Natural Link Profile, low and high value links, really?
-
I cant really get my head around this one.
I've read a few times when building links make sure you pick up so low value links as well.
So here is an example (and lets say each link takes half hour to get):
I got 5 hours of link building and this is what I have managed to get with the time.
1. 10 high value links all with PA/DA 50-60+
2. 5 high value links with PA/DA 50-60+ AND another 5 low value links with PA/DA 10-.
Surely #1 beats #2 hands down?
-
Yes, exactly - if you see a blog post with 100 comments and they're all using exact-match anchor text to 10 different interests ("Free Casino", "Cheap Viagra", etc.) it's a pretty clear sign that blog's been spammed to death. Admittedly, it's not always so obvious, but you can usually spot quality problems pretty quickly.
-
Thanks for your great reply, I am noting all of this :).
When you say spammy links do you mean other guest posts which might be linking to bad neighbourhoods?
So rule of thumb mozstats will lead you true
-
I couldn't tell you just from those numbers - it's a lot more complicated than that. How many links are on the page, for example? Where will the link appear (in context, footer, sidebar)? Can you control the anchor text? Is the blog relevant? Does the blog have other, spammy links? Rand has a great post on the value of a link here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
All else being equal, in those two situations, I'd say a DA40 is a big jump over DA20. Toolbar PR3 vs. PR2 means almost nothing, and could be months out of date. The 150 Facebook fans could indicate that (1) has momentum - maybe it's growing while (2) is old/stagnating. It gets complicated fast.
-
But what defines what quality is when increasing a link profile?
For example say I had two blogs after my article:
1. Blog with PR3, 150 facebook fans, nice layout, DA:20
2. Blog with PR2, 25 facebook fans, basic layout, DA:40
I personally would give the article to #2 because the SEO comes first any other benefit is second, a DA:40 is better then DA:20 - im going with DA:40.
So let me ask, if you now had the chance of 10 links from either #1 or #2 which one would you choose? (from a SEO benefit point of view only).
-
I think we say this mostly because it's really rare for a site to have all high-value links (as @authoritysitebuilder said). I'd agree with you that #1 beats #2 - it's just that that rarely occurs.
Once you've got #1, though, it doesn't hurt to add 5 easy links - relevant blog comments, guest post on low DA sites, etc. (not spammy, per se, just not as strong). Once you have a solid base of strong links, those weaker links will benefit you. Getting those extra, weaker links, is pretty easy at that point, so you might as well go for it.
The biggest danger, and where we really push diversity, is to have nothing but low-quality links.
-
The biggest thing is that, if you can avoid it, you don't want a link profile that looks starkly different than the average for your category. Otherwise you might trip some red flags at the 'plex.
In my opinion, diversifying in everything you do that's SEO related is not a bad plan to minimize risk, even absent the red flag threat from Google.
-
Ok, if you can get all high quality links then great! But the reality is trying to find sufficient high quality links to get top rankings can be challenging/expensive so the next best thing is to mix it up with lower quality links to bulk things out.
Link diversity does help, so that's generally why a good approach is to mix it up. Diversity has a number of benefits so it should be part of your SEO campaign.
Good luck
-
Well you would think, but a lot of industry pros talk about mixing it up with a range of low and high value links to make the link profile look as natural as possible, im sure someone on here will disagree with me and you.
-
You are correct.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
If I use links intag instead of "ahref" tag can Google read links inside div tag?
Hi All, Need a suggestion on it. For buttons, I am using links in tag instead of "ahref". Do you know that can Google read links inside "div" tag? Does it pass rank juice? It will be great if you can provide any reference if possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pujan.bikroy0 -
Re: Inbound Links. Whether it's HTTP or HTTPS, does it still go towards the same inbound link count?
Re: Inbound Links. If another website links to my website, does it make a difference to my inbound link count if they use http or https? Basically, my site http://mysite.com redirects to https://mysite.com, so if another website uses the link http://mysite.com, will https://mysite.com still benefit from the inbound links count? I'm unsure if I should reach out to all my inbound links to tell them to use my https URL instead...which would be rather time consuming so just checking http and https counts all the same. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | premieresales0 -
Value of no-follow links
I'm curious to understand roughly how much % of value a no-follow link has in building authority relative to a do-follow link? I understand that Google seems consistently and growingly focused on value - ie. is the link valuable in growing the business, irregardless of SEO - and perhaps therefore the no-follow / do-follow distinction is becoming a more unnecessary dichotomy. How does Google look at do-follow vs no-follow links? And how much weight now is really given to one compared to the other?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
Linking and non-linking root domains
Hi, Is there any affect on SEO based on the ratio of linking root domains to non-linking root domains and if so what is the affect? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | halloranc0 -
SEO from links in frames?
A site was considering linking to us. Their web page is delivered entirely via frames. Humans can see the links on the page, but it's not visible in source. I'm guessing it means Google can't detect the links, and there is no SEO effect, but I wanted to confirm. Here's the site: http://www.uofc-ulsa.tk/ Example links are the Princeton Review and Kaplan on the right sidebar. Here's the source code: view-source:http://www.uofc-ulsa.tk/ Do those links have any SEO impact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lighttable0 -
How to Build High Quality eCommerce Web Site during Low Quality Web Pages?
Today, I was reading Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: More guidance on building high-quality sites. I found one interesting statement over there. Low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings. Why should I like to discuss on this topic? Because, I have made big change on my website via narrow by search. I want to give specific result to know more about it. This is my category page: http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas Left narrow by search section is creating accurate page for specific attribute products. California Umbrella:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/manufacturer-california-umbrella From above page following page is accessible. http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-shape-search-octagonal/manufacturer-california-umbrella Sunbrella Patio Umbrellas:
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-fabric-search-sunbrella Similar story for this page. Following page can accessible from above page. http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-fabric-search-sunbrella/finish-search-wood My website have 100+ categories, 11,000 products. I have checked indexed pages in Google for my website. https://www.google.com/search?q=info%3Awww.vistastores.com&pws=0&gl=US#hl=en&safe=off&pws=0&gl=US&q=site:www.vistastores.com&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=910893d99351c8f7&biw=1366&bih=547 It shows me 35,000+ crawled pages which are developed by left navigation section. So, Will it consider as low quality pages? I want to improve my website performance without delete these pages.0 -
Can I reduce number of on page links by just adding "no follow" tags to duplicate links
Our site works on templates and we essentially have a link pointing to the same place 3 times on most pages. The links are images not text. We are over 100 links on our on page attributes, and ranking fairly well for key SERPS our core pages are optimized for. I am thinking I should engage in some on-page link juice sculpting and add some "no follow" tags to 2 of the 3 repeated links. Although that being said the Moz's on page optimizer is not saying I have link cannibalization. Any thoughts guys? Hope this scenario makes sense.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robertrRSwalters0 -
Does a page on a site with high domain authority build page authority easier? i.e. less inbound links?
Is this also why people build backlinks to their BBB profiles, Yellowpages Profiles, etc. i.e. why do people build backlinks to other pages that link to them? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just build that backlink directly to your target?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg0