This week on Whiteboard Friday we'll look at link quality. The strength of your link profile isn't all about volume anymore. You need to know where and how to attract strong links that will actually communicate a powerful message about your site to the engines.
Watch the video for a nice breakdown of how to judge what makes a quality link.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Dude, Your Links Kinda Suck from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
By: Scott Willoughby
Whiteboard Friday - Dude, Your Links Kinda Suck
Whiteboard Friday
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
I just wanted to add that in many cases, you will still see sites ranking largely on the back of these lower quality types of links, and not all of them are always bad to get. The problem, which I should have articulated better, is that the engines are always working towards ways of discounting of the lower quality ones and giving more rewards to the more editorial ones.
In the long term, I just don't think it's a wise business decision to bet against the power and intelligence of the search engine's webspam and search quality teams. They hire hundreds of the very best and brightest engineers in the world - not exactly my first choice for an adversary.
Rand, this is the first video I'd have to admit that I didn't like. Can you show some data thar proves what is what here?
It's great for discouraging web spam and we're all frustrated with spammy blog comments and forums posts, but the reality of what I am witnessing just doesn't match up with what you're saying. Maybe this will be a trend as your repsonse points out, but you must diversify your links for trends that work "right now" and trends that will work or you have a theory that may work.
A lot of people trust you and a lot of our clients read these blog posts and watch your videos, I recommend that they do so. How can we convince current clients of the facts and results with our boots on the ground if a big name like SEOmoz/Rand claims some of the things we're doing don't work or are wrong?
Rand: would love to see a whiteboard Fridasy describing the "awesome" links for a website with examples. You dont have to do it for your own client or past case study. Simple take a website that is ranking well for a specific niche and analyze how/why/which backlinks are helping them.
Great idea - I'll try to add that into the queue!
Rand
I hope the queue wont be very long. It would be incredably valuable if you could do it.
Did this idea every make it to a whiteboard?
Good topic Rand. It actually coincides with a YOUmoz post i'm thinking of writing. I just hope the masses don't tear my first post to shreds....
Dude your lighting sucks :o
Good video anyway..
Global Comment for the Typical Website Owner (aka not money grubbing spam whores)*
So, I think the lesson here, put very simply, is to use a common sense approach to link building. While link building tactics will vary slightly based upon YOUR intent and revenue/business model, I think we all know what links are crap, decent, good and great.
It should be no surprise, really. The best links are the hardest ones to garner, DUH! That's why garnering even just a handful of the best inlinks (topically relevant to your site, coming from an authority hub, etc.) will give you a better chance for higher rankings versus even ten thousand crappy or decent inlinks. Quality links will HOLD long-term and the crappy links will eventually be DEVALUED.
THINK ABOUT IT... Do you really want some BIG ASS, PIXEL-SUCKING traffic scheme of a widget on your blog anyway? Do you honestly think person running the SEO FRIENDLY LINK DIRECTORY you just spent $50 with to list your site is really driven by the desire to only list strong sites? You are better off taking the time to do it right and reap the long-term benefits that come along with doing the right thing.
*Note: I have nothing against spam whores. Spamming is obviously a "business model" that generates a ton of money. My comment is geared specifically to the Internet business people who are trying hard to build a profitable website or blog that can stand long-term.
I think it's easy for business owners to get sucked in, because in the back of their minds, they think that link-building should be easy and we're all (as SEOs) hiding our secrets and tricks from them. So, they tend to fall victim to believing claims that are too good to be true. They should know better, and it should be "common sense", but it's often not. When it comes to link-building, businesses are very poorly educated consumers.
I certainly go along with the idea of getting a wide range of link (except the spammy ones).
I recently did a little work looking at some of the highest ranked sites in the field of SEO and around 90% of them were using 'low quality' directory submissions etc and sitting at No.1 for keywords like SEO consultant, seo services, seo advice etc....
It is pretty obvious these low quality links, if you have enough of them still count, it is a tactic all the top ranked sites are using, because it works. Are national positions still sitting at the top? They were last time I checked.
This makes it difficult for those of us working in house or freelance, our clients want results, we know how the competition are getting the results but have to explain that it's not a 'long term strategy'. It is difficult to convice a client not to do what is clearly working for their competition, we could all do with a hand from Google here!
I try and build links from every relevant source, articles, press releases, directories, social media... If it relates to my content I will target it.
Another great WBF.
I just wanted to leave a thought. It seems there is a firm delineation between the Low Value links and lower and the Moderate Value links and higher; which most likely occurrs once the site has increased or achieved "3rd-party endorsement".
Like you say for the low value links, it's easy enough to create sites and interlink, comment to them, etc. However, to acheive the moderate links and above it illustrates that a site is more widely available to an endorsing public of which a site is more likely to contain information helpful and convient to a readership/business/consumer base and thus garner an endorsement in the type of links that you describe at Moderate value and higher. The links achieved (or lack thereof) shouldn't be taken as a commentary on the business/site as a whole, but of the exposure to internet literate organizations/people validating a site with a link. Just my thought.
Good Video Rand. I liked how you placed the links into different buckets and I agree with where you placed them. Link building has been the one aspect of SEO that I found to be the hardest and takes the most time to master.
I'm right there with you. This is the one area I need to improve the most in my SEO work. For me, onsite optimizing is much more straight forward.
Having a spread of links from reciprocals, free and paid directories, blogs, forums, e-zine articles, editorial IMHO looks more natural.
I find many people want quick fix directory links at as cheap a price as possible. Thats where they go wrong.
If you aim for an even(ish) spread of links from multiple sources of varying quality then (as I my sites do) you will rank well. If all you aim for is low quality directory links (free/low value/non-niche) then that stands out like a sore thumb (especially when using SEOMoz's Linkscape tool which if you don't pay for yet I suggest you do).
Alternatively if you only agonise over getting awesome links that are of the highest utmost quality then its likely (if you're not experienced in the field) you will find yourself falling behind against your competitors as they'll be out there getting a spread of low and mid quality links to start ranking.
If you're after online news based links and don't have the profile to get into the NY Times or on CNN then get to know a reporter on your local newspaper and work from there, that worked for me. Call them up, introduce yourself, ask HOW YOU CAN HELP THEM STAND OUT. Relationships come from helping them with scoops, in turn they'll reward you too....
Best advice is to get your linkbuilding boots on jump down in the trenches and start building and testing those links and quality...
Rand, excellent WBF even though a bit late for Europe working hours on friday... don't mind the lighting issue, i am sure it can be sorted... I was surprise to see widgets on the 'awesome' bucket category despite all the recent controversy with these type of links... but all in all, a good reminder of quality vs crap link building. cheers
I don't want to jump on bandwagon and say <mrburns>excellent</mrburns> but the first part works, or at least as far as I can see. I could out numerous sites that exploit the spam category (yet won't) as I can use it, and they rank for very hard keywords. Also in some niches you will struggle to get links from the last category editorially as you put it. Best bet is to mix it up imo.
p.s. I've tried spammy link farm links and they work too.
This is great stuff. I am fairly new to SEO, so these whiteboard Fridays are a great source of info. I knew that comment spam is looked down on, but I didn't know that Social medias would be low too. Is there a list of directories that are considered the better ones? I put my business in all kinds of directories everyday.
VBP - As I said with social media profiles; they're not always low quality links, and certainly in some cases can be good. It's just that, like anything else, they can be abused and when they are, I wouldn't expect them to pass the same value that better stuff can.
As for good directory lists - we've got one we like here - https://www.seomoz.org/directories - but there are some other good lists out there, too. Basically, if it looks like it's built to provide links for SEO, stay away, but if it's a directory whose primary value proposition is around sending traffic and categorizing interesting/valuable resources for a real audience, it's probably worthwhile.
Rand, how would you rank the directories from Yahoo, DMOZ and V7N? Are they worth the price?
And what about De.licio.us, Digg and StumbleUpon?
Great video. Just asking for a quick clarification between Comment Spam and DoFollow Blogs.
I realise comment spam is putting your keywords in the Name of your comment so that you get the link back (even if it is mostly nofollow).
Are *all* links from a dofollow blog counted as 'low quality'? (even editorial comments within a post). Or is this just referring to the dofollow link you get back to your site when you post a comment?
"This makes it difficult for those of us working in house or freelance, our clients want results, we know how the competition are getting the results but have to explain that it's not a 'long term strategy'."
Some of those directory links are valuable. Probably most are not. I think of link juice as filling a cup. I want to spend my link building time filling that cup as fast as possible.
From my understanding links are not necessary just for ranking. Even with the low quality links in dofollow blogs and comments you can still get a reasonable amount of traffic.
Links serves two purposes for ranking and traffic. If they first two buckets will bring half my traffic and the remaining two increases my ranking,then I guess I have a great SEO strategy???
What do you think Rand??
Rand, Very nice WBF - only thing that made it a little less kick-ass is the fact that its a simplistic view of the link universe. I think it would have been more impactful with examples of good to great links, so we can identify with the criteria and value those links will afford us.
Particlularly those of us battling in a very competitive space, where selecting the "right" links is crucial to success, and with longer latency periods observed in certain verticals, even more critical...
the harder to get ..the better
Leave the loop holes aside and stop fooling search engines as they are continiously gtg smatter and will catch you so long term hard work will pay much better in future.
i know how to get links from .gov or .edu but never tried since i know its not a long lasting approach.
The saying "Quality is better than quantity " really does apply to this article. Excessive links throughout your website may do more harm than good, so why not take the time to do your research?. I agree with seo33s comment - Create a link that gives others reason to link to. A simple process yet effective results.
Great article!
<a href="https://www.travesti.im">travesti</a>
Hi there,
I find this link https://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-dude-your-links-kinda-suck................ form webprowold.com forum but it could not be play at my system. I dont know what and where the problem.
Thanks for the video rand, I should've watched that though before I watch Whiteboard Friday - How to Get Awesome Link
Amazing two videos with loads of information and tips, thanks you :)
gr8 stuff, you have not mention any thing about Articles Linking, where people like to submitt same artilces in so many directory to get back links with anchor text, Which catagory that fall into, spammy or ...
Thanks Rand, this was an awesome post, I get the same question from clients all day long and guess what video I am going to send them to watch :-)
Well the cool clients anyways....
Fantastic video. I refer clients to your site often, I think you have an awesome resource here.
nice video rand, i agree with @seowizz, there are a number of your competitors who have 1000-4000 links, and even if they only get 0.01 link juice passed this can still add up, if they are using link diversity...
im still not decided on the low value directories, i think industry specific directories should be considered even if they have a low page rank.
Hi Rand,
Great presentation and I think you made a lot of good points. I found it interesting that you put widgets/badges in among the Top Quality links. I've been hearing that there is some concern that search engines will discount them - particularly if they come equipped with keyword rich anchor text or alt text leading back to your site.
Have you any tips on the best SEO-friendly way to use badges or widgets to advantage for SEO linking?
Rand,
Where would you categorize the content irrelevant keywords stuffed widgets that are embedded site wide throughout the blog network?
If one company owns 30 blogs on different domains and the all pass link equity to one of them wouldn't Google not reward them? I would have agreed with you but seeing one sites exponential growth in SEO traffic makes me think otherwise.
https://trends.google.com/websites?q=shopstyle.com&sa=N
To me this is startling considering Google's stance on paid keyword links.
Like I said in my comment above, you can find a lot of examples of sites ranking purely on this low quality junk, but in the long run, I think the engines will all be filtering out more and more of it.
Widgets and blog networks can pass value and should pass value when they're relevant and the intent is correct (for example, all these twitter badges everyone's putting on their blogs are absolutely an editorial endorsement of that site's value). On the flipside, when they're manipulative, created purely for SEO and don't add much value or seem editorially given, the juice passed probably will not remain high.
Some low quality links or quantity links work NOW. Don't you think that getting a little artificial traction will help any given website have more visibility and attract the more valuable, naturally editorial links later? At least the site will have more "at bats" with potential editors and webmasters that have the power to give links.
That way, unless Google is going to penalize sites and not just remove value or "filter" these links, they will still help you achieve success more rapidly than if you didn't build them in the first place.
I don't believe Google will penalize sites for this. Many have discussed the ability to use this sort of activity as a weapon against your competition if Google would penalize you for such a thing.
Any competitor of a website could just go and start paying for tons of spammy signature links hoping that Google would penalize their competitor.
Some of these types of links like the widgets, blog roll, social media profiles etc can fall in to other buckets depending on the implementation and execution.
Certainly a blog roll with 50+ links to credit, viagra etc is going to slide over in to the spam bucket as a link scheme.
But when done properly, with good intentions i think Rand's categorization was pretty spot on. MarjyM there's a really good post floating around here on widget categorization, it may be in Youmoz i can't seem to locate it.
Marjy - There are a few posts I'd read on this topic:
Hope those help!
It really seems like you got your mojo back in this video Rand! Certainly a good video, and food for thought.
Interesting that you added "DoFollow Blogs" to the low quality list. It makes sense now that I think about it.
Are we getting to the point that any potential link or type of link that gathers any web media attention is going to be discounted?
Along these same lines should we just quit talking about ways to get quality links so that they are not devalued?
did you guys get new lightbulbs or did someone pee on the white board? it's all yellow!
nice tips. i think i found a secret leaked seomoz video that gets recommended at the finish of this wbf.
Great video! I have actually been working with links a lot this week. I was going to leave a post wondering what happened to whiteboard Friday because it wasn't there when I woke up, but here it is.
I thought this whole White Board Friday was just done for my benefit. (kept expecting Ashton Kutcher to come up behind me and say "You been Punked") Glad to see that it is something Everybody else struggles with too.
This is when it would be better to live in the UK, Their weekend starts 8hrs sooner ;) I'm still in the office and their bums are warming stools at the pub.
Totally agree rand. The best links are always the hardest to find. I do find buying a few seofriendlydirectory.com submissions a good way to throw up a bit of chaf to throw people off a breadcrumb of link aquisition analyis.
As ever - good video Rand.
Great Video this week,
It really cleared up some issues I have been having with deciding which types of links to go after, if not how to go about getting them. I'm still just barely getting into quality linkbuilding and how it all breaks down in terms of acquisition, but this post gave great direction.
Rand in your opinion links from places like ezine articles have moderate value or more?
Thanks for the information Rand :D
This was my first white board Friday and I am looking forward to next Friday too. Thanks for clarifying on the 4 buckets - it revealed some valauble info. I am in a small market and when I mention anything about directories people just look at me like I am crazy.
Hey bcliff, welcome to the party. When you get time, go back through the archives here and watch some of the past ones too. (don't pay any attention to Rand never changing his clothes, he really only has two shirts) They are all pretty informative.
Have a great weekend.
Great video, Rand. While alot of that seems to be common sense, it's a great reminder of where to spend your energy when building links.
Hi,
Wow this is a great information! It's good to know where to put your energy more in building back links.
Thank you
Jennifer Eden Cruz
The best way to get good links is to create a website that gives others reason to link to. Great conten or great product and services would make any website ranks well, at least in a perfect world.
I wish people would enter reality, as the web becomes commoditized, it's harder to create 'link worthy content' - that's just what Matt Cutts talks about all the time. Try that in Finance niche.
Great video. Thanks.
Hi All,
How come blogroll links and reciprocal links are in two different categories? Blogroll links are often reciprocal, two bloggers exchanging links.
/Libbert
Wow, thumbs down for that question if you didn't think about it long enough to answer it yourself:
Simply: blogroll links aren't ALWAYS reciprocal & reciprocal links aren't ALWAYS in a blogroll
I have no facts but I'm confident in saying that there are more cases where a reciprocal link or blogroll link are independent of each other, and therefore, deserve their own categories.
@Tim
You actually confirmed my question. If you are right there is an implied assumption that links in blogrolls are NOT reciprocal and therefore more valuable. I just wanted a confirmation from Rand or others whether that this was the case or whether Google for some other reason put an extra value on blogroll links.
/Libbert
Libbert - If you're saying "reciprocal" simply to mean two sites that happen to link to one another or even two pages that do, that's not necessarily bad. If Newsweek writes about SEOmoz and we link to that article on Newsweek and they've linked to us, is it a "reciprocal link"? Technically yes, but it's now what I'm talking about when I say "reciprocal link schemes."
For those, I'm referring to the practice of literally trading links with many other sites for no other reason than to boost one another's rankings. There's typically little relevance, optimized anchor text, and long lists of links on a big "link partners" style page. Blogrolls can look similar, but my guess is the engines do a pretty good job telling the difference.
Just wanted to provide a little general feedback on WBF as this was my first time!
Intro was too long, the page (video chrome etc.) has already told me the title and got me ready for watching, I don't need a 20s (4%) intro on a 8 minute video. (That's 3 hours of SEO time for the 550 plays so far!)
Loved your conversational style, 02:37 "spammed to high-holey-heck" actually made me chuckle.
Didn't like the whiteboard! Seriously it's hard to view, the reflection causes poor contrast, perhaps you should try a yellow board or just paper your whiteboard with lining paper (plain matt unbleached wallpaper).
Thanks
[looking forward to my 3 down thumbs]
Good feedback - I'll try to get into things quicker in the future, but I know that there are lots of folks very new to the field, so I don't want to overwhelm without an explanation.
Whiteboard problems - unfortunately, this week, our video expert, Scott, was out sick, so our lighting and camera angles weren't up to the usual high standards. Hopefully we'll get better at it, though.
Thanks!
I did check out a couple of the others and thought they were far better on lighting.
As for getting into things - perhaps I'm to ADD but it was the music/titles intro, not your intro that I was on about, a 1-2sec fade from title should be enough I'd think.
I've studied and must have long ago mastered on page SEO, trusting and believing that would be enough. Alas, although I have numerous sites on page one for a somewhat competitive local industry, I canNOT break into the most competitive although local OTHER industry that I've been trying mightily to tackle with no links. So I'm not totally new to SEO, but I am new to link building. So I greatly appreciated the "slow for beginners" introduction, although I wish that you could get into more detail regarding how exactly to find and/or generate editorial links. I am a writer in my field so I should be able to target some of these opportunities, but I just cannot find them to save my life! Also seems simple but for some reason the last time I posted on some other blog post on this site--I wasn't given the option to subscribe. Is that intentional or was I just missing something obvious? Thanks for the info. :)