Contrary to popular belief, the top ranking pages aren't always the best targets for your link building efforts. There are good reasons to chase those links, sure, but there are also drawbacks — as well as some hidden alternatives you may not have considered trying. This Whiteboard Friday delves into the pros and cons of targeting high-ranking sites for links and why you should consider a link intersect strategy, targeting sites that rank for broader topics, and earning links from publications ranking beyond page one of the SERPs.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're chatting about why it may not actually pay to get links expressly or exclusively from the websites and pages that are ranking highly for your keywords. There's a bunch of reasons why behind this. There's a corollary to it, which is high-ranking websites may not always be the best link targets.
Are these the *best* links you can get to rank for "target keyword(s)"?
So okay, let's start with this question of when you're trying to rank for a target keyword, let's say you're trying to rank for "stylish sofas." You've decided you want to replace your couch, and you want something stylish. So you search for "stylish sofas." The results that come up, we're not talking about the paid results. That would be a mistake to try and get links from those. They're pretty commercially focused. They probably don't want to link to you, and I'm not sure it's all that valuable, necessarily, at least from an SEO perspective. But are these links, the ones that rank in the organic results top five, are they necessarily the best links you could possibly get? There are some reasons for and some reasons against.
In favor:
Let's talk about in favor of why these are good link targets. The first one is pretty simple and pretty obvious.
A. These pages get lots of real visitors interested in this topic who may click on/visit your site (if it's linked-to here)
These pages get a lot of search volume, get a lot of search visits from this query. If you're somewhere in this page, if my website is linked to here, that's actually a really nice thing. Maybe someone will click on the top result and then they'll find me and they'll click on it and they'll go to my page instead. That would be great. So if it's linked to there, you could get direct traffic from those pages, so nice link to have.
B. Google has put some trust/indication of authority in these pages and sites
Google has put some sort of trust and a signal of authority for this keyword by ranking it here. It's saying, "Hey, you know what? This top result and these top results are all highly relevant and authoritative for this particular query."
So those are absolutely true things, but I think they bias SEOs and link builders to think in terms of, oh, if I want to rank well for this, these are the only things I should be looking at or the first things I should be looking at or the best places to get links from.
Against:
Here's why that's not necessarily the case, so some points against.
A. Ranking is not actually an explicit signal from Google that these are the best quality links
By putting a page here, in the top of the results, Google is saying, "We, Google, believe that this page will do a great job of solving the searcher's query," not, "We, Google, know that if you get a link from here, you have a very good chance to rank for this keyword." That's not explicitly or implicitly said. It's not an implication. Google has never stated that publicly. I don't think it's necessarily the smartest thing to do in their ranking algorithm to have this recursive system that looks at who that already ranks is linking to someone else and replace them. That would be poor for Google's own user experience for a bunch of reasons.
B. Google and searchers expect that these pages that rank here are going to solve the searcher's query themselves (not force another click)
Not they're going to link to something that's going to solve the searcher's query, at least certainly not necessarily, and definitely that they're not going to force you to make another click. Google wants to rank pages here that solve the searcher's problem directly. So saying, "Oh, well, I don't think they do that and maybe they should link to me to solve this aspect of the problem," this is a spurious connection.
C. Of course, earning links from these pages, incredibly difficult
These people, especially if they're ranking for a commercial, non-branded query, like "stylish sofas," they really, really don't want to link to one of their competitors, to someone who's trying to actively outrank them. That would be pretty challenging.
I recognize that many times when link builders go about this, they look at, okay, this page is ranking. Let me see if I can find another page from this domain from which I can get a link. That's not terrible logic. That's a totally reasonable way to go about link building. But whether it's the best or the only one is what I'm going to challenge here. I don't think it is necessarily the best or only way that you should go about doing your link building for all these reasons we've just talked about.
Alternatively, links like these may be more achievable and provide more ranking value:
Now, what are the alternatives? You might be asking yourself, "Well, Rand, show me where should I be doing this if not from here?" I'm going to present a few alternatives. There's obviously an infinite number of link building tactics you could pursue, but I think some of the smarter ones would be to think about some alternatives like...
1. Sites and pages that link to multiple high-ranking targets
For example, if one and three and four are all linked to by SiteA.com, SiteA.com seems to carry, not necessarily for sure, it could be correlation and not causation, but it's certainly worth looking at as to whether Site A is relevant and provides high-quality links and could conceptually link to you and whether that's a good resource. I think that link intersect concept is a really good one to start with. In fact, I think, from a logic perspective, it makes more sense that sites and pages that tend to link to these top results probably provide more potential power to your ranking authority than just the pages that are already ranking.
2. Sites and pages that rank well for what I'd call broader keywords/broader topics related to the space you're in
So if it's "stylish sofas," you might look at keywords like, well, who's ranking for "interior design" or "interior design magazines" or "interior design events" or perhaps it's "decoration ideas." If I can find the people who are ranking for those sorts of things, that probably is going to say those are the types of places that will link out to other resources that have more specific targeting, like targeting "stylish sofas," and probably provide a lot of value there.
3. Influential publications and resources in the topic space that may not be doing good keyword targeting or SEO
I like going and trying to find influential publications and resources, that are in the topic space, that might not actually be doing good keyword targeting or good SEO, which means it's hard to use Google to find them. You may find them ranking on page two, page three, or page four. You may need to do some other types of research, like look on Instagram and see what companies or what publications are using these hashtags and have lots of followers in this interior design or decoration or furniture space.
From there, that will lead you to influential publications in the space that maybe have lots of readership, lots of engagement on social channels or on their website, but haven't done a particularly great job in Google. Those influential publications, I think Google is doing a very good job of identifying, "Hey, wait a minute. Here's a bunch of publications that are in important in space X and they are all linking to this website, which is doing a good job of targeting these keywords. So, therefore, that's who we should potentially rank."
So hopefully, this Whiteboard Friday will help you to expand your link building opportunities and also to recognize why the top ranking pages might not always be and certainly aren't necessarily the best link targets.
Thanks everyone. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Hi Rand, great WBF and a very interesting topic (as always).
Earning backlinks can be difficult, but if you're not trying to earn certain links just for the sake of ranking, but because you can actually relate to the information, services, products etc. of that particular webpage and you believe those would help your visitors it's a much easier job to do. Nevertheless I believe less is more and linking to a few highly relevant links would do a better job than to link to loads of less relevant ones.
have to agree with you: just a few links which are highly relevant to your niche and have a high DA are way more relevant than a ton of links with low DA not not relevant sites! This might mean you have to invest more time to get a link from one of the high DA sites that fits your niche but it is definilty worth it!
True. I made the mistake myself at the begginig of thinking "If I have a lot of links that would be the key" and after buying and wasting time and money in poor links I realised that it was not the way to go.
I'm a little late to the party here, but great WBF! We have always been fans of uncovering every quality link opportunity, and we appreciate you breaking down a lot of misconceptions and reasons that people "write-off" perfectly good white-hat link building opportunities. Solid insight on the pros and cons of link intersect strategy as well good sir.
Solid perspective here Rand, I especially agree with the fact that links like these may be more achievable and provide more ranking value (because you can actually get them to link out to you!)
Also keeping in mind Influential publications and resources in the topic space that may not be doing good keyword targeting or SEO, because a lot of time they don't need to.
Nice article Rand,
I would not necessarily focus on just a single keyword when looking for pages to get backlinks from. I am looking more for the link environment and if they cover the same themes as I do e.g. Computer/Software/Internet/Business. I think that sites like this are way more valuable because they cover similar topics but no the exact same… This way Google also gets to understand what your site is all about. Feel like this might be more similar to your alternative in point 2.
I really like point 1 of your alternatives though where you mention to have a look at the sites that rank to other high ranking pages! If you manage to get a link there from a high quality site, this can be really valuable and boost your page rank.
Local and Niche links are important for SMB sites :-)
Great thoughts, Rand. Love the idea of a "link intersect" strategy.
To me, the fact that earning a link from a top ranking site is incredibly difficult and unlikely is your most convincing point. My agency ranks in the top 3 results for our industry and location, and it would take the best piece of content I've ever seen to consider linking to a competitor in our city, attempting to rank for the same keyword.
The time spent in an attempt to earn that link is probably much better spent elsewhere, on other optimization activities.
Thanks again, Rand.
Always i ve been trying to get the best links and that´s not natural
Links from high DA sites always worth better than others. I've realized that just focusing on a few sites with high DA is even better than hundreds of low DA sites.
This is definitely an area of our SEO strategy that needs to be built out more, so this was very helpful. It's good - since I started coming here to daily read the articles I feel like a few things that were perhaps a little fuzzy for me have snapped into focus. Thank you.
Hi there!
Thoughts:
Your second 'against' idea, I agree with it. However, I think sometimes if you're providing great content to satisfy intent, it may generate additional inquiries in the mind of the user. Therefore, your content focusing specifically on a certain query or set of queries, may not solve an additional inquiry generated from it, or go in-depth enough. One could definitely argue that, that should be considered when you're creating a content, but you never know what ideas/thoughts your content could inspire (unless you have the time to do a lot of interviews and get to know your audience unbelievably well!)
Otherwise, really looking forward to trying out 1 and 3 on your alternatives list. Exploring top ranking pages for a set of queries and the links they share, along with leveraging those socially strong sites with weak SEO (that may end up having a strong search presence when they decide to make the effort) really goes above and beyond and could help a websites rankings become sustainable into the more distant future.
Thank you sir!
Hi, Rand
I respect you article, the same question came in my mind, but i got all the information with the help of you post, also check this site, there no paid for ranking but coming in search engine good.
Really good post Rand!! It´s always nice to have some extra info about how to get really valuable backlinks.
Thanks for sharing; -)
What would your suggestion/recommendation be for ranking for keywords in demographics where there aren't any/much authoritative niche blogs? For instance, in countries like Sri Lanka there are only like 3 authoritative blogs (one for food and 2 for tech) and a couple of gossip blogs. So searching for other places to earn a link is basically impossible. So what other alternatives do we have to substitute for this in terms of benefitting from links?
Winning links is not easy at all, but you have to try to achieve even if few are more relevant, sometimes, less is more.
I've been always aiming for High DA sites to get links from thinking that was the only way to build authority. But after reading your post it has changed my mind. I think i'm gonna head over and start a new campaign where I target low DA sites and lets see if it can do wonders for my site.
Hello Rand this nice article.
The time spent in an attempt to earn that link is probably much better spent elsewhere, on other optimization activities.
I have been working building backlinks. And this blog did come as a surprise! So far I had been chasing high DA blogs for backlinks.
Thanks so much for this post.
Akash Gautam
Motivational Speaker, Corporate Trainer
[Link removed by editor.]
thanks for your contribution Rand! seems to be creating a small "psychosis" with getting links, we want to sell, sell and sell and we must be very attentive and analyze before paying since it is not gold everything that glitters as we say in Spain. Do you also use this expression in English?
I've always thought it's a good strategy to get links from "smaller" sites that are related to yours. In the end, they are likely to grow over time, benefiting you even more.
I agree with you, getting backlinks from websites on the first page results it's very difficult. Usually I target the second page of google search results. With moz bar in chrome I look at all backlinks of that websites;
I make a list with all high DA;
I try to replicate them;
The same procedure with the correlate keywords;
Exelent contribution.
Hello Rand,
You are 100% right about this! That is the exact procedure I apply whenever I'm building it!
It boosted my ranking so much that it was easily noticeable in terms of revenue on my website!
Hi, Would you Guide me that why some webmasters always fond to have only Do-Follow links for their websites, but I read that do-follow and no-follow both are Good for the keyword ranking. Is it True that we have to build Do-Follow links.
You need do-follow links because those are the ones that pass on linkjuice to your website, no-follow links don't. That's also why most webmasters mention that they have do-follow links, because they are more valuable to your website. So you will aim on getting good Do-follow links with a high DA.
BUT you will also need no-follow links, because if you would get your backlinks naturally there are always also no-follow links - otherwise your backlinks will not look natural. So always make sure to get both, do-follow and no-follow links. Hope this was helpful to you.
As Abel mentioned no-followed links do help diversify your backlink profile, and can still drive traffic to your site, but they won't help increase domain/page authority or rankings.
I wouldn't spend much time trying to generate no-followed links as they have less value, and are easily generated naturally anyway. Links on brand pages on most social media platforms are automatically no-followed for example.
thanks for your contribution Rand! seems to be creating a small "psychosis" with getting links, we want to sell, sell and sell and we must be very attentive and analyze before paying since it is not gold everything that glitters as we say in Spain. Do you also use this expression in English?
Great tips thank you.
I think using small good websites that are at the same space it's important for ranking.
Grow with your competition for keywords. Just recently we had a huge boost in SERP rankings for one of our global clients for a highly competitive keyword by recognizing growing page ranks on several high-authority blogs. This is a phenomenal long-term strategy that can save big money on PPC as well. (just don't forget to optimize page for the results you want)
Hi Rand
Off piste a little here, but wondered there's any merit in covering the issue of search rank tests by colleagues within the same organisation. Like many SEO-ers and PPC-ers I'm always being asked about rankings / visibility (or lack of) by colleagues. Just wondering if there are any current studies outlining personalisation, over clicking links / under clicking links / over testing key-terms etc. and the effect on what colleagues believe rankings to be....when the truth may be very different for external users.
I love this post, but Here I have a question, Getting paid backlinks is a good or doing quality work to get backlinks is a good. Because most business owners are not able to spend enough money to buy quality backlinks. If paid backlinks is a good Idea then what should do small or medium business owners to boost their business over the Internet.
I think that the best thing is thinking long term. For a new small business that wants to be at top in 2 days it is better to take the time to have a clear idea that in order to achive that it will be requiere a lot of time. So working in creating great content and contacting with some webs who could link to your content I think it is the best way to start.
Now google values more links that send traffic and make it stay on page... thanks for the post.
Really good post!! Winning links of the firts page is very difficult. Getting links about relevant webs, small webs and good quality.
Hi Rand,
Thanks to this very useful explanation, I am a beginner learning about a link building, happy to get an explanation from you
Hi Rand,
Great article. Interestingly, I would never think about getting links from top 5 results in serp. In my opinion, it would be counter intuitive for my competitors to agree to link to my page - why would they want to help my promotion? Usually, when I try to do link building, I look at a wide variety of keywords, long tail and short, and try to see which websites are interested in guest posting exchanges or similar opportunities.
Interesting strategy the 3th one about ifluential publications.
Everybody goes to Google to find what pages are great for linkbuilding, but this strategy is "thinking outside the box".
Being active in Instagram to find this publications is something that not a lot of people do.
So it is a great way to stand out and rank in Google.
Muito obrigado por compartilhar a informação que preciso aprender muito sobre SEO porque tenho sites e eu preciso disso obrigado.
Hello from Spain Rand.
The article is very interesting, especially for those who started in SEO, we tried to get good references here and there and really, your articles and those of MOZ help us a lot. Greetings and many successes!
Спасибо за статью.
Понятно, нет смысла в нетематических ссылках. Рейтинг статьи они не повышают.
Есть сайты без ссылок с хорошим трафиком.
Важно хорошее качество публикаций.
Ask questions on other blogs. Challenge answers. Write posts in the same language? :)