Much of marketing, especially SEO, has shifted from a game with very few rules to a game that Google is fairly strictly refereeing. With their old tactics eliciting penalties, many marketers are simply throwing in the towel.
In today's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard calls a time-out and shows us the new strategy we need to come out on top.
For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!
Video transcription
Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Cyrus. Today we're going to be talking about the rules of link building. Now this is really important because we see a lot of people out there in the marketing world getting scared of link building, past actions coming back to haunt them, people saying that link building is dead, links losing value in Google's algorithm. Rand did a great Whiteboard Friday a few weeks ago about that.
But what's really disturbing is some people are giving up completely on link building when it's still a really huge part of Google's algorithm, and they're giving up because they don't know the rules. They don't understand that when you play by the rules, for the most part, you can really win. What we see, I like to think about this like a basketball game, going back to the days of the ancient Aztecs when they started playing and there weren't a lot of rules. What's happening now is we have Google, the referee in the black and white striped shirt. They're coming down and they're saying, "Hey guys, this isn't working. We need to install some order here." So they start giving out fouls and penalties to people.
Some of these people are getting frustrated, and they're leaving the game. But the people who aren't getting fouled, who aren't getting the penalties, they are winning the score. That's where we want to be. We want to be the people who are still playing the game instead of walking off the court, because these people aren't going to win. So if we understand what the rules are, and these rules I see get violated all the time, even people trying to do what they can get away with, it's not worth it. So playing by the rules is something that we want to strive for.
One thing I've heard internet marketers talk about for years is the idea of doing what works. For a long time, there was no referee on the court. Google was just absent, and people were doing whatever they wanted. People would say, "You know, I don't really care what the rules are because I'm going to do what works today for my client." People like Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds, they were saying, "Guys, you've got to follow the rules because the rules are coming. Don't do what works today, do what works tomorrow." That's the advice.
These rules are based not only on what works today, but what works tomorrow. Not only that you win today's game, but that you keep winning game after game after game and you win that NCAA tournament. All right.
Beware links you control
First of all, I want to start off with some things that we want to avoid when link building. If we look at what Google has been targeting, there are usually two common factors in links that they target. They are, first of all, links that you control. When we see Google crack down on guest blogging networks, on widget links, signature profile links, they all have that one element in common: that you control the anchor text. That's exactly what Google is looking for. I predict any new link penalties that happen in the future will also follow this pattern. It will be links where you control the anchor text.
We're always going to have situations where we do control the anchor text, but beware and be very careful with those links because those are the links that are subject to devaluation and penalization.
Be cautious with links that scale
The same thing goes for links that scale. Again, we're talking about widget links, author bio boxes. When you combine these two together, those are exactly the kind of links that you need to be extra special careful with and not scale, not do too much anchor text manipulation because they will always be subject to those penalties.
Don't ask for anchor text
One rule that I've been following for years, I got this from Eric Ward, the very famous link builder: Never ask for anchor text. When you're doing outreach, when you're talking to other people, when you're guest posting, asking for the anchor text is going to raise a lot of red flags. That's what kills it for you, because when you start asking for anchor text, your brain starts working. You think, "Well, I need this keyword. I need this keyword." You create patterns. You create over-optimization. No matter what the temptation is, if you don't ask for anchor text, you're going to get a much more natural link profile.
In all of the years that I've been doing link building, I have never asked for anchor text once. Whoever is linking to me can link to me however they want. Sometimes it's a no-followed link. Sometimes it's not exactly what I want. But it's natural, and it comes off so much more natural.
Don't link externally in the footer
A couple of other rules that I see people violate all the time that Google has made painfully clear in the past few months: Don't link externally in the footer. Just don't. I'm not going to go into the reasons. Just don't do that.
Avoid site-wide links
By the same token, except for navigation, avoid site-wide links. This is something that we've known for years. If someone links to you externally, site-wide, in the side bar, that's ripe for Penguin-style links.
Again, these are best practices. There are always exceptions to the rules. But, generally, following these rules is going to help you out even if you have to break them sometimes.
Addendum: In many cases, footer links and site-wides are perfectly acceptable. The three reasons I recommend folks avoid them for link building purposes are:
- We often associate external site-wide and footer links with Penguin-style actions. Not always, but it's something we look for.
- Optimized, site-wide anchor text may trigger over-optimization filters.
- The value of a sidebar or footer link is often considerably less valuable than a truly editorial link found in the main body text.
Keep doing link building!
On the "do" side of things, one thing that I want to emphasize is do link building. Don't give up just because Google is imposing these rules and penalizing people. We still need the people who are actively out there building links. They still have a huge opportunity to win. So don't give up on this as a part of your practice.
Focus on distribution
One thing I would emphasize doing is shifting from actively building links to more of a focus on distribution, because the more eyeballs that are on your content, the more natural links you're going to earn.
That's something we do here at Moz; we have a huge emphasis on social distribution, distribution through our partners. We just want to get the eyeballs on the content because that's the end goal anyway. There is a huge correlation between getting eyeballs on good content and link building. It's one of the best kinds of link building you can do. It's just getting your content out there on the right eyeballs.
Do some outreach
Along those same lines, outreach is still okay. Writing those emails, finding those influencers. Our friends at BuzzStream just wrote a really excellent guide on how to do outreach. Really worth a read. The idea is, along with distribution, you want to get the right eyeballs on your content so that they have those opportunities to build those natural links that you don't control the anchor text, where it's not scalable. It's a real human being putting a real link in their content and endorsing you.
Link value = traffic quality
One thing to always keep in mind that when we're looking at links and how we judge them, the value of the link equals the quality of the traffic that it can drive you. Meaning that this is kind of how Google judges links. It's not necessarily the quantity of the traffic that the link can drive you, but the quality. If you run a mechanic shop and you want good leads from those links, you would want other mechanic shops or auto part stores to link to you. A link from an SEO blog probably doesn't have a lot of value because it's not very relevant.
When you build links, one of the golden rules is look at the quality of the traffic that it's going to drive you. That's going to help you a lot in those relevancy signals that Google is looking at.
Embrace the nofollow
Finally, in this new age of link building, we need to start embracing the nofollow and not be as scared of it as we have been, because those links that we are considering no following probably weren't helping you that much anyway, and so embracing them sort of cuts those signals off that Google doesn't want those to pass PageRank. They don't want them to pass anchor text. But keep in mind that even no followed links, Google still looks at those. We have evidence that Google uses nofollowed links for crawling and discovery purposes. There is some evidence that Google may use nofollowed links for signals other than that. Not every link has to pass page rank or anchor text to be valuable.
One final thought that I want to leave with, to keep in mind, when you practice these good do's, these good link building practices, you start to take your marketing to a higher level. At its best, good link building is indistinguishable from good marketing. When you're doing link building right, you don't even need the links because you're doing good marketing. You're pushing your content out there, you're talking to those influencers, you're getting traffic to your site, and those just happen to be the signals that Google wants to reward.
Let's do that. Let's win the link building game. Happy Friday everybody. Thank you.
Timely post, Cyrus... timely post (and and further proof of how Moz observes the trends, internal search and external data to update the blog's editorial plan :)).
The fear and the land burned politics of Google about "link building" actually has caused a panic of gigantic proportion among SEOs, such that many decide to commute their own definition as "Content Marketers" (it would be nice seeing how the decrease of Link Building services and the growth of Content Marketing ones are correlated during these last two years) and that many simply are saying that Google doesn't look at links anymore.
I won't talk about the first statement, as I won't repeat what you said about links objectives (visibility and traffic... I agree), but yes about the second.
Saying that links don't count anymore is simply stupid.
The negative evidence is that the sites are penalized for the toxic links that they may have built in the course of their lives. If links weren't counting anymore, we were not asked to delete or correct them, or Negative SEO wouldn't be a reality for certain kind of sites.
What you say about Nofollow is interesting, and I agree with it. If we read the patents with attention, we could see how Google talks about the value of links, but does not specify the follow/nofollow nature. We know that "follow" means "passing PageRank", but we know also that many things have changed in how Google value the authority and relevance of a site (and, quite curiously in time Matt Cutts released a video about this just yesterday), so we should consider that nofollowed links have a value in terms of relevance: Google - even if the link is nofollowed - still looks things like:
We should always remember that a link is not just a link: it's a search entity; therefore that it has - from a pure SEO point of view - more functions than just "passing link juice".
I think you are right. And especially because a nonfollow link might mention your name. And mentions are a good signals.
The nofollow point is really intriguing.
I remember a couple years ago John Mueller said when they see nofollows, "We take these links out of our PageRank calculations, and out of our algorithms when they use links."
At the time everybody interpreted that as "Google entirely ignores nofollow links in the algorithm." But I wonder if there's something more subtle there? They take nofollow out of of the algorithms when they use links. That doesn't mean that they aren't looking at other signals around that link.
Granted I hate when people pick apart statements like that... but it actually makes sense for them to look at the other signals there.
Yes, people often forget there are many elements to Google's algorithm beyond PageRank.
I'll take a nofollow.
Now Google is preparing to launch new update on Authority and Popularity of webpage.Because Authority and Popularity both are different things and highly practicable, therefore, Mr. Cutts is preparing an algo to get best results to users.
Exactly!!! (it is again fruit full to read your comment :D) Relevance Relevance is all the life of link building and from Good sites :)
This was excellent Cyrus. But it touched on an area that I feel is quite misunderstood. A sitewide link is not any more unnatural than any other link. Here is what John Mueller of Google says about sitewide links. This was in a Webmaster Central Hangout: (https://goo.gl/U2vlBJ) "Generally speaking, sitewide links can be fine. That’s not something where we would say that if a link is across a whole website then it’s automatically considered bad. I wouldn’t automatically treat those sitewide links as being problematic. Sometimes what happens is that we will run across site wide links where it’s like, “Oh, these are our partners.” And, you look at those partner websites and they also have this partner block on the side that point to the same sites and it’s more like a link exchange there. But, those are essentially just normal unnatural links. It’s not that because they are sitewide they would be considered bad. It’s more that there is just this link exchange happening."
The problem is that sitewide links used to be something that people would go after when placing links before Google started penalizing for unnatural linking. So, if you're auditing your links and you know that you've, for example, purchased blogroll links in the past, then there's a good chance that any blogroll links that point to your site and contain exact match anchor text are unnatural.
But, if someone links to me naturally and it happens to be a sitewide link..or it happens to contain exact match anchor text, that's a GOOD thing! That is not an unnatural link.
However, let's say that Cyrus was a big fan of my work with penalties and I said, "Hey Cyrus! Any chance you'd want to link to me?" And let's say that Cyrus decided to put up a followed sitewide link on his site that was anchored with "Google Penalty Recovery Service" and pointed it to my site. Is Google going to see that as unnatural? Most likely not. But, let's say that there are 15 other sites that are linking to me with that anchor text. Then it starts to look like a pattern of unnatural linking.
My point is that it's not the fact that the link is sitewide that makes it unnatural, but rather the fact that a link was paid for, or created by me and the anchor text was controlled by me that makes it an unnatural link.
I'm tired of seeing people freaking out because they notice that one particular site has 10K links pointing to them. Do you really think that Google passes 10,000 times the PageRank through those links? No...Google is good at figuring out that a sitewide link is just a single vote and not 10,000 votes. The "unnatural-ness" of the link has nothing to do with the fact that it is sitewide but everything to do with how that link got created.
And let's say that Cyrus decided to put up a followed sitewide link on his site that was anchored with "Google Penalty Recovery Service" and pointed it to my site. Is Google going to see that as unnatural? Most likely not.
Even if I respect John Mueller (and I had great discussion with him IRL in the past), experience taught me that Google will probably consider it unnatural, and that quality raters will flag it for further investigation. But I agree that one single sitewide link with an anchor text just used in that website could be also a "natural" one and that Google may not consider it unnatural.
The problem is that Google doesn't judge those kind of links on a link-by-link base usually, but mostly algorithmically (i.e.: Penguin), and it knows that a good 80% of those sitewide links were not naturally earned (because of scale), so also "natural sitewide links" tend to be penalized.
Said that, even though the sitewide link is totally natural and not causing any penalization, it would not pass almost any value (remember the Reasonable Surfer model?). So, using your example, what I would propose to Cyrus should be offering him to link to a great white paper I have published on my site about Google Penalty Recovery, or to embed charts and infographics I may have created about that, and linking to me with a branded anchor text... the context will help almost as a commercial anchor text would have done, and not asking him for a sitewide exact match anchor text backlink.
P.S.: Marie, I liked your comment and mostly agree with you - heck! I thumbed it up! Simply I may be more mistrusted about Google).
Excellent insight Marie! I hope I didn't create the impression that people should freak out and/or remove allsitewides that point to their site.
My point in avoiding site-wides when link building is not that they are automatically unnatural, but they can still trigger algorithmic over-optimization filters (non-manual penalty) and it's less than ideal placement from a link-builder's perspective. It seems to me site-wide links often get ignored or do more harm than good.
Great points Cyrus and Gianluca! Cyrus, I know that *you* know that all sitewides don't need to be removed, but I think that many people think that anything that is sitewide is unnatural.
"Even if I respect John Mueller (and I had great discussion with him IRL in the past), experience taught me that Google will probably consider it unnatural, and that quality raters will flag it for further investigation."
From what I have seen so far, almost every single site that I have analyzed that was penalized or affected because of Penguin, deserved it because there was widespread unnatural linking going on. (I know a lot of people who have penalties will likely disagree with this point.) The one exception is the situation where Doc Sheldon's site got an outbound link penalty for just having a couple of guest posts....that was odd and I believe it was a PR move on Google's part. But, in almost every case, if a site is affected adversely because of unnatural links, there was a definite history of trying to cheat Google on a large scale. My point in saying this is that Google is not out to penalize sites that have the occasional unnatural link. The algorithm is built so that it catches intentional manipulation and I feel that it is rare that a natural site will get penalized unfairly.
So, in regards to sitewide links, if you know you've been engaged in manipulative linkbuilding then yes, perhaps you should view sitewides with suspicion. But, for the average site owner who pulls up their backlink profile in Webmaster Tools and sees that one site is linking to them thousands of times...it's not something that you need to worry about.
I'll get off my soapbox now. :) Thanks again for the great WBF Cyrus.
Totally agreed Cyrus! Site wide links when seen for the very basic nature of it are links put to increase the traffic(Even if reflected as 'nofollow'). This will highly indicate an unnatural side of linking and gaining popularity. Most browsers tend to reduce trust on the site with the high presence of site wide links and thus a webmaster should consider all the facts before placing the same.
Also, as all sites will not have the similar placement and usage of the anchor text, site wise and guest links, a penalty from G could come from different combinations which may or may not include site-wide links as a reason.
I've got to agree with Marie. I think it's a mistake to tell people that sitewide links are a bad idea. I see web design companies rank just because of their sitewide links in the footer. You can't just make a blanket statement like that, otherwise novices will start pulling their links, when that's about the only thing they have going for them.
First class WBF Cyrus, as ever!
Our own link building and content generation best practice in our marketing department always follows a simple principle called GIGO - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_in,_garbage_o...
For anyone who has never heard that term I was taught it in 1981 at the age of 11 by my computer studies teacher and it simply means Garbage In, Garbage Out. Yes the term is related to poor computer programming but I like to assign this approach to the quality of marketing activity we do here. If we generate bad or poor content the end results will never match the desired outcomes and (keeping WBF relevant here) if we aspire to generate bad links to our online properties then well surely we will incur penalties, irrelevant visitor UX, high bounce rates and so on!.
Have a great Friday folks!
David
DIDO
(Diamonds in, diamonds out)
Put these abbreviations together Cyrus then you may have started the makings of a song!
David
Nice Post Cyrus, such article was the demand of our community today.
I was discussing same to someone about this, people do not believe till doctor does not confirm about your diseases. Exactly the same things. People were looking for this confirmation about link building. They expect this from Moz.
Good tips given. Thanks
Link Building is changed to link earning. Link Earning is the correct word, I feel.
Thanks Again
And try to earn link. That's very hard...
Sometimes earning "easy" link can be hard because they don't give you the desired results. Sometimes one good link is better than 50 bad links. Earning this one good link can be easier than earning 50 not that good links but with a better results for the rankings.
I get so little (rather 0) links earned. I think at start You have to focus on Your website, write content but don't walk around and search for link earning opportunites. It comes if You build Your own brand and needs time to do it.
It depends for what kind of site. Maybe for a SEO-Service-Site it is hard. But for other busnisses it might be easier. Maybe you want to look what good sites link to and build simmilar content with some new aspects to it and suggest it then.
I've started writing about google penalties and see 80% traffic comes to my post. Not bad for a start and I know it takes time to get "free" links. I know I need more content about various aspects of it.
I think (in germany) it is easy for a SEO site to get Links - easier then it is for many others - cause of the hot topic - when you do some original and new. Many hobby Bloggers link here to good SEO Content - the big sites only translate MOZ and Searchenginland :) (I dont mention T3N or OnPage Org ...)
Waht I wanted to say: own ideas - good ideas - my get u some links - copy MOZ and SEL will bring MOZ and SEL some Links.
But you have to get traffic then you can earn links - you cant earn links without traffic...
Ok it my be easier to get links when you sell shoes..
And who did it first, has a chance to earn link as a source (second to moz.com)
@Krzysztof Furtak said right, it is hard. We have to produce more and more contents in regular basis which is on demand to our niche. People will be getting benefited from those content.
We automatically will get earning links also and earn sometimes good link.
For now it's easier to get traffic than link (for me, now). Traffic equals conversions (jobs, projects, etc) and increasing brand if You don't write stupid things or Your content value is poor. All of us have to walk the same road from unknown to well known person (oracle here). But as I said - it takes time...
That's a great analogy, Cyrus, especially for when trying to explain to clients why one should avoid the naughtier tactics when it comes to link building.
Another one I use is the personal trainer analogy. You can either work hard and earn a gold medal 100% legitimately (white-hat) or we can pump you full of steroids (black-hat), and while the latter might work, if you're caught, you're screwed. It's a bit corny, but it's helped a few of my clients to understand the difference between clean vs. dodgy SEO and - most importantly - it helps to get across the consequences of such actions doing dodgy stuff, but that in order to do the good stuff well, you have to work hard on it.
Regarding the Don'ts, #4 and #5 are interesting. What about (legitimate) blogroll links that happen to be in the blog's footer and therefore also site-wide? Would that be counted as an exception? A little worried about my own blog now...
I like that steroid analogy. For SEO I guess you could call it link juicing ;) .. I know, very corny.
Nice post. Re footer links... fair enough don't link out externally to several places but what's from with a simple 'Web Design by Company X' in the footer of your clients site, linking to the creator?
Check this case history by Ross Hudgens.
thx - in germany we can still see (special desig agencys and freelancer) with this footer link (sitewide of course - it is wordpress in most cases) ranking very well to keywords they used as anchor text. And thats to funny cause there stand something like "powerd by Webdesign München" (web design munich) and there is not even mentioned the company name.
Why Google, Why?
Cyrus, this post is great. We know why, we know do's and don'ts.
The next wbf (i hope next friday - sorry Rand) should be HOW to do link building (simple example of what You said today). If there's not a problem:)
Thanks! We will soon publish a new resource - The Beginner's Guide to Link Building. May take a couple months, but it will cover a lot of these points.
Great! Sign me in!
Until then it would be useful to point us to a few relevant links on Link Building, if you know any good ones. Thank you!
that would be a nice WBF
And long:)
no Problem - on fridays I take the time. I switch to weekend mode when I hit the WBF Play button.
Sweet post
Excellent WBF! I find it interesting that we're pontificating on link building when there's this: https://matt.cutts.usesthis.com/
I like the hosting affiliate link at the end!
For some reason I am wondering if Moz had an NCAA pool going, who won and how much they won.
We had one. I didn't win.
Whiteboard Fridays FTW!
Thanks Cyrus!
Wish I watched this last week.
I wanted to suggest something as a solution to the "No Footer Link/No Sitewide Link" suggestion.
I do custom website development, and I'm planning a WordPress theme. And I have a "Website proudly designed by Flaunt Your Site" with Flaunt Your Site as the link.
My strategy with having links back to my company's site is really easy. I set up an If Statement in the theme files that checks to see if you're on the Home page; if you are, it returns a Followed link back to my site. But, if you're on any other page, you get a No-Followed link.
This keeps it real clean. And since the Followed link is on the home page, it's typically going to have the highest PA. So SEO wise, it works out well.
And the link is sitewide, so potential customers can find out who designed the site on any page they're on.
I'm confused by what you said about footer links. Can you provide an example of that? We add footer links into our clients sites that we build that say "powered by..." or just have our company name. Are you saying these links are going to get penalized?
Hi Joseph, great question. We've seen footer links like this get penalized and/or devalued (whether intentional or not) enough times that I would recommend finding another place for attribution, or choose to nofollow those links.
Hi Cyrus, You mentioned the exact point. One of my client asked me to put footer link "Powered by" So I put a no follow link of my website in the footer section. Did I act correctly?
With so much talk about penalties lately, this is refreshing. People needed a reminder of the fundamental rules.
Nofollow can be a link building savior. As stated in rule do #3, we should be concerned about the quality of traffic from our links. If a link is nofollow but driving quality traffic, who cares about the "juice?" Nofollow lowers the emphasis on outdated measurements like PageRank and starts to emphasize other link building benefits.
Next up, good KPIs for a link building campaign? ;) Enjoyed the video, Cyrus.
Very well written Cyrus. But a question is appearing in my mind.
If we should not request Anchor text link, then its mean "Death of Keyword". Then why still Google itself has a Keyword planner tool? There must be some effect of keyword selection and the links coming via anchor text. However we need to avoid spam.
I personally think that we should create back-link mixture with anchor text and without anchor text.
The idea, I believe, is not to ask for specific, exact match anchor text as a way of keeping things natural. If you are creating good content that focuses on your KWs and getting people to link to that naturally the anchor text will be relevant to the KWs you hope to rank for and without appearing manipulated.
Also- not asking for specific anchor text ensures that you will get a good variety of synonyms and natural speech, user friendly anchors- both things that are becoming more important with the rise of semantic search.
Really Awesome Article over Link Building Rules and Regulations, With This Article Many Webmaster's Takes a Deep Breath Because They Almost Thought That Link Building Is Dead.
Dear Moz and Cyrus Shepard Keep Posting and Keep Up The Good Work
Great WBF Cyrus!! Link building is still alive and I completely agree with your nofollow theories. Google still looks at them as they get crawled but do not pass page rank. Perhaps, this is why they are looked at because they are not intended for SEO.
Happy Friday Moz!
Great WBF Cyrus. For anyone who hasn't ever found it, I thought this would be a good time and place to share what I consider to be the Mother of All Link-Building posts: https://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies I have this book-marked and refer to it all the time. Whenever I feel like I'm completely out of ideas, I circle back and always, every time, find something in this post that I haven't tried. It's stood the test of time (for me at least). Enjoy!
Great WBF Cyrus, I really like the Video Thumbnail!
In my opinion we are shifting from LinkBuilding to LinkEarning, as Rand also mentioned a while back. SEO is not an entirely new approach to getting sales or other values, it is marketing targeted people using search engines.
Any SEO activity should be tied together with some kind of goal and rankings, traffic quantity is not always the best goal, but often quality traffic, leads and active subscribers are better.
Whiteboard Friday is the only time I buy new shirts :)
Ha ha, the thumbnail definately got my attention.
Great whiteboard Friday…….A few questions/ideas…..
1) a question regarding links from advertising.
If I have a website with a banner linking to another site; how does Google feel about this?
If the ad is totally irrelevant (i.e. people click on in but don't spend much time on the site) will the website be punished for that link organically? Do you need to label that link in some way? Should I stop advertising except in the most relevant places?
2) Regarding internal blog links (and internal links for that matter) isn't it weird trying hard NOT to use common sense linking pages with relevant anchor text. e.g. go to the 'blue shoes' page rather than errr this link is going to the page that is sort of about small boots that are coloured a bit opposite to red???????? or - check the page next-door?????? Surely people will start trying not to link in a relevant way - blue shoes are blue shoes dammit and that is bad for the user.
3) another thing and maybe more importantly - what if your domain name is a a keyword rich - imagine if I am called blueshoes.com and then everybody links to me with the text blue shoes…..will i be punished for that? or is there a rule about your domain name not being counted. Imagine Mercedes - they would't stand a chance if they were penalised every time somebody linked to them using the link 'mercedes'
4) what is really concerning is the negative seo story - if Google actually punished companies that over optimise and use guest blogging or having to many follow links whatever, surely the competition can just spam them and they will loose ranking through no fault of their own…and how will Google know they have no control over this at all……now that is where all this falls down and we start to move away from links and maybe into MENTIONS hmmmmm.
Thoughts? Have a Great Weekend.
There are many good points here, but I can't help but notice the redundancy of many of the link building posts I have read lately.
In short, the idea still is don't get links and pursue anchor text in a way that blatently defies Google's terms of service, right? Pretty simple stuff.
Also, in regards to the dreaded "no-follow" link- I have not seen the obvious mentioned anywhere here, which is that a no-follow still has the potential to drive traffic. I would take a no-follow link from a PR0 site that drives relevant traffic to my site than any number of other links that never get clicked by a real visitor.
I am sure Google sees and values these types of links as well. Do follow or not, a link that drives relevant traffic one's site is the best kind there is.
I believe that the biggest challenge with the nofollow links is to actually make the client (agencies) or the C level (in-house) understand the value and the differences between follow and nofollow links.
But this is of course only after you, as an SEO, are convinced.
I think we should all be looking at link building (call it link earning, fine) at the same way we should be looking at the guest blogging issue which was discussed in the last couple of months. If it makes sense, if it’s done for the sake of good content, good partnerships and for sharing amazing things online, not only that it’s fine to do it, but you must do it!
About the outreach, this is an entire subject and I actually wish to see more articles to cover that specific topic. In the days when link building finally became about "being mentioned", outreach and business development are now a huge part of SEO, for all types of sites.
Thanks Cyrus for another great WBF
Yes,. Cyrus Shepard. You are absolutely correct. Still Link building plays a major role in the Google search algorithm. Links are also one of the parameters to evaluate how we are more potential than our competitor for the particular search terms. Links never die, But the way we worked in the past has died. Let's create a better strategy for link building as like you said and Lets Focus more for the future.
Nice WBF Cyrus. Actually much of the discussion above has been for Links in the footer which most of the sites preferably have and its something that Google might not like to follow. So, It's better be made no follow especially when the site builder has inserted their links. Anchor text selection is something that we all saw in Penguin and it's really important to not to use rich anchor texts. Linking to good resource is a good way to build link. Also the outreach is a great idea indeed.
Hey Cyrus, your WBFs are always so good man, kudos on another great one. I like how you addressed 'do good link building' as #1 thing to do, its clearly not dead.
Your comparison of link building to basketball is intriguing and pretty darn accurate. The Olmec people played basketball 500+ yrs ago and apparently the Aztecs played a similar game but with decapitated skulls (link building ain't easy yo) but the first formalized basketball game with set rules that we know of (started by a Canadian!) wasnt played until the 1890s and since then even more rules have been changed.
The point is the link building/earning/acquisistion game is always changing so its imperative we stay on our toes and try not get our heads chopped off and dunked for 2 points by the next guy! The one thing i disagree with is Google being the 'referee' because they haven't shared their rule book with the players. The rules of link building are concealed therefore calculated discovery is the only way to gain an advantage over the next player. The referee is more like the 'The Computer' in the 80s tabletop game Paranoia where the rules are considered "classified" and demonstrating knowledge of the rules is considered treasonous (i'm so lame for knowing about that game).
This is one of the best posts about link building in the recent past.
Most web designers I work with put a link in the footer (or sub footer) back to their site. How much of an affect does this have on the client's SEO? Should I ask them to remove it? How much impact does it (will it) have on the web designer's SEO?
If it isn't broke, don't fix it. That said, widely distributed footers cause many a ranking problems, and they are specifically against Google's guidelines:
"Widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites"
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
There are many reasons that site-wide links can negatively affect a website’s presence within Google’s SERPs. The first is that site-wide inbound links are against Google’s Quality Guidelines if used improperly.
I am really thrilled with how easy and simply you transmit to us this very serious SEO fact.
I really enjoyed in your presentation
Thank you :)))
Great WBF Cyrus, hoping you were going to wear the ref shirt in the video!
Those shirts play havoc with video feeds :)
Great post Cyrus, and love the shirt!
Cyrus, Thanks for posting it. There is great discussion on sidewide and nofollow topic.
Always curious... how many weeks in advance are these recorded?
Usually between 2 days to 3 weeks in advance (although on occasion we have shoot up to 3 months in advance)
Excellent WBF Cyrus and good timing with everything that's going on in the industry. Your points reminded me of an article I did a little while back, using zombies as the theme. I've been following what you guys have been preaching for 2 and a half years now and I have to say you guys are 100% right. I don't even fear Google updates anymore, and I actually watch with great anticipation that my ranking will go higher again along with my clients. I'm really happy that there are great teachers out there that stand by the truth and practice what they preach. No matter what people say or feel. Thanks for another great WBF!
Good to hear, Brian!
Awesome whiteboard Friday Cyrus, Your video is really Great. In one of the Rand's Previous post, He used one fabulous word about Link building that is "Link Earning"
This really cleared up a lot of confusion about best practices I've had given how much link building has changed recently. Great and timely WBF, thanks for posting this.
All points are true Cyrus. But one point where marketers do not ready to use easily that is getting link on target anchor text. Getting links on same anchor hurts a lot. We had faced this issue so we know very well!
great metapher - lets win the game
The best part for me was, that for a long time there was no referee on the court :)
I also never asked for Anchor Text, I think its true - you start to think to much about what you believe you need as keyword in the anchor. Than you see the rankings profit and you start to think more and more about that - faster than realizable the backlink profil looks so unnatural and google will see that sooner or later.
Thats not a good way.Happy Friday!
great WBF, Cyrus... this video is one more clear reminder of the state of fear and panic that the industry is going through... Google's official messages articulated out of Matt Cutt's video filming room are creating paranoia amongst many SEOs. Link building 'witty' techniques are still there and work, much like they were before. Looking at link building tips like those given by Paddy Moogan are as effective today as they were yesterday. I agree Content Marketing is ultimate path to follow but not every SEO has the drive, means, knowledge or capabilities to take such exercise forward. I think that Cyrus's WBF, although from a conservative angle, has sent the right message across to the industry today: practise 'good marketing link building' and you'll be safe
Great resource. Paddy wrote the Beginners Guide to Link Building for us, which we will soon publish on Moz.
Great Post Cyrus!
While doing link building, if the focus is more on brand name, is it still necessary to add no follow links to your link building campaign?
Add nofollow to money keywords
Not so simple :)... a brand followed link can be as much spammy as a commercial anchor text one, depending on how it is placed, or simply because you paid for having that link followed even if it is your brand name.
On the other hand, a commercial anchor text can be totally natural if contextually relevant and sent to a non-commercial landing page.
but what about "cheap laptops"? nofollow or not?
If it's in a phrase like: "Acme sells very cool cheap laptops, which I recommend...", obviously nofollow is the rule.
But in a phrase like: "A study has confirmed that the future of cheap laptops in emerging markets is already a reality now...", I could consider to follow it, as it is an endorsement to a content relevant to my content/context and that helps readers investigate the topic further. Obviously, you could try using other anchors like "the future of cheap laptops" if you don't want to live in a Google paranoia.
First one I agree, second too but I meant "cheap laptops" (only) imo must be nofollow.
I think the idea is to not even use an kw-focused anchor text like that to begin with. Maybe as an internal link from the blog to the product category page (could still seem spammy though), but never as an inbound link since the purpose is clearly for SEO.
if I would be a crawler and I would see a link text like "cheap laptops" I would prefer to see nofollow. If I am a robot....
有幸能够看到您的文章。在中国，用户体验 胜过一切！
Which translated by Google sounds like this:
"Fortunate enough to be able to see your article. In China, the user experience more than anything else!"
If their government don't block all chinese internect and moz.
great that you translated it ;) great that he can read this!
I'm curious about sending RR in chinese when I use polish. My sqt are poles...hmmmmmm...
In this video, you're talking about sitewide links, do you have any website, which they don't ever use any sitewide links for grabbing more links, because i think its not penalize when you are using any sitewide. have a e.g. , if you are using footer links, its or sidebar links, its much positive sign or its negative.
Do you want an example of site not putting nofollowed sitewide links in the footer?
A big exception is Amazon, which practically links to all its web properties but not to third parties' sites.
The sitewide rule is very old one, as having links in sidebars and blogrolls. Why?
1) Because it not that natural crediting the value of someone putting a link in the less seen by the users part of the site;
2) Because it was a tactic that was scale to infinitum by SEOs;
3) Because, even if they still may pass value, their value is quite minimal also due to a vary old patent by Google (the Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data one, which was filed in 2004, and it mostly known for presenting the concept of Reasonable Surfer).
TL;DR
Followed sitewide links used a scale link building tactic are a sure way to suicide your site.
Nice one.
I have 3 hints too:
1. Build Links constantley - Not just once - Google likes permanent signals
2. Look up the site you want to be listed in and see what this webmaster likes to link at. Try then to build this content. And then ask this webmaster if he would like to link to you. Idealy he has a broken link where your new quality content could fit in.
3. Keep on asking. Don't just ask once. If you see a good site you want your link to be in and you are sure it would fit very well there then write an email and if is not responding then write another one. And if this person is still not responding you might want to call this guy.
Love the quote at the end of the post; link building and good marketing are indistinguishable. However, the role of a SEO in a marketing team is still needed at the moment, yet as we go forward, in 15 years time will SEO still be an industry?
In 15 years people will still have the pulse to search for things, as they had in the past 5 million years... the medium used will be probably different, but people able to optimize the chances a brand is found by a searcher will still be needed.
Nice post Cyrus!!
Most important point for me is "Keep doing link building!" because many people had stopped doing link building in fear of getting penalty from Google.
Let's win this game! And, as Gareth was saying, let's make the web nicer :)
and serps better!:)
^^ I know that this is a hit into my direction :)
One of the best WBF's I've seen in a while. Earning links via link-worthy content is a sustainable, algo-proof way to build authority. Shows that the powers-that-be at MOZ are leading from the front.
Yes to all the above, great WBF Cyrus!
I've always said that you should avoid linking to your product or service pages, too. It's not natural... link to resources, blog posts, thought leadership & ensure that the link adds value to the page it's on (and that it pushes traffic).
If not, avoid! Make a nicer web ;)
Gareth
Then should we need to build links for the every page of website?
I don't think so - so long as your pages are crawlable, understandable, indexable - and you keep the crawlers coming back regularly - you don't need to build links to every page on your site. Just the ones that are linkable :)
Depends on what kind of product pages you create for your site... For instance, creating "fake products pages" is still a great link building idea (just think to what just happened on April's Fool), and simply there are ways to create products' pages that are so good and useful that earn links (check this post by Stephanie Chang, still valuable even if it is not so fresh).
Great video - The problem im hearing with this is that competitors are still winning by gaming google and getting those anchor texts so its hard to convince clients to follow the rules at the expense of not ranking as quick. In the end clients are spoiled by old seo with quick roi and need to adjust expectations and learn to ignore competitor schemes in the hope google will catch up with them.
The problem is that it is still relatively easy to game Google, because a great percentage of spam links can be detected only with a manual revision and not using an algorithm.
Take for instance the many link network Google hit all over the world lately: they were hit manually and only after a human investigation.
The same is happening for guest posts' links: all actions are manual.
Why? Because, even if it could be possible to design an algorithm a la Panda (aka: based on machine learning techniques), the amount of collateral victims will be huge. At least in Italy half of the SERPs should disappear...
The only way to get people to play by the rules is if the playing field is level. To many clients only look at results for seo success which fuels seos to look for ways to game google or lose the job/client.
Thanks again cyrus!! I put myself in this point . Mostly people are afraid for the name of link building. but if any body doing link building smartly than he must follow the rules. and I am favor of nofollow links because I am getting good benefits.Tthere are many best blogs which gives no follow links but still strong point for your website. but I did not get one point here. Can anybody explain me. Please please
"Don't link externally in the footer" What is this means. its coming more than one meanings so I am confuse.
Follow links in the footer are - since a geological era in SEO terms - a classic spam signal (and they are sitewide too), that's why it is better not to put backlinks in that section of a site even if you're linking to other sites of yours (or even to other multilingual versions of your own site).
I work for a company that links to our ticketing company in many websites' footer. It doesn't open a new window, but loads "same tab" ( ' _parent ' ). Is this still flagged?
Are the links followed? If they are, they could be a problem.
The "_parent", "blank" et al similar characteristics are not considered at all in terms of ranking: just follow and nofollow, and if they are followed backlinks, their anchor text.
As Gianluca says, sitewide footer links often get flagged for penalties, and there are much better places to have your earned links placed.
when I see sitewide footer I persuade client to make it nofollow
dito - >Ah dont know if "dito" is known in english. I meant I do the same I hope its enaugh, but like I said above there are many sites here in germany ranking good with most backlinks by sitewite footer links+followed with keywords or keyword only anchor phrases.
Cyrus, loved your point about getting more eyeballs on the content you create. If we focus on exposure for our quality content - relevant exposure, that is - that's the most natural way to build/earn links!
Awesome post Cyrus,
Thanks for clearing a few things up for me, you said about the external footer links within websites are a big no no.If a designer wanted to put a link back from a website he created, what would be the best protocol? Making the link in the footer no follow or...?
Nofollow would not cause any issue for Google.
Neither would Follow in a lot of cases but regardless of penalties the real issue IMO is that it is a horrible way of creating brand awareness. Just get 1 x link in the about section instead...
I'd ask for a link in the "About" page, or "helpful resources" or something similar. A single link on a well-curated page usually goes 10x farther than a boilerplate footer link....
Very helpful WBF Cyrus ! That’s even more timely, since Google recent updates, SEOs get scared in implementing link building strategies. So your article genuinely demonstrates that giving up to build links is a big mistake. I must admit that I almost gave up, but thanks for these great recommendations which enable us to rethink pure SEO.
Furthermore, I do appreciate the fact you’ve pinpointed some misunderstandings about nofollow. Moz is actually the great place for SEOs and this article is clear evidence as well as Gianluca's comment that outlines crucial clues about nofollow.
A great video but I might say that it is hard sometimes to be on the right side of the rules. Google is changing the rules all the time so what works now might not work for long any more.
I also consider that building connections with the right people is also part of link building. Having a group of bloggers and fellows from the same industry should make the most out of your link building work just as having a support system or a team.
Google is changing the rules all the time so what works now might not work for long any more
Totally right, and that's why - IMHO - Google should not penalize a site for having backlinks now "toxic" but once totally licit if those links were built before the new rule was rolled out (no "law" is retroactive in real life); and I think Google has the tools for knowing when a link has been created in a web document.
It should simply discount the PageRank of those links, without pushing a site owner into the nightmare of a link removal process and to the death of its business because of a sitewide penalization.
Then, they should send a (automatic) message in GWT advising that the links the same site may have and that are not responding to the new interpretation of the Google Guidelines will be considered as nofollow, and advice (menace?) that if new links of those kinds are detected by Google, then, yes, the site will probably incur in a penalization (partial or sitewide)..
IMO Google isn't changing rules but execute them more and more strictly.
Question - did the podcast version of WBF stop happening? I subscribe on my iPod but it hasn't updated with new WBF videos in a long time, while my other podcasts have been updating as normal.
We've never published WBF to iTunes.
We actually had a WBF RSS feed that published to podcasts ( which I was unaware of ) I believe it is working again.
Fascinating! Well... I'm glad it's working again. I really do use it in your "unintentional podcast" form.
Links that you control point is not clear. Please explain that a little, as one might get confuse soon
Great video! Very insightful.
I do have a question - your first "Don't" caused quite a discussion at the office this morning... when you refer to "beware of links you control" - does that include internal links ie. linking from one blog post to another blog post on the same site with similar anchor text?
These tips of yours will give businsses the right knowledge about link building and do away any doubts with their usage.
Great post
great post!!
A thought on your statement regarding links in the footer...
Is wordpress, theme builders, and web designers being penalized heavily due to the fact that they take credit for work in the footer and have a link back to their respected sites?
This does not seem to be what you are talking about correct?
I hear all the time about the use of footer links and I find that all the top results they have footer links from Some sites.
There is another explanation?
While I feel that lists like this really push people towards lasting and good value links my experience and empirical results have always shown different results. Ultimatums of DO vs. DONTs work well when you are making a brief list and trying to convey action, but Google's algorithm and what is technically possible are really the major limits. Google has the human team, yes, but for them to outreach to millions of websites is far and few between.
That being said ... grey hat and even black hat tactics can and do still work in the link building game. They also run a much higher risk of volatility and exposure than the straight and narrow tactics that Moz champions. With that in mind, ranking in the top 5 for a key term for even a quarter can generate huge amounts of revenue. Why else would BMW, JC Penney's, and the like risk such manual actions?
Marketing is about making money ... sometimes you gotta play in the dirt to find the gold. Sometimes you only find fool's gold, or carbonic dog nuggets, but such is life.
How many of us have rounded a figure in our favor on our taxes? Is is illegal? Yes, is it punishable? Yes. Is it likely that the brunt of the IRS is going to come kick down your door and send you to a Georgian debtors colony? No. (I don't condone this behavior for obvious reasons, just an analogy)
DO use your brain.
DO build links.
DO use tiered structures YOU control.
DONT get greedy.
DONT work hard towards a manual penalty.
Be honest and upfront with yourself. White hat works, black hat works ... you just need to choose where you want to fall in that line and how much risk is acceptable to you. If you don't want that ugly conversation of why our website doesn't show up in Google, then by all means stay white hat, but don't be fooled your SERP neighbors may not play with the same team.
Great WBF post!
Nice Job Cyrus. Could you please explain the reason, there are many websites involve in paid back links, and they sustain keyword raking in Google?
Thanks Cyrus, good words.
I thing the linkbuilding value its about de quality content and blogs comments with an appropiate link distribution.
Gone are the days of traditional link building. Today, SEO agencies and webmasters should focus more on getting genuine brand links rather than generating links. Create high quality content that engages users and encourages engagement. If you are successful in doing so, you will get quality links automatically.
Very precise and interesting article. This is really i should follow to increase the popularity of my new blog.
Loved the line "the value of the link equals the quality of the traffic that it can drive you". Almost want to copy and paste it over and over, lol. Rings so true, and most people never seem to pay attention to that very important detail. Very nice article sir.
Hi Cyrus,
I apologize if it was already mentioned in comments, but do you think it is bad to insert Anchor texts in your internal links? For example, I would like to describe in my article what the link is about, so the person can just navigate with mouse on it and will know what will be opened. I am not optimizing the text here, just describing naturaly. Or according to recent signals, you would let it blank?
Thank you for your reply.
It's really important to let people use their own anchor text when linking to others, and yes, when asking for an exact anchor text, we only destroy our websites. a natural diversified links with different anchor text can add value and help.
Hi All,
Link building is not end yet. I like this article and it’s very informative for future link building strategies. What do you think about the older link building tactics and how much its effective for a website these days? I am curious to know how to get a link back from a .gov and .edu sites? However, on January 21st Moz had published an article 31 link building tactics here is the link https://moz.com/blog/31-link-building-tactics-discovered-from-competitive-analysis. I also want to know how these points are effective in this current link building scenario.
I really like the content here, but I object to the re-writing of history. Rand, and every other SEO were advocating doing all sorts of things for years that are now banned. Asking for anchor text was a staple of web marketing emails just a few years ago. Article marketing, guest blogging, etc, these are all things that everyone loved BECAUSE they let you control the anchor text.
Yeah, I hear you Joshua. Unfortunately, the rules have changed so much in the past couple of years, it's hard to keep up.
I don't think that any serious SEO has given up on link building. If you say that link building is more about creating original, captivating, attractive, content that's related to a business' purpose, then nobody has given up on creating this type of content either.
And when it comes to creating nofollow links I can say that's mainly a bad use of time, because they don't really affect organic rankings directly (clarified a ton of time by Matt Cutts), but may have indirect benefits (such as referral traffic)... And instead of spending your time and money on creating nofollow links you should better try to find another ways of promoting your website (such as creating quality content that can be used as source of information by other websites; in this way there are some chances to get dofollow links to your website on really authoritative sites.
Very well put Cryus - makes sense, do it right and don't worry about penguin penalization! Thanks!
Yes I've read about the recent algorithm update about the no follow links. It was like the last hope of SEO link building but you have emphasize that we should keep going. I guess in a matter of months or weeks, there will be some strategies and ideas that will keep blooming in everyone's mind on how to deal with this.
Great whiteboard Cyrus! Always good to revist the basics, sometimes we SEO'rs forget these :P
Good post but more of what we're being told by almost everyone. Why does Google ignore the rules when it suits them? Because they are all about protecting their revenue coming from advertising. Hard to play the game Cyrus, when the referee has already posted his bet. Thanks nevertheless for a good reminder to stay on the good side.
Great tips Cyrus. I liked the basketball analogy and that people are in the game to win it and those who have being doing it wrong are quitting or getting thrown out! At Asecurelife .com we always value doing what's best for the reader and the audience because in the end that is what Google wants for the readers. Do the right thing and you'll win!
Wow, you really did never say links for anchor text since your first step towards to SEO.Thanks for sharing anyway for such valuable piece of guide. Yes , asking for specific anchor really an unnatural approach to build links and what Google hates now all time.
I've been reading some stuff about indexing services, do you need to do that as well for link building? I don't really know how these work don't Google bots pick these up anayway?
Thanks for that post on SEO. However, I just wish someone like Matt Cutts would guide us with straight clear answers about link building and SEO in general. Usually, whenever I listen to a Matt Cutts video, I end up being more confused about what to do in order to improve SEO than before listening to him.
Read Google's Webmaster Guidelines and follow them. That's as close as you are going to get.
Remember that Google sells it's algorithm's product for billions of dollars. They aren't going to allow the SEO community to deflate it's value and/or allow competitors a larger insight into it. It is the most guarded secret on the internet, hands down.
Awesome post;
Links are a strong ranking factor and to be successful with link building you need a natural link profile. A variety of anchor texts, mixture of dofollow and nofollow links etc. But I still suggest focusing on link earning that the only way to make your links looks natural.
“The goal is not make your links looks natural; the goal is that it is natural.”
..timely update to monitor the important link building activity to gain only ..not to get penalised..
I must say wbf gave me some clues for link building. I'm searching now a new ways since "old tactics" won't work these days. My focus is traffic and I'm curious about real "building" links like content marketing, company blog, etc.
Good post.
As for anchor texts, I always thought ranking based on anchor texts in links were a mistake. It's too variable. Some writers may say best ice cream in San Diego and link and some say for the for the best ice cream in San Diego click here.
Both should carry the same value if they both come from sites that have equal authority but Google favors one over another and that is wrong and they finally begin to realize that.
Right you are, but one has to remember that Google is not God. They are limited by computational power, budgets, skill, and work ethic. As SEOs, we know they seem to be limited less and less by those factors ever day.
Google has had to refine their algorithm in a way that keeps pace with these factors. Before the maturation of the internet people linked very differently and links were more natural. Now, it's a link fiesta where you have 20 - 30 links in a single paragraph it seems. Google has to work hard to differentiate those from others. They do this by conducting testing and logical deduction into the human:website interface.
If everyone suddenly started linking using #1 - 10 as their anchor text with #5 being the most relevant then Google would have to adapt their algorithm to meet that demand. So in essence, the webmaster / reader community jumps and Google must now run over with the net to catch them. Soon we would be using #'s to differentiate link value.
Cyrus,
"When we see Google crack down on guest blogging networks, on widget links.." - does that relate to reason why Moz does not use backlink feature in embed option from Wistia videos? I am trying to understand if such embedded backlinks are potential harmful ones and that is why you do not include…..
It's a really nice post which raise my interest again fre doing link building.... othrwise listning since a long time that link building has no value or dead....:-P ;-)
Outreach Rocks... Hi5 :) .. Great Post
This is really great but how we create the links so that a particular keyword will rank better in the SERPs.
Informative post i must say. Getting natural links is the best link building. How much link should be build in a week?
Thinking in terms of "how much links should be build in a week" is not really the best way of thinking about link building :)
Timely and nice post post, Cyrus. ... we not post anchor tag in Signature, bio or resource then SEO will be paid ... for posting links in body.
If i post quality content to a guest post and not asking for anchor tag ! then how some one come to my main website while blog owner say that your post should be nor promotional, and you say not ask anchor tag. Please describe anybody!!
Okay, question! I used to have a separate wordpress blog and a website (not naming either - for u might feel am spamming ;)). The blog had (still has) first page rankings for most of my target keywords (direct and long-tailed). Now, I made the blog page a part of the overall website - and although all the pages have separate targeted keywords, the blog page is still ranking for the bulk of them - instead of the pages I want to rank (say, the FAQ, or the Portfolio)...
Any solution ideas?
(Btw, am optimizing the site for about 3 months - and it has risen from practically non-existence online, to a steady page 3-4 presence, with a first page presence for a couple of keywords. Is this decent enough progress?)
See @GianlucaFiorelli's Response:
"Pssst... not really the place for questions like this. Try the Q&A."
it's better - no links in his comment;)
Thanks Cyrus for positive waves. We have to play basketball with rules in google court. =)
You can do natural link profile if knowing your anchor's.
Great Whiteboard Cyrus. Reaching out to those within your industry will enhance your ability to achieve "natural links". Getting the "eyeballs" on your material really does come down to how much "value" you are adding.
I disagree, there is so much crap on the net that ranks in the top 5 it's mind boggling. You could create a website and write the next iteration of the Bible and it would attract no one and not rank for anything but itself.
Great content needs great marketing ... THAT is the key to success in link building.
So I guess an advertising campaign/ affiliate campaign will work also? Maybe more than it did before?
Depends, I would not put it past Google to identify those links since they are surrounded by the affiliate / advertiser code. If it's in the code and it's a string, Google will add it somewhere to the algorithm, you can bet on that.
Oh and great social reach. Already over a thousand tweets...I'm impressed!
Very good Information Cyrus :) I had the same idea that valuable links are they that will bring traffic to your site traffic from potential clients that is important :)
Best regards from Albania ;)
Great!! WBF has done a great helpful for SEO new link builder.
The post is very informative. It is a pleasure reading it. I have also bookmarked you for checking out new posts.
Really great wbf!
Nice Post.. We feel gone are the days when traditional Link Building was followed. New Link Building would focus more on social side. The content would be key, quality would be key to link building.
Such a good share for us who try to hang onto the coat tails of knowledge here and do the right thing with our content.
Great post, the dialogue around Link Building is never a dull one! I suspect for the most part this is just semantics, if your primary aim is to share relevant and interesting content that drives quality traffic to your site then it doesn't really matter what you call it. I do steer away from talking about link building though and use content marketing as a way to avoid getting into the bad stuff and putting the content first and the link second. All too often the link is put first and it ends up being pushed out to a high DA site that won't actually drive good traffic but might just look good to Google.The quote 'At it's best good link building should be indistinguishable from good marketing' is a bit of a misnomer, securing quality links from relevant content IS good marketing, the same way that we should aim for links to be natural and not LOOK natural. It's all just a mindset really. Are you genuinely trying to engage with new customers or just boost the ranking of your site by any means.
Really good info. And I am curious, have You made a researches on the ratios of the link types (do-, nofollow, images, text links, sitewide vs non-sitewide etc.) for some types of websites - business site, a blog, e-commerce etc. I mean - how many links from all are nofollow, how many are text links and images (in % ratio) for some types of links.
Nice post WBF... I am confused that every one talking about the no-follow links. In other side John Mueller said when they see no-follows, "We take these links out of our Page Rank calculations. If we will take all links as no-follow. Then how website will come in competition. As starting work on new website or small business site. What steps i need to follow to get rank in Search Engine.
He said that because in a natural link profile (ie. what Google wants) the no-follow links will account for a certain percentage of the total link profile. If you have no "no-follow" links then you will stand out to Google. Google looks for outliers, not your core demographic.
On a less than white hat perspective, if you have more no-follows then it allows you to be more pushy with some followed links. Again, if you appear to be straight and narrow then Google will likely look past you. If you magically get 5000 followed links from 1000 domains in 2 days then you can expect to show up on a report somewhere.
It's all about numbers until you reach a human.
Nice post Cyrus!! Can any one tell me the exact reason why should we not link externally from the footer section?
does by doing this there are chances of getting some changes in ranking. Excellent thought cyrus.
Cyrus as you mention that never ask for anchor text and shouldn't use side wide then how can we boost our keywords in the SERPs Results?
Great WBF very helpful. I know it's silly but I sometimes find it frustrating how Google polices the internet but there is not much you can do about it. Just have to create some great content and put it out there.
My favorite part is definitely "No follow" part. That SEO arena is so misterius to us. I agree that there are actually some boost on keywords. Anyway all other parts of this post are great. Thank you guys and girl for keeping us alive.
I gotta be honest this blog was full of very very obvious stuff, not really up to the standard I'm used to seeing here on Moz....
Great post
Hello I have some point which need to discuss.
Don't
1- Bonus Links to Control
Hey...! What you mean by this? All link we can Control,
Even we post article, or submit local listing or any link , We can Control all, so Your this point is wrong, Because in Online Market there is nothing that we can't Control.
2- Never Ask for Anchor task:
Hey hey...! Stop stop stop, I have never seen any person ask for Anchor task in discussion.
Also how Googlebot will see where we ask for Anchor task or not. Stop this thing Google is not a person, They just read text (Code) and in search show result related to keywords.
Do's:
1- Do link Building: Can You please point out which type of link building we need to do?
2- Social Distribution: Hey Man every one known about Social Media Traffic, But its not a long term traffic. Here you also talk about Content Distribution How we can do this? Because as you said Google don't like Blogging, Article Posting, Forum Discussion, Then How we can share??????
4- Link Value: Hey Man stop doing this, How we can post link on competitor blog? If i am selling shirt and i ask for a link from other person who also selling shirt then you think that man will share our link ,. hehehe , Stop this.
Please stop doing this
Great post!