Our view: a link should be sincere and valuable to a visitor. The moment the visitor isn't central and a link exists only to influence a search engine position, it's not a quality link. On this page we cover strategies and tactics that, in our opinion, should not work (anymore).
Hallmarks of a bad linkbuilding strategy
The clearest hallmark: strategies built on sites that have no visitors and exist purely for placing links. That's linkbuilding, not link earning, and to us one of the biggest signs of a bad strategy.
Steering only on domain authority and trust flow
Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA) and Trust Flow (TF) come up constantly when people discuss the value of a link. When those are the only weighing factors for placing a link, the visitor is left out of the picture entirely. Steering on DA and PA alone is, in our view, far too crude. A link has to be relevant to the visitor, and the site being linked to has to be built to help that visitor.
In theory, DA and PA indicate how valuable a domain or page is based on several factors, including its links. Unfortunately DA and PA are easy to manipulate, and we see links being forced purely on those numbers.
That doesn't mean DA, PA and TF are meaningless, but it has to make sense and fit the activities of the site in question. Of course a link from an authority is worth more: a link from a major news site beats one from a small local news site with a limited link profile (no offense). But those major news sites will only link when the link or content is valuable to their readers.
Heavy influence on the anchor text
You want to rank for certain keywords, that's logical. And to get there, you want to attach relevance to certain words. Enter the anchor text: the text that links to your website. In bad linkbuilding practice, anchors are abused to climb the rankings using exact-match search terms.
You are, in effect, manipulating relevance. By having sites link to you with your target keyword, a reason to exist is fabricated for that keyword. Exerting that kind of influence on the anchor signals relevance that wasn't earned. And be honest: when you fully control the anchor text, what's left of sincerity?
When I look at a typical guest post I can spot a commercial link within a five second average. It doesn't have to have exact match anchor text either. I would say that 99.99% of links created by the SEO industry are out of place or lack true purpose that organic links have.Dejan, @dejanseo
Common and harmful link strategies
In the Netherlands we see a number of widely used strategies aimed at misleading search engines. Below, the most common ones.
Startpagina clones, and nothing else
Directories are common in the Netherlands and a familiar part of many link profiles. Startpagina.nl was historically a well-known way to discover the internet, and earned authority from that. The concept has since been copied endlessly, spawning countless clones. These clones are mainly used to place links with keyword-rich anchor texts.
PBN and/or dropcatch domain strategies
PBN stands for Private Blog Network: a network of websites managed by one or more parties with the goal of placing links. In most cases a blog is written about a topic to (deliberately) fabricate relevance around a link.
Yet when we look at the backlink profile of a PBN, we usually find no links about the topic being written about. You could safely call it "fake relevance". These blogs are fabricated with one goal: placing a link. PBNs also try to fool crawlers by using unique IP addresses, which unfortunately can temporarily improve positions.
Domains expire daily, and anyone can re-register them. So it regularly happens that a domain with backlinks lapses. That domain historically has authority thanks to its links, and such domains are often used to build a PBN on. This is exactly why we consider DA, PA and TF mere indicators that say nothing definitive about quality.
Where PBNs often slip up is placing the same parties across different websites, making the network easy to spot. Other tells:
- Updates exist only to place a new link (in a new post or otherwise)
- Hardly any visitors
- Written content only, with little care for images or branding
- No internal linking
- Keyword-rich anchor texts
- No identifiable author
- No way to contact anyone
- Lots of unrelated topics with no relevance to the domain itself
- The same templates recurring across the network
A partner page for link exchanges
It's perfectly normal for a website to link to other sites to help its visitors along. But creating a "partners" page purely for mass link exchange is conspicuous. And no visitor is waiting for a partner page stuffed with links to wildly different topics of dubious reliability.
Tiered linkbuilding
Another strategy built on constructing a network to make links look organic and valuable is tiered linkbuilding: creating backlinks for your backlinks. Layers are set up to make it look like the main website earns links from sites that have links themselves.
This strategy is far from sincere and a cheap form of bad linkbuilding: you point mediocre tier-1 backlinks at your website, and even worse tier-2 backlinks at tier 1. The tier sites are typically full of:
- Mediocre content
- Little to no organic content
- Content that exists only to carry a link to another site
- Irrelevant content that doesn't match your site's topic
- Keyword-rich anchor texts
- And in most cases: no visitors, and hardly any links from good domains
The "fake press release" strategy
Making the news, going viral: fantastic! We love a well-executed PR strategy. Sadly, we often see SEO companies miss the mark: a backlink from a local website about a topic that has nothing to do with the location, or a Formula 1 website linking to a consumer car insurance page. The relevance for readers is completely absent.
Are press releases being placed without research, a survey or news value, in a section full of similar advertorial-like posts? Then chances are their goal is manipulating the search engine, especially when there's an obvious anchor text (like that "car insurance" link). A well-executed PR strategy is an absolute asset to your link profile, provided the reader comes first.
Right, enough about how not to do it. How should it be done? Check the pages below or get in touch for more.