 301 redirected to site B. If site A has been penalized by Google's updates, does the penalty get carried over? What solutions can we consider to implement?
Does the penalty get carried over… honestly, there isn’t a straight answer for this. I’ve seen and read accounts of both situations: a penalty gets passed and it doesn’t. It often appears to be a matter of severity. I’d also be worried about the quantity of redirects (e.g. redirecting a network of several dozen penalized domains wouldn’t be a good idea). Doing a test with one would be less of an issue. Test it, but try to test with a domain that isn’t your bread and butter.
What I’d personally try to do: get site A unpenalized and then redirect it. Or reclaim the backlinks from site A and have those instead point to site B through outreach efforts.
29. Is it ok to buy lots of domains and do a 301 redirect to your main one?
See above! Be careful about what you purchase. I’ve seen companies invest millions into a domain just to have it turn out penalized from the prior webmaster’s questionable practices. You don’t want to wind up in that situation and have the penalty get passed. Also, simply buying up domains and redirecting them can be effective, but quantity can become a concern. I’d focus the budget on building up your brand and I know that sounds terribly naïve, but it’s worth more than the time, budget, and risk associated with just buying up domains.
Other questions
30. How do we do a backlink audit? Is it by using Fresh Web Explorer, or something else?
The backlink audit is something I first mentioned in this post on, “Does Your Board of Directors Get SEO?,” but I didn’t go into the actual process. We usually start Google Webmaster Tools, the client’s analytics solution, Majestic SEO/Open Site Explorer, and a crawler like Screaming Frog. Most important: Excel. You don’t need a whole lot more than that!
31. Any resources for link building noobs that are a must read?
Check out:
- Chapter 7 of the SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide to SEO
- Link building archives on sites like the SEOmoz blog
- Link Building Strategies by Point Blank SEO
32. I live a couple of blocks from the Brownes & Co. and passed Tabatha when they were filming that show. Brown's finally closed. That woman was awful wasn't she?
I referenced the Online Reputation Management Case Study post during the Mozinar, and yes, it's "reality TV" but it's difficult to make some appear that clueless about their business without plenty of material to work with!
33. Recently we had a duplicate content because someone create a fake website and he paste some of our information. I didn't saw anything until that one of my friend tell me this. Except Google Webmaster Tool Which tools or websites can I use for find this duplicate content?
My favorite tools: https://www.copyscape.com/, https://www.plagium.com/, Google itself, and now Fresh Web Explorer from SEOmoz.
There were a number of questions I didn’t tackle from the Mozinar that were too off-topic, but I’ll try to reach out personally to you with an answer if we haven’t already emailed back and forth. Thank you again for everyone who listened in and I hope the Q&A provides some insight as well as healthy debate!
Rocking post... Let me push back on #9 and see if others are in my boat.
#9 sounds so good, so right, on paper. But looking up from the trenches, I just don't experience this in the verticals in which I work. Let me pause a moment to envy you if you've been able to succed here. -\-
The reality... executives who were uninvolved in the decision to employ my consultancy regularly pop in to check on the SEO program for which they are signing checks - and they are asking about ranking and traffic results. Some will even sit down and start randomly searching in the meeting! "Look at this," they'll say, turning around their laptop.. "Why is company X outranking us here? What are you doing about it?" Explaining to them concepts of content production, outreach, the long tail or the fragile situation a competitor is in rarely appeases. We. Aren't. Ranking. Their eyes pass to the dir of marketing...Why'd you hire this guy? Soon, they remember somewhere they need to be.
I've learned to sense when a program is doomed and it's moments like these that cause me to question the whole profession. Internal resources for content production and link-building tend to be the same resources needed for core product development - and they are frequently the first to be withdrawn. Yes, "managing expectations" feels like a great preventative, but expectations are generally connected to a person, and that person is not always the one you need to appease later! Panic kills SEO programs, and I see a lot of people panicking.
How bad does it get? Late last year we lost a large "sophisticated" client to a black-hat, triple-ad-serving nutcase SEO with a slide deck caused the CMO to salivate. Screenshot after screenshot of top rank for key phrases - analytics showed this generated dream levels of traffic, and conversions. A spy gave me a copy and my frantic analysis showed they were largely fueled by thin, duplicate content and linkfarms serving thousands of links from a few class C addresses. Everything about it was wrong, yet they were killing it - post Panda. Post Penguin. I pointed out all of the issues as they related to Panda/Penguin and the company's future marketing assets - and their response was that the company's future was actually more dependent on outperforming the competitor at #1. Those were fun meetings. I ended up looking like the nerdy academic with no grasp on commercial reality.
Yes, patience. My SEO friends say they weren't a good client to have and Matt Cutts says the algorithm will eventually catch up with them. This, I get, academically. I feel, and perhaps others agree, that there is an increasing point of discomfort in freelance SEO as we ask customers to participate at a higher level with the long-term success of SEO. If great content and sites that followed rules ranked well, this would go wonderfully. I will fall in love with SEO again when this happens.
Scott, I agree. That was part of the mozinar... you'll have to manage expectations, but speaking to a middle manager isn't going to help, because they're getting orders from someone you and they can't necessarily educate. There isn't really an answer to that. You either bend in your approach/ethics to give them what they want, you don't work with the client, or you work with them as long as you can hoping the results speak for themselves and competitors get shot down.
To your point, we do find that in highly competitive industries, the repercussions are usually minimal when a single shady site does get smacked. Sometimes Google decides to do an industry-specific shake-up and that's more drastic. Regardless, I've never seen someone get ahead by simply chasing the competition, especially in competitive industries. You have to be moving forward at all times and inventing new approaches or the other guy will get there first.
Thanks for the healthy debate and let me know your thoughts. I sympathize with everything you're saying. :D
Scott, I feel your pain. And I agree with Rhea that client selection and education are key.
My niche is supposedly medium-sized, family-run businesses that turn out to be much larger than anyone suspected -- with revenues from the millions to tens of millions. These folks hate agencies of all kinds and often have a small to non-existent marketing dept. I usually deal directly with the owner, or someone who reports directly to him. I call myself a web strategist and SEO is only part of what I do.
I worked for many years as a manager and exec in large companies. So the idea of getting caught up in internal bs and politics is unappealing to me. I could probably make more money working for slightly larger companies. But the idea of being stuck on a conference call with an internal, mid-level marketing person and a bunch of other consultants...well, it's something I can live without! And internal IT bottlenecks? Usually, I've built the website with a freelance developer and designer I recommend (who bill the client directly) -- so I can get changes done myself quickly.
I think it makes sense to trust your instincts. My experience has been that the basic dynamics of the client relationship seldom change. If it starts out good it stays that way, and vice versa. And the signs are usually pretty apparent in the pitch process.
Hey Rhea,
That was an outstanding session! Thanks so much for presenting and also for putting the time in to answer those questions that couldn't be fitted in with this post.
One of those questions was mine and I really appreciate you going above and beyond to answer :-)
Sha
Hi Sha, thank you! Glad you found it helpful and that I was able to tackle your question during the follow-up. :)
This was an outstanding webinar, and the follow up post is equally useful. My overall approach and philosophy is very much aligned with yours.
Just one follow up point. Are you able to elaborate a bit more on your contract terms and cancellation policy, mentioned in #7?
It's an issue I've struggled with, even as I try to educate clients on the need for a long term approach.
I normally insist on minimum three month contracts to start, and these mostly convert to year long contracts. But on one occasion, I offered an out 60 days in -- which the client exercised, after I'd put in a ton of work and was just starting to see results. Can you say what you do? Do you have cancellation windows at 90 days intervals, or 60 days notice... or what? And can you say what your minimum initial term is?
Maybe you should think about cancellation fee and/or offering cancellation only if there's absolutely no improvements in search traffic.
SEO is getting more scary by the day. Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.
The problem here, as always, is that Google says one thing and does another. We have competitors with extremely spammy link profiles that have been ranking consistently well for several years. It's simply inexcusable that comment spam still passes juice, but it does.
And that isn't even getting into disposable short-term pump-and-dump thin content affiliate-type sites that can shoot up to a first-page rank despite being utter garbage, or big-brand sites with godawful scraped third-party content like this, which honestly is BS. That shouldn't be ranking, but there it is, spamming up my search results, all because it's from a "trusted brand".
Google talk a big game, but their consistency is lackluster at best.
You could always use Bing...
There's definitely a lot of work needed still. Job security for the Web Spam team. ;)
That's why Matt Cutts is always so chirpy.
I come across this too in my industry. Competitor sites with paid links are ranking at the top and reporting the paid links seems to yield few results also.
Great post Rhea! This is a good list of questions that arise from clients and occasionally staff. Im glad to see someone else's answers on these questions. Ive bookmarked for future reference.
Thank you Rhea.
I can not compare the values and great thoughts shared here in SEOMOZ.
I wish compare us (SEOs) to wandering voyagers to who lost their right direction in sea. SEOmoz blog posts are like compass which give the right info about what direction we need to move.
Once again thanks Rhea
Thanks for the post Rhea,
I have two comments.
1. It's really frustrating to me to still se competitors using fake blog networks to rank on page 1 and beat us out in Google when we have been totally white hat for ever and always.
2. Can you explain the difference between a paid link in the Yahoo Directory and a paid link on some other Web directories? It seems that buying links at some is good for your exposure and rankings and buying links at others is bad. What's your litmus test? Or do you advocate avoiding all paid links, including Yahoo DIrectory?
3. Isn't advertising on Google's display network a paid link?
Thanks Rhea!
Dana
Hello Rhea,
Thankfulness,
Great posting Thanks for SEO Link Building….
Issue which you have common are actually good and wrap roughly all topics of SEO Link Building.
I truly am grateful for you, carry on.... :-)
Thanks for sharing. Discover lots of belongings from this post...
N my questions are
What is top activity In SEO Link Building after Google Penguin and Panda Updates??
i ' m very confused Help Me Rhea ??
Plz Best Reply…
Thanks once again…:)
"Also, simply buying up domains and redirecting them can be effective, but quantity can become a concern."
I too have had site owners asking me about their "site flipping" ideas. I think if you are going to invest any money in a preexisting domain you have to do your homework and know what you are getting yourself and your site into. If there is any mess to inherit it's on your head once you buy that domain. I had one woman tell me she bought a site that looked like it was making money hand over fist, only to have it de-indexed three months later. Youch.
I've seen sites sell for millions just to have the site penalized a few months later. It's ridiculous. I just bought a house and I did my homework! Websites are no different. Simply a matter of investment... great points Nick. :)
Thanks for this post Rhea. Definitely food for thought when you take into consideration the 'moving feast' for ranking factors involved in link building over the past couple of years
This was terrific - so helpful. I got several useable link building ideas. Thank you!!!
Great post! I particularly liked this statement, "It's important to reset the expectation that link quantity and anchor text isn't the metric to measure, but link quality and your own internal performance metrics like conversions and qualified traffic are what truly matter".
Great post. I need to make sure I focus on keeping a good balance of nofollow links to my dofollow links. And also, I haven't been practicing link diversity when it comes to my home page and sub pages. Thanks for the pointers!
Thanks for this post Rhea! It's quite informative.
Like you mentioned, one of the important factors around which the decision on acquiring a link from Site XYZ, be based on "How active the Site XYZ actually is."
Another key is "Pattern". The moment there is a pattern, you let search engines smell something fishy. So avoid patterns in your links and in your anchor texts - too many no-follows or zero no-follow, too many directories or only guest posts, etc.
Just be Creative, be Diverse & be Natural !
Great post! Everyone can probably implement these strategies a little better into their SEO strategy and keep a good balance like VirtualMarketAdv said above. Thanks for the tips!
Hi RheaThanks for sharing this great information. But Still there are some facts which will contradict these answers.
1. I have seen many sites performing very good which have backlinks from dofollow blogs from comment section and site linking from blog comments is not at all related to post subject.
2. Many sites get very good backlinks from link exchange pages example some travel sites do link exchange that is not a white hat seo. But sites perform very well than the quality sites which has PR of 5-6.
What you say on it.. Can Google still not detect all unnatural links? or Google still considering blog comments links and link exchange a good practice.
I loved how you laid out the actions. At times all seems so intimidating but somehow we find out. Many thanks for this info.
Great post on the general practices of SEO and link building! We will definitely be sharing it.
Here's a question:
If you have a niche blog that is working quite well (good traffic, lot's of interaction, ...) and then you decide to start an e-commerce shop based on the subject of the blog.
How should you handle linking from the blog to the webshop? I was thinking of using content related banners in the right columns and some textual links in the articles towards the relevant products/services but I'm not sure if this will affect the blog or shop negatively?
Cheers
This could be the best post of SEOmoz in this year. So many answers to the questions which I was searching here & there finally found it. Thanks a lot+Rhea Drysdale for answering all the answers with concrete answer.
Well, I got one question on your point #16 regarding discontinued product. I'm working for an online store & earlier we used to redirect all the discontinued product page to the homepage but I felt that why to redirect & lose page value & instead we keep the page as it is displaying the discontinued icon. So, am i doing right or i should use the earlier strategy?
Thanks for the share Rhea!
I'm pretty sure that guest posting will remain valid link building strategy. However, as guest posting is getting more and more popular, building relations with bloggers will be the key. Also, first impression will be more and more important. Why someone would allow you to write post if you can't write one simple mail? Getting your posts published will be much harder in the future, but it will also ensure quality of links, and lower the chances of devaluation by Google.
An excellent post - it saddens me that so many of our community continued to promote link building for so long, when we all knew that it was a bubble which would burst. I know it sounds self righteous, but all those years of being told 'it is okay for you with big brands, we need to do this to compete' grated and you all seemed so terribly shocked by penguin.
If you game someone's software you cannot cry when they mend it.
More of this sort of post please.
That is a very useful tip.
Abhishek Erach
This is an excellent post. My firm heavily relies on SEO. The personal injury law industry is quite competitive. Without SEO, our company would definitely have less business. This post has answered some of the questions I had about SEO.
This article has removed many confusions about link building, guest posts and paid posts. Really very informative post! Thanks Rhea Drysdale for your efforts.
Hey Rhea
Thanks for such a great and knowledgeable post.However, would you mind if I ask to explain or give some insights on questions left without answers - 4, 15, 22, 23, 26....it would be of great support
Thanks Heaps :)
Rhea answers these questions, but groups two questions together. She'll list two questions, then says she'll answer both at once. Hope that helps!
In the IM Social site Kingged.com this post was liked. However, I will love to get answer from the comment posted on same site:
I have read much of this post and the responses on link building, guest blogging, and outreach, etc have been impressive. However, I have question to ask – What could be the best strategy for merging traditional link building and internal link building for a successful SEO campaign?
Great answer to question five about Guest Blogging. Also thank you for all the further reading you have included.
Fair point about outreach: “Will communicating a message to someone be the best way to market your brand?” When you put it like that its quite obvious how key outreach is and will continue to be.
Great post! i will use this and other resources to support my link earning campaign. I had big troubles last year and this year still with a SEO agency that was doing "some" questionable tactics. I did not know about SEO until a couple months ago, but i did notice huge drops of traffics. So i am starting again. Great post! Thank you very much!
Great post. On the list of link building tools, will you use Link Assistant?
thanks
Seem some interesting things being done with penalised sites being 301'd to a new site. Only the good links seem to pass any value
nice article, thanks for the infortmation
One of the best link-building posts I've ever read. Either I need to read more or you're a saint. I think it's a bit of both :).
Awesome Post... Got a lot of answers of the confused questions were in my mind. Yes, Google has changed and created a lot of new rules for link building.
@Rhea. Great piece of information especially for the point relating to "How do you contact bloggers with no contact information?" Social media networks.. Facebook Page.. Twitter Profile.. LinkedIn Page.. and more platforms are one of the best means to find contact information that is unavailable on the website.
Thank for a great post, I've used SEOMoz / Moz for years and this post inspired me to register and contribute a comment :) I always check in here when I'm getting 'Link Building Fatigue' for a boost.
thank you
Hello Rhea,
This is very informative. I’ve learned a lot from this post. Indeed, link buying now is really risky and bad for the business. Anyway, there are still a lot of good techniques that we could use that is good in the eyes of Google. We just need to fully understand Google to come up with a great SEO strategy.
Great post, it helps a lot. Now i understand exactly the do follow links, and no follow.
this time i need more knowlege how to promote the website.
Good article. I was surprised when you talked about nofollow links and it's lack of importance. It should be interesting to have some data about it.
Thank you for the post.
thanks for sharing,(:
Such a good post that i thought for once i'd actually comment!
Regarding your views on Sponsored posts etc, my company is gearing up to send out samples of our products to bloggers so that they can review them - do you think that Google will look at links from these sorts of posts the same as if I paid money for the posts? We intend to not ask for specific anchor texts, so it should be more natural, but i'm unsure whether this method of awareness building for the company will do any harm or not - if Google looks at this as me paying people for links. Any help would be much appreciated! :)
Thanks for sharing, this is really what I needed, everyone here at home keep all there tips and tricks for them self, so it is really hard to chat to someone about SEO if you are new at it (like I am) so it really felt like I sat there next to you and asking the questions. :)
Q: how do you decide how much links are enough for a company say in a month?and second one of my sites doesn't show any data in the seomoz tool bar, is it because I set something up wrong (site is now almost 6 months old)?
Hello, I want to know more details about guest post on question #4. I have enough guidance on guest post. Guest posting can be a great way to get targeted traffic.
Thanks for sharing this post!! but i want to know that what is good for seo dofollow link or nofollow link?And how many directory and bookmarking are enough for seo in a day...
I gave up on Press releases a long time ago. Thanks for this wonderful post
Thanks you! i Think this future
Great post, I liked that there still may be some value in niche directories. I have been feeling like directories were starting to be a dirty word. But I may look for some niche related ones that aren't going to linking out to spammy cites. May be good a bad link and even get some traffic. My question I would like answer is what is the best white link prospecting tool? Ontolo... Buzz stream...? either of these must be paired with open site explorer from my opinion. But if anyone has any othe suggestions I'd love to hear them.
All those questions which you have shared are really good and cover almost all topics of SEO. Thanks for sharing these valuable topics. This is really what I needed, everyone here at my office keep all those tips and tricks for themself, because we are new in SEO so it is really helpful to us.
Thank you for the article. Again, it is good to remember the basics of Link building.
OK, a lot to take in here. Obviously a birth of a whole new industry! The trick for an individual though is maximizing the time spent on SEO work while balancing the other aspects of "the business". I have many questions but after thinking through your post of excellent information I have one very important question...noting I am new to this...how do we discover sites that receive guest posts? what is the method of discovering who they are in a niche industry and what do we do if the population of blogs on the subject is small?
Thanks for your thoughts and comments on this.
It was a great post!! This is very interesting strategy which should be implemented before starting online internet marketing. Nowadays Unique content is definitely the most important thing in SEO field. You have done an outstanding job posting this remarkable information. I am very much impressed from your post. It has amazing information. Thanks for sharing this innovative tips.
Best of Luck!!
+Rhea Drysdale - this is a great post and way more info that is normally provided. What about blog commenting? This is kind if a wet fish but keen to hear your opinion..
Well done on this post though......
Hi VirginiaC,
Choose comment marketing on blogs over comment spamming. Comment marketing desires to build recognition so readers can recognize your organization with you.
Rhea,
Thanks for the valuable information. I had many questions regarding quality link building among other topics and you virtually covered every area here. Looking forward to reading more of your content here. Keep it coming!
Dan
Great Post. Thanks for sharing. Learnt many things from this blog...
Good analytic ! I Agree with
What do you think about sponsored blogs (sponsored links) vs guest blogs (unpaid links)? Does Google punish you for "link buying"?
Yes. Google will punish sites that are caught selling links, buying links, or paid links agencies/service providers. Manual action usually occurs when it's done on a substantial scale.
Nice post Rhea,
If you check seroundtable.com offers sponsored links and some of the links here are dofollow.
I want to ask you
How google treating dofollow links here?Will these websites with dofollow links get penalized?How google treating seroundtable and will it get penalized for offering sponsor links?
Hello Umesh,
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable has written about how Google has reduced his toolbar PageRank and he feels his traffic has been reduced because he does not nofollow his sponsored links. One post about it is at https://www.seroundtable.com/sponsored-links-12978.html.
Thanks Keri for the link.
OK this is all about Search Engine Round table. What about the website having link from there. I have seen websites there ranking high in SERPs.
Barry announced that he nofollowed paid links.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-reconsideration-links-16652.html
Hi Rhea,
Outstanding post; this was extremely helpful! I have a quick question regarding guest posts. Would a link in the byline of a guest post, such as this post was written by Joe from abc.com, be considered a manipulative link? Although money didn't exchange hands, should these links still be nofollow?
Great write up! Now if my clients would only understand!
Thanks for this post. I have a client who uses press releases heavily and I've been trying to explain to them that it's a waste of money if used solely for the purpose of SEO. The other sections of this post are great too!
As a relative newbie trying to use sound SEO techniques to improve my small biz' online standing, posts like this that answer a bunch of linking questions are ideal. Thanks so much Rhea!
Great Post. Thanks for sharing.
Hello from the UK, Rhea
Awesome to see you took time out to publish the q and a session above. And when I get a second I will watch the video from the other day.
But I have a question for you. Do you think that a lot of link builders are getting quite lazy now trying to acquire links when in reality they should be putting ten times the effort in?
By this I mean 2-3 years ago a link.. lets face it was very easy to come across, acquire, (cough) purchase (cough), comment on a blog and so on. So Google try cut this out and bring out Penguin.. it shakes up the SEO industry and people are starting to find themselves clueless. Then all of sudden guest posting, being social etc is the way people are heading towards and seeing some results. But you see a lot of the same questions people asking how to find guest posts, or if they put something on their blog they feel no one is reading it or its being picked up by Google. Then they say well I email some people and share it on my social platform and just expect it go viral. Do you not feel they need to step it up that extra level? So mass email people, go and tweet people related to the blog post you have just written about.. but start to be smart and don't just tweet say Rand for instance and hope he might re-tweet it or give you a shout out. But look for someone who has say 2,3k followers and is active on twitter and target them to start and be a bit smarter with their link building efforts. And then we might start to see the same questions people ask change?
Awesome post Rhea. You have cleared some of my doubts. I have a question, how do you manage negative SEO. If you found one of your client's competitor building spammy links to him using some software. What you do first, how you manage this. Thanks in advance.
Link brokers = Dark side.
Your pal,
Chenzo
You have done a wonderful job @Rhea Drysdale. After Penguin update, lots of technique had been changed. Since a quality link building program strategy can’t get up in a short time frame.
Ultimately link building success should be calculated by increasing traffic from your niche relevant keywords and improved online visibility.
I really appreciate you, keep it up .... :-)
very nice, Thanks.
Hi Rhea,
Questions which you have shared are really good and cover almost all topics of SEO. Thanks for sharing these valuable answers.
But I had some doubt regarding PR. Can you please elaborate this answer then its a great help. Means can we do press release or not.
Hardik
Hi Hardik, do you mind providing a little more insight on your question? Press releases are great for marketing your business, but I would avoid distribution of press releases just for the sake of link building since the value is so small and dependent on QDF (query deserves freshness). Let me know if that helps and if not, I'll dive deeper, but tell me more about your situation. Thanks!
Hi Rhea,
Thanks for your reply. My main question regarding Press Release is that still press release is providing equivalent weight age as it is provided before. Because Google as announcement regarding the devaluation of press release links. So, if we are some new organization then it is feasible to do press release for branding purpose and if yes then how often we will do press release if we are new bees to business. Thanks !!!
Hey Rhea,
Great post.
But still confused about sponsored/ paid links. What if someone sell links which are relevant to the content, and the target page, etc. but he/she doesn't mention that they are paid for that link in any manner? How Google can find that?
Google can't decipher a paid link from a non-paid link if it's left unlabeled, but when a link doesn't support the context of the website, appears to be out-of-place, has acquired a lot of exact-match anchor text (even on relevant sites) recently, etc. that starts to look unnatural. Often they will make assumptions based on known techniques, patterns, website histories, etc.
The FTC requires that bloggers disclose when they have been compensated (with cash, product, or otherwise) - it's unethical (and a violation of federal law) to ask a blogger not to disclose a sponsored relationship. They only recently clarified that bloggers are indeed bound by the same rules as celebrity endorsers, so there may be some bloggers who are ignorant of this. The FTC has also clarified that it is the advertisers, not the bloggers, they will pursue for violations. Just something to keep in mind.
Nice writeup Rhea. I still like using press release distribution services for reputation management alone. If you publish enough of them you can own all of page one for your brand pretty easily.
Hi Dave, I suspect that only works with a brand/person who doesn't have a lot of volume/presence. Press releases for ORM rarely work in an industry with a large density of news and competition given the QDF factor. Happy to see they work in some capacity, but rare to stick around for long without building up a lot of backlinks to them even then. (just my experiences)
Depends on your definition of 'work' I suppose. A couple thousand to control the first page for your brand name is worth it to me. I've seen it work for several clients actually.
I agree that they're not ideal for media coverage though.
Great post +Rhea Drysdale. I especially appreciate the links to tools like Virante. Will be saving this to refer to in the future.
It's great list of questions that have every seo mind. Thanks..
I think some times!! What is the future of seo according to latest google update and changes for good SERP.
Great Article. These are really helpful tips.
Thanks so much for this informative and detailed post, Rhea. As a beginner SEO, I'm definitely going to watch your webinar, and follow up with resources you linked here.
Really helpful article. It was amazing, it refresh my link building knowledge .Thanks you so much... Any other article about link building?
This is amazing! I am definitely bookmarking this page.
thanks for giving a valuable post,
all these 33 factors all more importent for all.
Helpful post,
You answered my questions without asking anything, Thanks a lot!
Hi Rhea,
Today, I was reading very good blog post on Search Engine Journal for Feeding the Content Machine: 6 Steps to Repurpose and Maximize Content Creation. and this blog spot on SEOmoz. Both blog posts make my day.
Because, We are working on E-Commerce marketing and link development. We have found that our one competitor is performing well on Google. We are using Open Site Explorer for back link analysis and trying to establish our presence where our competitor have. But, We have found that, They are performing well due to huge number of paid links.
Honestly, I am reading too many articles on Paid links and watched recent videos on Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel. But, I can't understand: How Google understand paid links and penalize website for paid links. Because, I can see too many paid back links on competitor website.
Is there any specific way where we can notify to Google for paid back links for our competitors?
By the way, I really like this blog post and download PPT which you have shared in this blog post. I am going to arrange one session with my team and sit together to drill down more on it!
Thanks for sharing! :D
Thanks - really useful advice here!
Excellent post Rhea !!
This is a good list of questions , You have cover almost all topics of SEO. I've bookmarked for future reference.
Just one thing I want to ask , Are "Guest Blog Posts" still good for link building? as there is still confusion about it, Like you can gain traffic by including relevant link but at the same time there is chances of content spamming etc.
Wow! Such a complete post!! Thanks for the info!! I will consider it in my SEO Campaign.Thanks,
Honestly...I dnt know why everyone is so concerned about link building quality, what I have seen through out my career that engagement is everything, of course link building still plays an important role but that is not everything, even a link from a blogspot platform can be good enough if the post is really up to the mark, getting a lot of visibility. As far as the bookmarking & directory are concerned ...I just don't suggest my team to go for it, the value of these activities that we get is simply not worth the time
A great post once again :) :)
Great Post Rhea..i like it this type of post and such a nice understand users with images and also video thanks for the share this information...
Fantastic Article, Rhea Drysdale! Many people claim to know about organic link building, but few can actually show relevant, useful, and transparent knowledge. You did a great job!
I agree that many are still focusing on press release. As you say "it is over-saturated, and it’s rare that a press release attracts any press attention."
We know that press release is an article itself but I agree about the press release distributions is the main problem here.
Just what as Cutts says:Google Cutts: Links From Press Releases Won't Help
Read more:https://www.seroundtable.com/google-press-release-links-16136.html
Hi Rhea ,
Thanks for the post. I have some questions.
How many directory submission we can do per day?If we do more than 50 link building per day including, press release, directory submission and other link building process, does it effects negative to the website?If our keywords are not ranked in Google since long time, what I can do to get better result or to get rank in Google for those keywords.Waiting to your Reply.
Thanks,
Steve
How many truly relevant directories to your site can you find a day? How often can you make a press release that has information that is worthy of a press release, and that would be something you would post on your own Facebook page and say "look at this, this is really cool!" ?
I'd start with Google Webmaster Tools and see if you have any notices from them about the site. Take a look at the site itself, make sure that there isn't a technical problem like a robots.txt excluding googlebot from crawling the content. Make sure that your content is unique and valuable.
I feel confident now after reading this whole Q&A, thanks Rhea for bringing this very useful guide on link building.
Hi Rhea
Thanks a lot for such a nice and useful post, but I have a question for you
Is it necessary to do blog comments(I'm not here talking about spam commenting) to increase the ratio of no-follow links? Or Is there any other option for this in your mind?
Looking forward,
Thanks in advance
Abeerah
Abeerah, if you decide to comment on blogs, do it just to get traffic to your site (or if you want to share your opinion with readers). I really don't see why you should go after nofollow links, as they won't help your rankings. If you want to improve rankings, I really think you should spend your time on different techniques.
Hi Rhea,
Fantastic post. The Q & A section is awesome. We all face such questions everyday while communicating. Thanks.
Sandip
I liked this topic
Valuable seo post
LOL this cracked me up!
"Sponsored blogs are like advertorials in magazines and should be labeled as such. If someone received compensation for their review/content, this should be disclosed and, according to Google, all outbound links to the purchasing domain should be nofollowed. "
Good one
Flaktrak:
Do you find ethical conduct amusing?
Hi Rhea Drysdale,
Thank you so much to share valuable and intuitive information about the link building strategy. Generally webmasters confuse about the link building, which process would be helpful to get better results, and some times having lots of SEO related queries, but now you explained wonderful information and tactics among the webmasters and WPO which is very helpful.
I hope you always try to share link building tactics.
But here I have one confusion about the blogging?
Can you please clarify me how the blog link building and article back links are effective in terms of Ranking?
I am looking forward to your reply.
Thanks,
Hi Amit, I'm not sure I understand the question, can you provide more detail? Thanks!
No 1 question is "Articles back links still best way to get back links" ?
No 2 question is "Guest Blog back links is still good" ?
Two questions.
I am looking forward to your reply.
Thanks,
If you sat down with someone from Google or Bing and were talking about your site and link building for your site, would you be comfortable explaining those links?
Were the links built as part of content for readers, or were they built solely for the purpose of getting links?
Article directories haven't been the best method of building links in some time. Guest blog posts really depend on the quality of the post and of the site. If you've made a 3000 word guest post on YouMoz that's a detailed, relevant case study and it includes a link to the client in the context of the post, that'd probably be a good link. If it's a 300 word guest post with five links in the about section on a blog that is filled with totally random content, it wouldn't be such a great link.
Super reply. I recently analyzed an Australian website as per a telephonic request. They were getting more than 2000 useful organic visits during the mid 2012. At the end of 2012 (after October the number dropped to 1000s. They got just 15 visits during Jan, 2013. In my analysis what I found is the website was having just 16 pages. I checked with open site explorer. The website with 16 page visibility in Google is still having 579 back links (fully un natural and manipulating ) That is why they fell down to 15 from 2Ks. Like wise huge back links with low presence, in guest article writing also, if the ratio and content is generating some doubts, it will definitely give the hurting results.
Hey That's really interesting QA and I liked reading it but I adore it if you posted a video rather than blog post as thats more timesavy and interesting way of learning for may like me ;)
You're in luck! She actually did an hour and a half video about this exact subject, available at
https://moz.com/webinars/link-smarter-not-harder.
Thanks for the video link dear. I have already read this post. better luck next time to me when I get video link in the beginnig of post itself with kind of option i can either read or watch the video and I'll go for the video watching :)
it's very good information . i think that seo world is very easy to enter in it but you can't get out
There is not much relevant information on this topic on the internet, thanks for sharing some knowledge and very well explained.
Very well answers on Guest Post.
Thanks for share your experience!
Great article, thank you :)
i liked the information you provided, thank you
It's informative.
Great stuff... Very useful information ...
Finally I got answered of my unanswered questions. Thanks
Superb post. I read your blog and completely satisfy with blog. you give new direction of link building. all question and their true answer is very good.