Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Can any expert share that what the are top 10 links building methods that are acceptable by the Search engines and have no negative impact on the site's ranking.
Any help will be appreciated.
Regards
bushib
press release
social bookmarking sites
blog post
article
forum posts
[edited by: tedster at 4:06 am (utc) on May 26, 2008]
- guest blog posting
- post original research, then go begging for links from places that like that kind of research (even if it's just a collection of data or a historical collection)
Then research other, quality website relevant to the content you created and contact them to let them know about the content. If the content is useful for their visitors, they will link to it.
I just secured a pagerank 7 link from an ancient EDU website page with only authority links out on it, simply by focusing on writing great, compelling unique content, citing content and research where needed, having privacy / terms and disclaimer in place, and talking back and forth with the webmaster for that University (who had to clear the link with his boss)
The best links, by far, are ones that you took time to secure, and were secured because your website provides great content.
Also, it all depends on what you want to accomplish with your link building campaign. Do you just want links to your site? Or do you just want PR juice? Or do you want links that provide you with quality visitors? Different goals may require different methods.
Also, it all depends on what you want to accomplish with your link building campaign. Do you just want links to your site? Or do you just want PR juice? Or do you want links that provide you with quality visitors? Different goals may require different methods.
I sense a library thread or sticky thread coming from those questions just raised.
The problem with this attitude is that it's the way to lose the race. Site 1 rolls along happily getting 'natural' links without asking. Site 2 aggressively asks for links and ends up with 'natural' links plus some number as a result of their link building efforts. Site 2 gets higher rankings in Google.
Not that I mind this approach, my competitors all do it that way. And by 'competitors' I mean '#2+' in the serps.
More seriously, there's a reason for this approach. In an industry dominated by technical people, we have 'technical' solutions to the link building problem. But link building is not a technical problem with a technical solution. It's a sales/marketing problem with a sales/marketing type solution.
The problem with this attitude is that it's the way to lose the race. Site 1 rolls along happily getting 'natural' links without asking. Site 2 aggressively asks for links and ends up with 'natural' links plus some number as a result of their link building efforts. Site 2 gets higher rankings in Google.
So yes, site #2 may end up with a few more links than me (although it's really tough to get people to link to him since he doesn't have much content and people don't really like his site), but I have many more pages, many more visitors, and still better rankings because the other factors in Google's algo outweigh the minor advantage site #2 holds in links.
Now, I admit that it should not be an either/or situation- obviously you should do other things besides just link building. But the point I'm trying to make is to analyze the returns for the time/energy spent on link building, content development, blogging, etc. and focus on the most productive ones.
Getting back on topic, use the same analysis to figure out which link building methods provide the best returns for the time/effort spent in your particular case. What works for some people may not work for others simply because their niche is compeltely different and the behavior of of webmasters/visitors is different. For example, if you have an "adult" themed site, it's highly unlikely that focusing on getting links from .edu and .gov sites will be the most productive use of your time! :)
I disagree somewhat. If I can get the same link without having to ask for it- I prefer that over having to ask for it. :)
I favor developing content that people will want to to link to and then try to get word out through blogs, forums, non-recip associations, and such.
The biggest problem with asking for a link, is that they will usually want one directly in return, which is not something that I want to do. If you are networked well enough, non-recips work pretty well. You give me a good quality link on widget A from one of your sites, and a I return the favor with one that you need for one of your sites. Takes a network, fairplay within the group, and serious minded people. Got to have enough sites, pages, and niches to spread the one-way links around.
That's my suggestion for link building - very risk free too.
[edited by: BillyS at 2:27 am (utc) on June 27, 2008]
by spending a lot of time writing great content.
If one is working with established 'authority' sites, that is a lot easier to say. If looking to gain Google 'favored status', I still think that you've got to get links working for you. Content is King. Good incoming inks are Queen.
I've got sites that I can put up a page on anything, and it will rank well - and fast.
I've also got sites with great content that don't yet have that status. I can't magically make a one year old quick developing site get the respect of an eight year old site that has been added to monthly for years. Good links are great shortcuts to help bridge the gap. Content comes first, but, IMO, is not enough for most people in most situations.
You will pick up natural links along the way; this is great, but if you are building the website up to be some type of authority on the subject, you will go a long way by asking for links from authority websites. My example was the EDU page rank 7 link, which would have never likely 'linked' itself naturally to me.
You have to make people gently aware of what you are doing :)
I have managed to come a long way in life simply 'asking' for things when others either felt it was too difficult or embarrassing.
i) Three way link building. Simply don't do it unless you want a ban.
ii) Aggressive reciprocal link building that trips a flag because it happens too fast.
iii) Using nothing but reciprocal links -think about it -a natural pattern will have some outgoing one-way links and some incoming one-way links.
iv) Lazy linking building that offers the same text over and over, or simply takes the text provided by others. Make your links a personal review. Especially avoid superlative words which are an obvious sign to Search Engines of link exchanges.
v) Too many inbound links from low value sites in proportion to high value. It is not simply the number of links so much as quality of links that count. Don't water down your link quality score.
vi) Too high a proportion of links to prose text -it is easy for Search Engines to identify links only pages and devalue the page or site.
vii) Too many links on a page.
viii) Spamming forums and wikis.
ix) Links from off-topic pages.
x) Finally don't spam people with hundreds of standardised and poorly worded requests for reciprocal/three links -at best they get binned, at worst somebody will file a spam report with Google.
I am generous with my outbound links to quality sites, irrespective of whether they ask, and am grateful for unsolicited inbound ones. I never respond to standardised link requests. Seems to work.
Nice ideas for Link Building thanks but when we generate back links then i think good for nothing because unless any link not listed in google back link then its all working process is worthless..
Despite your demand that 'experts' respond, I'm going to jump in anyway with a couple more.
I thought everyone in here thought they were experts? That's the way we all tend to talk anyway ... ;)
I think your question is slightly off target, you should really be asking how to build links that actually matter. Forum/blog spamming ... sorry, I mean link obtaining ... may have almost no effect on your Google ranking but it might really work well on your MSN rankings. Each individual search engine has different qualifier's for what is a link worth getting. You need to identify the SE(s) you want to target and set up a plan to work hardest on the links that will acheive that goal.
Other options include exclusive photos of new widgets, simple pieces of free downloadable software to support best widget use, onsite widget resources or apps.
In the long run, aim to turn yourself into a widget authority, and then also look to add UGC-type stuff, like user widget reviews, widget forums (yes they still work, if in the right place and loved), a widget blog with comments. And then get yourself authorised for Google news.
Therefore, don't use article / directory / link submission services that send everything off at once, stick with the ones that 'throttle'
Also don't forget that it's a BAD idea to get 100 links 1 day, and 0 for the next 6 days.
True, but it depends on what your competitors are up to and also what industry you are in.
I think if you play in the travel, tech or finance world then you can get away with a lot more than what you could in some of the other industries online.
I have mentioned some important point to link exchange
Submit your site to paid directories.
Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field.
Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic.
Swap some links.
Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages.
Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.
Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress.
Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.
What about sponsoring a competition for a school or a community? That can get some blog posts and articles.
What I do is find a problem that is bothering a lot of people in my area of focus, research it till I'm sure of the solution then write an article on it. I get lots of links and also traffic that way.
The best way to get quality incoming links is to create good content on your site that people will want to link to.
I know this was said with good intentions but I really hate hearing this. Writing good content isn't enough. You have to get out there and market it so people can READ it to link to it. Just writing isn't enough. So, once you have your great content written:
- using SEO to get the content highly ranked on relevant searches.
- sponsor a Yahoo! Directory category (a lot of my one-way link come from people searching in the Yahoo! Directory and sponsoring the category gains more links than just the listing itself)
- getting bloggers in the space to review or cite your content.
- targeted press releases
Also don't forget that it's a BAD idea to get 100 links 1 day, and 0 for the next 6 days.
Wow, so you're saying that every company that does press releases is in big trouble?
Submit your site to paid directories.
Yes, because Google constantly talk about how much they love paid links.
I think, there is no any substitute of natural link.
There must be because a couple of my sites haven't had a single natural link to them yet, they have all had to be built. Now they rank, they are getting natural links but before people could find the site, they did not know it was there to be linked to.
- Pages where the links will live must be indexed by Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.
- Page Rank of the page where the link will live, should be visible in the Google Toolbar.
- Domain must be at least 2 years old or must not be expiring before 3 years.
- Different C-class IP.
- Content must be relevant of the linking web site to the content of your website.
- Should not be living on pages with which end with links.php or links.html, links.asp, links.jsp or so ever. Also not in subfolders using those words.
- The links should not have rel="nofollow.
- The pages the links will live should not have a nofollow Meta Tags.
- The pages the links will live should not be disallowed in the robots.txt or with X-Robots.
- The pages the links will live should have maximum 60% OBLs of the total links of the living page (including the internal links.)
In addition those pages should have more than 100 links all together.
- Relevant keyword/ key phrases should be used in the anchor text of the links to the content of your page that the link points to. And not all the time the same.
- Keep checking your links on those pages once a week to make sure they appear in there, and if they have a well position or not.
- No Dynamic or redirection links.
- Do not use link popularity software. Submit manually links and not with automated software.
- No FFA website.
- No link farms.
