Mr. Panda, How Should I Link Build Now?

[Pjman]

There seems to be a great deal of chatter about the devaluing of links on your basic syndication channels (article networks) after the Panda Update.

So I'd like to get a dialogue going of ideas of how we are to build links that would stand the test of time.

Theories off Ranking to #1:

1. Have the goods - You must have some of the best content available on the term you are trying to rank for. I usually look at the top rank sites and objectively work to beat their content. My content or tools I create are my link bait. When that is done I move to step #2.

2. Worry About # of Domains, Not # of Links - I build links on more domains then my competitors. I don't worry about the numbers of links, I worry about the number of domains they are on.

My best techniques, that still work are:

A. Guest Blogging - I use a network to contact blogs in my niche. I also search for relevant blogs and offer a post to deliver in 20 days or so.

B. Researching top 30 competitors back links - I look at their links and approach sites that links to them, but not me. I usually give them a compelling reason to link to me.

C. Social Media - I work on building my twitter and FB follows and likes.


Does anyone have any other sure fire ways to link build these days?

Things that provide low value links, don't waste your time or money:

1. Forum posting and blog commenting - No SEO value

2. Social bookmarking - Might get a page indexed, that's all.

3. Link Exchanges or Directories- Nuff said!

4. Article Syndication - Unless you are writing unreal stuff on a regular basis, provides little value.

5. Press Releases - Unless you have something that a reporter is sure to jump at provides little value.

[goodroi]

If you are looking for long term links I would suggest paid links. I am not talking about buying monthly text links I am talking about investing some money to get links. Here are some link suggestions that will all cost some money but should end up with links embedded in content on relevant sites. The key is to be creative.

-Run a contest within your industry with a good prize
-Hire a good writer to create a free ebook for your typical consumer
-Hire a photographer to take industry photos then provide them as free stock photos under common creative license

[Lame_Wolf]

I think you should relook at #3
3. Link Exchanges or Directories- Nuff said!

I have recently gained 2xPR5 1xPR6 3xPR4 links from exchanges... and I have gained in the SERPS because of it.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

While I don't know about directories I can say that relevant niche topsites have some value still. The benefit of being linked from them outweighs the need to link to them imo. It all depends on the quality of the topsite and I don't mean it's PR.

[Lame_Wolf]

Personally, I do not touch directories, but do link to related sites [not always exchanging].. but recently did do a spot of exchanging with a few related sites, and gained well out of it.

[pageoneresults]

Develop an application that serves a need that can be fulfilled online. Once done, attack social media with a vengeance. Depending on the makeup of your social media following, a Tweet or Post to that network is like sending out 100's if not 1000's of link requests. The links tend to come naturally, you don't have to ask for them. :)

Stay way from any bulk link opportunities. ALL of them will produce less than satisfactory results and are more than likely to get you algorithmically penalized.

[Lame_Wolf]

pageoneresults, personally, I do not touch social media sites, but I do get a number of tweets, FB mentions etc. Saves me doing it ;)

Stay way from any bulk link opportunities. ALL of them will produce less than satisfactory results and are more than likely to get you algorithmically penalized.

Totally agree. I manually check out every site I want to link to/from.

I got some good links from looking at WM Tools. I looked to see who was giving me the most links. Then went to the page where I was located on.

From there, I spotted other related sites. Some looked better than others, so I cherry-picked a few.

When I wrote to them (after checking out their site) I mentioned where I spotted them from, and as we are related sites, would you consider our site.

Worked for me :)

[Pjman]

Personally, I do not touch directories, but do link to related sites [not always exchanging].. but recently did do a spot of exchanging with a few related sites, and gained well out of it.

I usually find these types of links to have an initial burst, but after a few months they loose juice. I did it to a completely no-competitive term last year. Built all new links on exchanges and after about 6 months the term fizzled in the SERPs.

When I asked others they seem to agree that after Google makes the connection between the links (sometimes months) you loose all juice from those links (devalued).

If anyone has a differing opinion, I'm all ears.

[Lame_Wolf]

about 6 months the term fizzled in the SERPs.

Not with my kind of site. The SERPS are long term, not flash in the pan type SERP. (eg, Miss example pregnant for the 3rd time.)

[Pjman]

@Lame_Wolf

I see your rationale now. So link exchanges for long-long tails, makes sense.

My experiment was for 2 words phrases only. So anchor text patterns, might be the target of devalued links.

Let's add new one to the list:

link exchanges for long-long tails

[Lame_Wolf]

I see your rationale now. So link exchanges for long-long tails, makes sense.

I now see yours too.

My experiment was for 2 words phrases only. So anchor text patterns, might be the target of devalued links.

Some of mine are two words too, but my site is not chasing the news headlines, so I guess there are two types of link exchanges... the ones that want/need the "what's going on in the world this minute" type, and the ones that look for long term rankings for long-lived phrases.

[brotherhood of LAN]

you loose all juice from those links (devalued)

Are you saying that Google actively reduces the authority of the site/page/link or that because the links gradually get buried into the site architecture they're giving out less juice...

[Pjman]

@brotherhood of LAN

Love the name, BTW.

From I have seen and heard at conferences, it takes time for google to find and identify a long term link exchange, but once they do; the links are devalued. Just those links, it doesn't hurt your rankings, it doesn't help them either.

[Yellow_Sun]

Pjman,

I think this is a good topic and you did a nice job of outlining most everything.

I do feel press releases add some value when done properly. Also, in my experience link exchanges do help just a little but only if it is relevant to the page/content/article and on a valuable page.

Doing a high quality article about other sites relevant to your overall theme can produce you free links from them, especially if they like the article and you interview them before posting it.

You covered a lot of good points and hope this helps a little.

Keep up the great work!

[Planet13]

@Pjman:

A. Guest Blogging - I use a network to contact blogs in my niche.

what do you mean by "use a network"?

Do you mean you have a group of friends and you all help each other out finding relevant blogs?

[Pjman]

@Planet13

Sorry should have been more clear. I use MyBlogGuest. I used the free part with good success via their message system. One forum post could usually get me in contact with about 10-15 guest blogging gigs on relevant sites.

I'm going to try joining their paid system soon, when I get time to write some real quality stuff in bulk.

[Jane_Doe]

You can still rank for long tail and less competitive terms with just run of the mill links from exchanges, directories, blogs, forums, profiles, etc.

Then if you have linkable content you might start getting some better natural links and start to rank for more competitive terms without any extra work.

[Pjman]

@Jane_Doe

That does sound like an interesting cross promotion strategy. It also makes sense. So find the golden keyword terms and go after those as secondary tactic. This in turn will get you more exposure for natural linkage.

[rj87uk]

People are saying they won't touch directories however what is the downside to having a lot of one way links from directories? I am sure that directories start with some of the top sites to get things going so surely search engines would expect large sites to be listed on lots of directories and in all the usual places listed above.

So the question is: What is the downside to having lots of one way links from directories?

RJ

[netmeg]

This is an interesting issue from several sides.

One of the primary sites I manage for a client was not Pandalized in the least, and is doing better than ever.

However, we had around a dozen paid links & ads in categories of an industry directory - set up years ago, and from which we derived at least 20% of our referral traffic (and a lot of sales). I just went through in December and cleaned up the links, changed the descriptions, anchor text, rearranged the categories we were in, etc. It was working really well too - sales were up 200% from this directory over the same period last year. Till Feb 24th. Looks like THEY got hit by Panda big time. In some cases, we purchased spots in categories where they ranked higher in Google than we did, in others, we just wanted the traffic. Now I'm in the uncomfortable position of having to tell them that we're no longer getting enough traffic to justify the ongoing cost of the ads and links. Talk about adding insult to injury. Looking a little further, I see few other directories of lesser import (but still useful) that look like they got hit too. So we're experiencing a small amount of collateral collateral damage.

This is a B2B ecommerce site I'm working with, and there aren't many places for such to get links other than industry directories. These users aren't really into the whole social media thing yet, at least not for business.

So, I'm still gonna look for places to link, but I'm going to have to check traffic more carefully before I pay for any spots (I'm not buying for SERPS, I'm buying for traffic) and I'll probably step up inclusion in print directories (it's 2011, we should be past killing trees - but we aren't) and ramp up the email and direct mail, in order to lessen our dependence on search.

But I'm still not relishing the phone call to the folks at the one directory to tell them not only are they losing their traffic from Google, but one of their top advertisers is gonna have to pull out too.

[wheel]

What is the downside to having lots of one way links from directories?

The downside is if you enjoy a hand review and your backlinks are from low end directories, what's Google got to say about that?

If you're doing large volumes, there's a good chance many of those directories are neutral when it comes to ranking - so maybe no direct downside, but a complete waste of time.

It's basically impossible to get 'lots' and 'high quality' and 'niche' when it comes to directories. Remove the 'lots', and I do like directories. If they're high quality general directories (so that's what, 2 or 3?) or they're niche (so that's what, another 2 or 3?) then it seems like a good idea. After that, spend your time on something else.

[seoArt]

My content marketing will not change based on the Panda update. We always submitted very high quality articles, and after reviewing many of their rankings, those articles are still doing well in the search results.

If you were submitting low quality content, I would suggest working on improving the quality.

My overall link building advice, if you have the time and budget, would be to cover ALL of the bases. The only two I would leave out are blog commenting and forum posting, unless you are legitimately participating. No spamming! Don't give SEO's a bad name.

The best backlink profile is a well-rounded one. I definitely wouldn't ignore press releases either, unless your budget is only going to get you on the free and cheap PR sites. The super-premium PR sites, without naming any names, have value.

[Pjman]

@seoArt

I haven't ran a press release in a long time after submitting maybe submitting a dozen press releases for various sites and seeing little, if anything in return.


@wheel

I think I messed up in my OP. I should have made it clear that I was talking about general directories.

When it comes to general directories, I believe you are correct. But niche oriented directories are definitely encouraged. Even in a manually review, if you are site about power tools and you show up on a Mr. Fix-It directory, I would expect that. But if you show up in Crazy Carl's Hamburger Directory, I can see the disconnect and concern from Google.



@Yellow_Sun

Thanks for the input. I hope I'm adding value to the WebmasterWorld community. I really like the people hear, the mods keep everybody focused and I appreciate the community here.

[ThatsBoBo]

I don't work on building links at all. I work on my content.

My site ranks very well. I have plenty of quality links and I've never put any effort into link building. It just seems like a big waste of time and effort.

[wheel]

It just seems like a big waste of time and effort.

Try ranking for spanish vacation properties, or mortgage rates. You don't get top rankings just by working on content alone.

Not working on links seems nice, but it's a luxury not all can afford. There's 10,000 others out there like me all wanting to rank, and I only beat them because I get better links than they do. I have content that's better than everyone else's and still nobody links.

[seoArt]

@pjman

PR is just one way of getting links. It's often hard to discern whether or not specific links are actually helping or *how much* they are helping when we factor in the time delay from when the search engine picks up a link, to the time we eventually see a ranking increase.

This problem is compounded when we are using multiple link building methods at the same time, which most SEO's are usually (or should be) doing.

For me, I would never discount the value of a press release, which is a highly relevant piece of content, that I have published on a high ranking website with search engine friendly links (and syndicated across hundreds or thousands). I would be cautious of using obvious SEO links in them, but I would not consider that a worthless use of link building by any means.

[Karma]

I think that Google are now so good at monitoring what everyone's doing through Chrome and their Toolbars that they now know the true value of the majority of websites and hence the value of a link to your site from any given domain or page.

So, a link from a directory that receives a lot of traffic will be of huge benefit compared to a link from within an article of 500+ words that no-one reads.

It's the way forward.

[dstiles]

> Crazy Carl's Hamburger Directory

So you don't sell power tools to someone who eats hamburgers? :)

Seems to me that's a very good place to advertise, assuming the directory lists that kind of thing and is genuine.

[zerillos]

This very question looks to me against G's politics from the start. Google says links should come naturally, and not be built.
(I know it's practically impossible to get in the game without building links when starting fresh. I just wanted to mention that bit...)

[Pjman]

@zerillos

I definitely agree with you on this. The problem being that if you developed a site, no matter how great the content is, you simply can not compete under the current model.

Case in point: In one of my niches, I have a site that is 13 years old and is seen as the ultimate authority in the niche. I have since developed 2 other sites in the niche that honestly better in all aspects. Were talking college athlete (authority site) compared Olympic gold medalist (My latest 2 sites) My authority site is on Page 1 for everything. My 2 other sites are stuck on page 2-3 for everything.

I have since brought my authority site up to par with the others; but G makes it a serious inequity under the current guidelines.

If they really wanted to get it right, they would hire experts in the key fields to panel the results. Algorithms simply can't cut it.