There have been more than a few debates and suppositions over the years about the potential value of linkbait/viral content strategies and whether search engines will always reward these practices. Today (actually, it's late at night here in Oslo), I wanted to tackle this debate and succinctly present reasons why I believe this methodology will remain powerful and effective in the long run.
First - a quick definition of linkbait as an SEO pursuit:
Linkbait/Viral Content: The practice of crafting web content to attract attention and awareness in the form of natural links given by bloggers, news media, researchers, forum posters and other website contributors. This content can include any combination of static or interactive elements, but is almost always targeted at a specific subset of web audience members who have the ability to influence/create links, share content and spread a message virally (see Linkerati).
Second - a peek at some infographics that help explain why this trend is so powerful:
(SOURCE: Forrester Research via the Groundswell Blog)
Just three years ago, those of engaging in linkbait were targeting 30-50% fewer people than today. That doesn't always mean it's easier (in fact, it may be harder, particularly on uber-popular viral sites like Digg & Techcrunch), but it does mean the opportunity to influence has risen dramatically.
So why do I feel so strongly that this carries little to no risk of penalization or devaluation?
- Viral content is at the core of exactly how the engines want to operate. Search engines are, since their inception in the 1990's, attempting to use the web's link graph to identify content that people have found fundamentally interesting and worth sharing. Linkbait is exactly this - every link to a piece of viral content is created independently by individuals who think it's valuable enough to spread.
- Devaluing "linkbait" carries an incredibly high "slippery slope" risk. Once could easily make the argument that every website is technically designed to be linkbait and thus, every natural link should be "suspect" (if linkbait was to be considered a manipulative tactic). The fundamental concept of product development for the web is actually based on the same principles as viral content - site builders are trying to make sites and information that people find compelling and want to use + share; penalizing this practice seems to contradict the very idea of the web's link graph.
- Search engines have always touted that so-called "natural links" those that are independently created, editorially given and meant to serve as an honest recomendation for a URL's worthiness are the most desirable and positive kinds of links. This is precisely the type of link attracted by linkbait, in precisely this manner. Viral content is launched, promoted and hopefully seen by individuals who may like it enough to share it and link to it. There's little else on the web that can attract "natural" links.
- Linkbait is "great content" - the very thing engines and engineers are constantly recommending as the core strategy for good SEO. To go against this principle would be to invalidate more than a decade of advice. When linkbait isn't "great" it tends not to attract links and the engines' work is done for them.
Like anything in the SEO world, there are higher and lower risk methods for engaging in this practice. Former SEOmozzer Matt Inman wrote a post highlighting some of the most dangerous implementations of manipulative link attraction, but these are most definitely the exception rather than the rule. A rough risk scale might look something like:
- No Risk - Production of relevant (on-topic with the site's offerings) viral content with no manipulative link schemes promoted ethically and organically on and off the web.
- Low Risk - Production of relevant viral content with potentially manipulative promotion (paying those with powerful social media accounts to help "push" the content into visibility).
This is low risk in my opinion because the links are still created and given organically and editorially. Even if you manged to, for example, bribe Digg into promoting your story on the homepage, if that story attracts natural links from bloggers, writers, journalists, website owners, etc. it's still fulfilled the search engines' principles of high quality content that naturally derived editorial links. - Moderate Risk - Production of somewhat "off-topic" linkbait that has only a loose thread tie to the content of the site.
While I don't believe the links will be devalued, it's possible that they won't provide as much help to the other sections of the site or it's overall domain authority and ability to push up the rankings universally across the domain. - High Risk - The combination of off-topic linkbait and manipulative push practices, possibly with other less-than-fully-honest tactics like highly manipulative or irrelevant anchor text pointing to the content's "sponsor" or "creator" (typically, this is fine to do, but when employing certain types of "off-topic" anchor text, you need to be carfeful).
- Extreme Risk - Creating content that attracts natural adoption of link code that recommends or points to something other than the original piece intended by the link creator. This could happen by crafting micro-sites on a topic, attracting links and redirecting them to off-topic, commercially focused pages/sites; embedding links into a "copy + paste this code" piece that visitors may not realize links to a location they didn't intend to endorse; etc.
You can probably tell that I'm a big believer in and supporter of viral content. I actually maintain a list of cool viral content projects that I'm impressed by, and I thought to end this piece, I'd share some of those:
- Viral Video Done Right
- 10 F
acts Every Westerner Should K now about the Middle East - A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis: The Bailout
- Web Development Project Estimator
- Economic Recovery Dashboard
- Infographic of US Swine Flu
- Amazon Acquisitions and Investments Leading up to Zappos
- How Different Groups Spend their Day
- Military Spending Worldwide
- Information is Beautiful
- The Booze Death Calculator
- Tim Series of Reported Occupations in the US (AKA Job Voyager)
- Online Dating Advice: What to Say in a First Message
- Modern Mugs and Creative Mug Designs
If you have differing opinions about how the search engines might treat viral content/linkbait SEO strategies, I look forward to chatting in the comments :-)
Viral content is indeed great. And I also doubt the engines will ever discount it totally. But the same could be said - which I do, for paid links.
I do, however, believe that engines will become better and better at understanding the different values of different kinds of links at a much more detailed level than now.
And in that process, some viral links may actually very logically end up being assigned less value than paid links because the fact IS, that from a quality point of view some paid links DO have more value than some viral links.
Lets be honest - we, the SEOs DO in fatc manipulate links - and a lot more, for a living. We manipulate search engines just as PR-experts manipulate the press. Most of what we do - especially in link building, falls outside of the strict guidelines. SEO has always been like that.
So, I am not so confident that link baits and viral activities in the long run is a much safer bet than paid links. It all comes down to how you deal with it :)
we are manipulators its what we do. but i think we do it in a benifical way so its ok (for our customers anyways)
yea 2ed to comment woohoo i have no life but SEO
"So, I am not so confident that link baits and viral activities in the long run is a much safer bet than paid links."
I disagree with that one big time Mikkel. I think Google is getting much better at spotting paid links, and identifying websites who sell them. A viral link will always have value, but this is not the case with paid links.
Hey Mikkel - great to see you this week (as always) and sorry we didn't have more time together.
I see where you're coming from, and I think that if the people on the search quality teams at the engines were more pragmatic and less rigorous about this topic, you could be right. However, in my experience, there is an instutionalized culture at Google (Bing may be somewhat different) that despises paid links the way arachnophobes hate spiders, making it extremely unlikely that any paid link (save possibly a few of the most trusted directories or listing services - BBB, Yahoo!, etc.) will be more valued than viral, naturally given links.
I also have to take issue with the idea that, at its root, SEO is about manipulation. I think SEO is about two things - technical accessibility and high quality marketing. If you believe those are manipulation (and in some sense of the word, they are, I suppose), OK. But, I think the connotation is inaccurate and it serves only to harm the perception about the SEO industry.
Ok - gotta run to the Oslo airport! See you at SMX East or in London :-)
Rand, you have been around long enough to see how especially Google often say one thing and then shortly after do the exactly the opposite. Sometimes this is even happening at the same time. Yes, some would call that hypocritical - maybe even "evil", but that is in fact how Google operates :)
I like to use the term "manipulate" for the same reasons you don't :)
I know, that from a political point of view its nice to say that what we marketers (in general) do is just help information flow ... yeah right! Hell no. The fact is, that my job is to beat my (or my clients) competitors in search and to make sure my clients stories gets out ahead of anyone else - even if they have better stories or are a bit more relevant for some searches. I'm in the game to win.
"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country"
Calling what we do "manipulation" is the marketers equivalent to "gay pride" :)
Marketing IS essentially the art of trying to manipulate others to do what we want them to do. I really don't see anything unethical about that in itself.
I do realize that sometimes Google have this almost "religious" attitudes to things and that right now they publicly say they HATE paid links - just as much as they often said they hate cloaking. But have you checked lately how well they really prevent cloaking? OK, you get the point :)
As you know, there are two sides of Google (because yes, they are manipulators too - BIG time!): One is what they say in public and another thing is what they do behind closed doors. It will be much easier - over time - for Google to discount link bait and viral links of low value than it will be to detect paid links.
By the end of the day Google do what they believe will create the best product for their users. And in doing that it just don't make any sense using too many resources fighting all paid links and valuing all link baits. It just won't create the results they want - so I highly doubt that’s what they will do.
History have proven that Google in no way feel obligated to tell us - the marketers, the full truth. And in fact, I don't think they have to.
Read also my blogpost (on my brand new - and first, English blog) here: https://blog.demib.com/paid-links.html
I don't know... Seems a little spurious to be making recommendations based on the idea that Google might shift positions on paid links and viral content in the future. I see where you're coming from, but I don't see it as a likely enough possibility to warrant inclusion as a best practice or suggestion.
I am really excited that you've got an English language blog, though. :-)
I interviewed Matt Cutts about widgets and viral content at SES San Jose, and he reiterated the fact that social media and linkbait is a pretty honest, straightforward way to attract traffic and links because it's user-driven and they make the decision to participate, which is what Google's all about.
Hi Rand. Your post comes at the same time that I'm nearly doubling the pay for one of my link bait writer's. They've proven they're worth the extra costs.
For us the writer's ability, talent and understanding of viral content is the most important piece to the equation. Without that, you're wasting a lot of time. If you can largely produce the "no risk" and "low risk" content you mentioned on a continuous basis, you're all set.
I like your inclusion of the visual guides, calculators, and similar websites in your list of personal viral projects. Graphs and visuals do almost always perform the best compared to similar, text-only articles -- such as an article written about the financial crisis vs. your link to the page with the large visual graph discussing the same topic.
It's beneficial to pair up an experienced viral writer or researcher with a programmer or good graphic designer to brainstorm these types of linkable tools or pages. Equally important is the ability to visualize viral content in the same way that Google will interpret it. Even though the inbound link rate to successful viral content, tools, or similar can be very fast, it's all about the uniqueness and value it's provides.
Thanks for the excellent post. I think this is right on. 3 of our top 10 pages are articles with good PageRank.
We also made a nice little discovery - articles published in PDF format get picked up by some PDF search engines/directories and we didn't do a thing. They simply showed up in the backlink reports with some nice link juice.
My first post here so howdy ya'll.
Perfectly explained about Viral content , I didnt know about Matthew Inman black hat ( I think ) story . I must to say that i agree with the guardian when they said : "Hiding link code in a widget like this is basically using the same methods as you would use to spread a virus"
I found the list of viral content pieces to be very useful! Always looking for great information that can move my business further.
Thanks for the great post. -Norene
would you suggest linkbait for dating sites
I completely agree--I don't the linkbait will ever be full discredited. The engines might get smarter at valuing and devaluing links, but linkbait is an integral part of the search engines' algorithms.
The thought that the notion of "linkbait" or "viral content" itself could ever be discounted by search engines is silly.
The whole premise behind this concept/buzzword is creating content compelling enough to naturally accumulate natural links. As long as the so-called bait is relevant to your site, it's just compelling content.
I think the choice of words in link-bait reveals the oftentimes backwards approach taken by many Internet marketers (already thinking of links before content). A better name for link-bait (although less catchy) would be visitor-bait.
Links are like happiness; you don't find happiness by looking directly for it. Instead, you pursue endeavors, often challenging ones. If you're on the right track, these endeavors will often result in happiness (or link love).
Hey Springboard SEO. This is definitely off topic, but I wanted to mention that your new logo rocks.
Every time I look at it a voice in my head says Esso, then corrects it to SEO.
Brilliant marketing.
Hey thanks, goodnews.
A friend of mine (outside the world of SEO) came up with the idea and I promptly opened photoshop, still chuckling. Would love to incorporate it into a site, but alas I believe it's already been incorporated ;)
Doesn't really seem like unrelated links to my site with un-targeted link text would help. Well maybe if there is beaucoups of it but it makes more sense to stay in your oun area and build reasonable, related links with good content. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Am I missing something here? Aren't you really just saying that getting links virally is good? I doubt anyone would disagree with that. Not trying to be a contrarian just think I must be missing something here.
Interesting post Rand.
Generating true, organic, links is definitely the SEO goal... and creating content that people like will do just that.
It's much easier to compete for natural search queries of the "long tail." So, writing good articles and content will allow one to hit on more obscure key phrases, and in turn, generate more traffic... and possibly leads.
That is why it is so important to continue generating new, fresh, and meaningful content.
Creating quality content is always going to attract links from relevant sites, which is what many of us strive for, I can't see that changing...
(I haven't ever indulged in widget making/promotion)
I find the widget penalty pretty interesting though, with the html code being obvious for the link, then its more than likely that those who will be posting the widget results on the blog or websites will be "in the know" enough to be able to remove that part of the code, so surley by them opting not to change it, they are in effect "voting" for that site?
I can't see the logic of penalising a site for producing somthing web users likes and "suggesting" the anchor text (if the html is clean, java links etc I see why this could be bad).
I've probably missed the point completley, but hey its monday morning :)
So... good content garners links. Links are good for SEO. Viral = good SEO. Where's my "A" for the day?
Yeah - I think to some people this is going to seem very obvious and unworthy of a blog post proclaiming it (like saying - "Holy Moly! Links Matter for SEO"). Yet, as you can see from some of the comments, there's still dissent over whether linkbait/viral kinds of SEO tactics might get penalized/filtered by Google, hence the discussion.
Now this side of the discussion is where this topic gets interesting. When reputation mangement is an algorithmic weight to each inbound link and how you prevent this from being abused by companies and competitors. Certainly the Cash4gold example is a huge opportunity for abuse if they maintain similar content they'll likely carry much of the SEO value forward with a proper redirect.
James, a few years ago I Googled a product I saw on an informercial and the number 1 result was a link to the Better Business Bureau listing complaints customers had with the product and company I was looking to buy. The product was the second Google item. I didn't buy the product.
It seems to me that reputation management is vital to make sure you don't get out-optimized on your own name by complaints or an anti-YOU site (the possible result of a viral anti-YOU campaign).
If your company has a good reputation Rand's post will help you gain links. If you are a shady company, social media and a Google search will likely expose you and the your site for the frauds you are (the hypothetical you, not anyone on the post).
I think your comments are a better example of why site owners should be more cautious of where they link off to. In the example of a better business bureau listing that is probably one of the better places to link when blogging/writing about a company that you wouldn't want to receive positive link flow. Ultimately the ecosystem of users will determine how well sites rank and not Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Just make the worst company ever.. do some attrocious things that offend all possible people. Obtain massive links from everyone that is outraged by your website.. wait a few months and 301 everything to a new untainted domain..
anyone else see the problem with links as the current emphasis of Google?
The off-topic site redirection as a link acquisition strategy hasn't been particularly successful in my experience (and in hearing from lots of site buyers). If you completley change the content of a site or redirect an irrelevant site/page to another, there seems to be some consideration from the engines that discounts the value passed.
I'd also venture a guess that your specific suggestion is not a tactic that's been employed or abused much, and until/unless it is, the engines don't really need to worry too much. There's tons of hypothetical problems with links as a valuation device, but the PhDs at Google/Bing seem to have found pretty smart workarounds for the more devious + popular abuses.
Lets pretend that Cash4goldDOTcom is the top ranking site for the top money making term to target for SEO.
This site has countless links coming from angry/upset blogs, forums etc. These links provide the same benefit as a link from a satisfied blogger.
Once C4G can no longer operate due to its image being destroyed on-line, they can just buy a new domain name and on the surface, seem like a new trustworthy company to your average Internet user.
This is kinda what I was thinking of when I wrote my previous post but I now realize I was way to vague to fully see my thought process.
that could work and have read many case studies of those who have done similar things in the past.
Trying it at that level would actually be good to assess how much link love is lost when using a 301 for domains - after all, in a market that is competative, surley every bit of juice would be needed to keep the site at #1
I should add a caveat, the wrong kind of viral promotion can kill your site.
For example, if you make something go viral by offering referral credits (or affiliate commissions or whatever) you run the risk of getting your links plastered alongside dozens of crappy links, each one more shady than the next (such as MLM's, paid-to-surf, traffic exchanges, etc). That sort of virus can kill your site. (The 'bad neighborhood' penalty.)