On certain sites you can easily buy likes and views. For a few tenners, the Instagram post of your choice gets a digital heart from ten thousand accounts. Wonderful, all that love, right? No. We think it's worthless. The like count suggests your snapshot is a World Press Photo contender, but it's as fake as a Messi shirt bought on the beach during your holiday. It's a form of manipulation. And that's what this article is about. Not to score virtue points or lecture anyone, but to show it can be done differently. Better, fairer and more valuable!
Misleading search engines
Manipulation is everywhere online. Also within SEO. How? By misleading search engine crawlers, the software that roams the internet and indexes pages. Search engines don't see what people see. You can lure them to your site quite easily by crafting your anchor text so that the search engine finds it interesting and ranks it high.
The unsuspecting internet user clicks through. "Google finds it interesting, so this site must be good." Not so. It's the equivalent of: "This Instagram video has ten thousand likes, so something really funny is coming." Well, forget it.
Yes, this way of generating traffic works. But you will never catch Hatless doing it. If you know us, you know we love beautiful, genuinely earned links. Yes, earning such a link costs money and is more labour-intensive than a manipulative tactic. Finding genuine connections takes time. But this way of working pays for itself again and again. We never buy anything in; we compensate the publisher for the exposure. And only when the article the link appears in meets our quality standards, fits our client and offers the reader something.
"But it works"
It's a shame not everyone sees it that way. There will always be companies looking for the shortest route to their destination, blind to their surroundings and the opportunities in them. Companies without a sense of quality, forever hiding behind the motto "but it works". Companies that don't just sell fake engagement, but sell the soul of their business along with it.
We sincerely hope these tactics have passed their expiry date. We can't control that, but we do want to appeal to your feeling for a brand. What do you want your brand to be known for? That reason to exist should show in your link profile too. Because you do want links that fit your brand, don't you?
People often ask where we stand in this discussion. As you've read, we're quite outspoken, but here are our positions once more:
- The moment you have influence over the anchor text, you are by definition manipulating. Manipulation is never good.
- You should get links because you deserve them and because your site genuinely fits the site linking to you. Nobody is waiting for irrelevance.
- Does a number one position in Google make you happy? And do you want it at any cost? How much better is it to earn that position with your brand, based on your reason to exist, instead of through manipulation?
- Look in the mirror. What do you stand for? You probably do what you do because you enjoy it and you're good at it. Why would you ever choose a manipulative strategy that has nothing to do with who you are?
- Something that takes a lot of time is not cheap. Links take manpower, brainpower, creativity, empathy and assertiveness. They don't fall from the sky.
- We see a link as a recommendation. A genuine recommendation, given because someone rates you, is worth far more than a mention on a site nobody visits that exists purely to manipulate crawlers. Which recommendations would you rather have?
SEO specialists are blinded by rankings
Of course we understand you want to give search engines as much love as possible, and that you want your clients at number one for the most relevant searches. We also understand that management or the client may not know how Google works, and that positions in search engines are the way to show how good you are.
We even understand that as an SEO specialist you are judged on your rankings, because companies pay you to achieve them.
It seems logical and innocent, but do this and you are manipulating the search engines. You lure them with a juicy sausage that, once cut, turns out dry and tasteless. SEO specialists are often so Google-minded that they wake up and fall asleep with Google scores. It's an easy strategy; all you need is deep pockets. Any SEO agency can execute it. It scales nicely. You only need the contacts; it's buying and selling. That's why many (large) SEO agencies work this way. You are literally selling links to manipulate positions in search engines. And it works. So everybody wins. Right?
We, independent thinkers, see it differently. We believe you should earn rankings based on your reason to exist, confirmed by real sources and real websites. Not based on who has the biggest bag of money to buy links. You wouldn't sell your values, would you?
Examples of manipulation? We see them all the time!
Source: chapeaumagazine.com
So you're travelling alone. What does that have to do with clothing? Not much. Yet remarkably, the links to clothing items sit in a "you don't have to take anyone into account" paragraph. In short: nobody thought about the link placement. The two keyword-rich anchor links are the only links in the article, which makes them stand out badly.
What we also find funny: below the paragraph about meeting new people sits a picture of a woman, alone, by the pool. A typical example of an SEO text written with zero consideration for the reader, who wastes three minutes of their life and never gets them back.
Source: MamaPlaneet.nl
A blogger has to put food on the table. Bloggers depend on their blog, and selling posts is one way to generate income. Completely understandable from the blogger's side. Companies like De Bijenkorf gladly use this and place manipulative links on the site. In this case even two. They're clever enough to put a decoy link in the first paragraph. Although we'd argue links don't belong in a first paragraph at all: the visitor leaves the article without ever reading it.
Source: FabMagazine.nl
In this post about a "Good Coat for the Winter" (with random capitals indeed) we again see the keyword-rich anchor texts meant to mislead crawlers. The site is stuffed with texts written purely to manipulate search engines. The visitor is never central, and the content is as thin as a summer jacket. Looking at the other blogs, T-Mobile, Sakana Sushi and Kaya Sieraden join in as well. Too random a company for our taste.
The site also covers anything and everything, so you can hardly call it specialist. The connection between clothing, driving a truck and "the best hobbies for men" is hard to find. It's a lucky dip, and few people will be happy with what they grab.
The link profile of Overstappen.nl is almost entirely bought. We can tell by the anchor texts:
- overstappen.nl (14%)
- internet vergelijken (7%)
- energie vergelijken (5%)
- autoverzekering vergelijken (5%)
- autoverzekering (5%)
- overstappen (3%)
- uitvaartverzekering (3%)
- internetverzekering.nl (3%)
- <a>no text</a> (3%)
- zorgverzekering vergelijken (3%)
These references come from respectable blogs such as man-man.nl (what does borrowing money have to do with an extremely rare Mercedes-Benz AMG CLK GTR? Very little, if you ask us), managementimpact.nl (nothing wrong with the article's angle, but the links ruin the execution) and bouwwereld.nl (choosing a water-saving shower head and, while you're at it, comparing energy? Huh...).
Only 14% of the total is branded; the rest are clearly anchor texts of a manipulative nature. For comparison, this is what the anchor texts of a strong brand look like (in this case Starbucks.com):
- starbucks (27%)
- <a>no text</a> (3%)
- starbucks.com (2%)
- www.starbucks.com (2%)
- here (2%)
- starbucks® (1%)
- website (1%)
- starbucks coffee company (1%)
- starbucks coffee (1%)
- http://www.starbucks.com/ (1%)
As you can see, the vast majority of anchors are branded, as it should be in a strong link profile.
Two links in one blog, convenient? No! You may split the costs that way, but the moment you link to your own site and someone else's in multiple blogs, you leave a clear footprint. You buy links from known (local) publishers, but relevance is missing and there has clearly been influence on the keyword-rich anchor text. That makes the link insincere, and therefore manipulative.
Imagine: you hire an SEO party for content creation or linkbuilding, and that party then places a link from your homepage to another client, with your brand name as anchor text. Would you lend yourself to that?
Probably not. The SEO party knows that too. That's why they deliberately style the link so it isn't underlined like the rest of your links. Keeps it nicely under the radar, and you don't lose visitors.
Need a second opinion, or manipulating a little yourself?
We realise this article won't only make us friends. We speak out strongly against manipulative tactics and companies that want to score too easily. Still, some nuance is in order: we emphatically don't want to be the class goody-two-shoes measuring other SEO companies.
What do we want? To challenge others to do better than they do now. Don't take the shortcuts; take the scenic route and observe the landscape. Create content that draws genuine oohs and aahs from your visitors. Let your link profile reflect your company's identity. Be unique and authentic. Make real connections, with earned links. That leads to far more value and satisfaction.
As part of our vision we want a more sincere SEO market, and we believe low quality shouldn't be rewarded. Could you use a second pair of eyes, or are you curious what we think of your link profile? We're happy to do a short check-up and a call. Free, of course. Will you call us?