Linking Building for SEO

How does Google measure your credibility and relevance on the Internet? By seeing how many people are linking to you. A link pointing to your website is like a vote for your website to rank higher in the SERP. The more links you have pointing to your website, the more votes you have.

Link were actually the original Off Page Optimization ranking factor utilized by search engines. Google was not the first search engine to treat links as “votes”. However, Google was the first search engine in the world to heavily depend on a website’s inbound links as a marker for search engine rankings positions.

Until today, links are still the most important thing to help your website rank higher on the search engines, but not all links were made equal…

Link Quality

If you had a question, who would you ask? An expert in that field or Average Joe? The expert in that field would be able to answer your question, and his opinion would be better than anyone else’s because it’s a quality opinion. It’s the same when it comes to link building. When you get a “vote” or an inbound link by an authority website, it is like getting a recommendation from an expert.

Why PageRank of inbound links matter

If there was a way to measure the credibility of a website, its through the PageRank system. Generally, the higher the page rank, the more credible it is, which is why it is good to get inbound links from high page rank websites.

PageRank is dependent on the democratic environment of the Internet, using its massive link structure as a measure of one’s page value. When Google sees a link from Page A to Page B, it’s a vote for Page B by Page A. And the quality of the website that gave this “vote” matters. Google mentioned themselves that “votes” casted by an authoritative figure is more valuable than one casted by another who is less authoritative.

More than just PageRank

While PageRank is not only the measure of the quality of the link, you should also go for links from websites which have a huge potential of sending traffic to your website. Inbound links should not only be seen as a means of getting your website to the top of the search engines, they should also generate traffic at the same time.

Another gauge of quality is the quality of the inbound links to that page where the link is on. While a high number of inbound links is good, you’d want them to be of high quality too. But honestly, quality or not, they will still help with SEO but let me explain. When your link is getting some high quality backlinks to the page it resides on, you would potentially get additional traffic as well. Even if the backlinks aren’t of any significant quality, you will still get some SEO juice but don’t hope on an increase of traffic.

Also ensure that the page of the link that you are getting has recently been cached. If it hasn’t been for months, this could mean trouble. The page may have had raised from red flags at the Google HQ as Google has not been sending its spiders over and it may not have been getting human traffic either. You’d want the cache date to be the latest two weeks.

You should also look at the outbound links from the link that you are getting. If that link is sending out a lot of outbound links as well, it is probably “spammy in nature”. The PageRank from this link is probably diluted as well, especially if the link is do-follow.

TLD of inbound links

When pursuing backlinks, know that Google sees backlinks from .edu and .gov as extremely credible. Think about it, if Harvard University links to you, that’s one massive “vote” from one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Here are some commands to help you hunt for .gov and .edu sites:

• inkdomain:domain-to-check.com site:.edu “resource”
• linkdomain:domain-to-check.com site:.edu “directory”
• linkdomain:domain-to-check.com site:.edu “bookmarks”
• linkdomain:domain-to-check.com site:.edu “links”
• linkdomain:domain-to-check.com site:.edu “favorite”

If you are hunting for .gov websites, simply replace “edu” with “gov”.

Link/Anchor  Text

Sometimes, it’s not the amount of backlinks that matter, but the anchor text that accompanies the links. You see, Amazon is one of the biggest virtual shopping malls on the internet. It also has millions and millions of backlinks. But, try and search on Google for the term “power drills”. You will find that Amazon doesn’t rank for that term. Search for “books” though, and you will see Amazon in the search listings.

By now, you’re thinking that its weird, but consider this. What is Amazon famous for? Books and Kindle, which is also a device for reading books. Many of the links pointing to Amazon contain the term “books” so immediately search engines relate books to Amazon. Amazon is not really associated with power drills, so less people are going to link back to Amazon with that term in the anchor text.

Link text, or rather anchor text, is seen by search engines as a description for that website. Its almost the same as being pointed at and called “nerd”, saying that you are a nerd.

Link Quantity

Of course you should be aiming for link quality, but a lot of people have found success with focusing on amassing a huge amount of inbound links to their website. It adds up.

One legitimate way to getting massive amounts of links in a short amount of time is through linkbaiting, which is pretty much generating content that is viral and hope people pass it around and linking back to your website.

When you are building huge amounts of backlinks to your website, ensure that this happens over a period of time. Link velocity is a factor used by Google to catch websites engaged in fraudulent link building activities. It is better to maintain around 500 links per month for the first three months to let the site age, especially if the site is brand new.

Quality or quantity, you ask? Well there is no real answer to this. Ideally, you’d want both. Just don’t appear as a spammer. Remember what happened with Vladmir Putin and 140%? You don’t want to be put in his shoes!