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 Toolbar PR3 vs. PR2 means almost nothing, and could be months out of date.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
-
What is future of Link building ? Any link building experts Here ?
Hey Everyone, its Muhammad Umair Ghufran I have one question about Link Building ? As my Knowledge Google Love the Quality content but Link building rank some low quality website Right ? So, what is the future of link building ; please explain indeep with complete reference for better understanding Thanks Regards: Muhammad Umair Ghufran
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muhammadumairghufran0 -
High Quality Domains and what to do with them
Hi, I rus a travel photography business. The primary function of the website is to sell prints, though I blog about my travels on the same domain name as well as a few pieces of content that are helpful to users interested in some of the places I travel to. I do okay with it, but obviously, I am always looking for a way to increase visibility and sales of prints. I own a couple of high quality keyword domain names, that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. One of which is for a city that my prints of my photography are probably best known for. The domains I'm really trying to decide what to do with are basically a www.citystatephotography.com and www.citystatephotos.com, where the city and state are the ones I'm targeting. The question is, what do I do with it? I've seen various ideas from other photographers that have various levels of success. Here are the options I'm considering: Just redirect it to the photo gallery of photos that I'm trying to rank highly for. From what I read on various blogs, this doesn't really do much of anything, but maybe I've read wrong? Create a website or microsite with some quality content related to the city that also links back to my photography website on various places and possibly once in the navigation. I do have quality content I could put up that would be helpful to people from the city besides just trying to get sales. But there's always a chance this will cannibalize my original domain without helping sales, I assume? Spam my photo galleries across two domains. Most of my photography galleries would stay on my main domain that I already run, but the photo galleries that are key to that city would be hosted on that citystatephotography.com domain name. I've seen a photographer from Colorado do quite well with this method. (www.imagesofrmnp.com and www.morninglight.us) He's heavily known for his images of Rocky Mountain National Park and that seems to be his main brand, but all of his non-RMNP travel photography goes on the other site. The two sites look almost identical, though they link back and forth fairly extensively. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of duplicate content either. I've considered this method, but I'm nervous I'll kill what I've already built up if this were to fail. Do nothing with the domains. Seems wasteful, as these domains, particularly the citystatephotography.com domain seems useful in some way. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shannmg10 -
301 Externally Linked, But Non-Producing Pages, To Productive Pages Needing Links?
I'm working on a site that has some non-productive pages without much of an upside potential, but that are linked-to externally. The site also has some productive pages, light in external links, in a somewhat related topic. What do you think of 301ing the non-productive pages with links to the productive pages without links in order to give them more external link love? Would it make much of a difference? Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Advice on Link Removal Services
Hello everyone, Due to the Penguin update my site unfortunately took a bit of a hit. A little while ago I submitted all of our questionable/bad links to the disavow tool, however I still wante to go back and delete any and all problematic links that are still out there. Ive looked into many services, however I haven't been too impressed. Removeem - The email addresses they provided weren't always valid, and their email tool didn't always deploy correctly - a lot of cross referencing and was not saving me any time. Link Detox - Free trial was a bust. They show you 10 links on the free trial, however for me, 9 of the 10 were all the same. Couldn't get a good feel of their system. Rmoov - Their tool is one where you upload your own links, and they help manage everything, however they DONT allow you to email through their system, so Im not sure how this helps my process if I have to do everthing manaully anyway. A lot of sites I see are also a full service approach that charge you based on how many links they remove, and this can get quite costly. I have also contacted:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lukin
Link Delete - No reponse from multiple email requests
Linkquidator - No response
Infatex - No response My questions to all of you are: Is there any company out there that you recommend that provide a self service tool [online or desktop driven]? Is this even an avenue I should explore, or should I compile my own list [as 3rd party algorithms are not always accurate] and reach out to sites manually? Is disavowing good enough and Im just spinning my wheeles trying to now get them all removed? Thanks!0 -
New Website - Un-natural link warning with 2 weeks of going live
I have a customer who has a website, 8 years old. The business has changed, and he has launched a new website (and sub-business_ to handle a particular service. As such the main website will no longer be handling the new service. For purpose of example; The service in question had it's own are set aside on his website, so what we have done is to 301 that part of the site (a single URL) to the homepage of his new website. Old Business Site
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | makeusawebsite
Service 1
Services 2 (301 to new site)
Service 3 New Business Site This worked well, and within a week his new site was gaining traffic for the service keyword. However, we have now had a un-natural link wartning in webmaster tools. The old page on the old site had minimal links to it (around 400). It had a page authority of 42, and 142 linking domains. The new website has been live a few weeks now, and has had 3 links to it, all genuine. He was on page one for the new business name, and is now page 6. Has anyone else ever seen this happen, and how should we deal with it. We could of course remove the 301 redirect and put in a recon-request, but the 301 seems like thje right thing to have done, and is genuine. Any advice greatly appreciated.0 -
Cross linking between categories
Is it useful for SEO to cross link between TOP level categories, let's say I have a Home page and then 2 sub categories, one about green widgets one about red widgets
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics
Should i create a link from the green widget to the red widget or should I leave those are separate silos ? I know that within a silo i need to cross link ( from green widget 1 to green widget 2 etc... ) but how about about from the main category to the other main category ?0 -
Do "NoFollow" links provide any SEO value?
Do "nofollow" links provide any SEO value, particularly for Google? I have heard that they still can, since Google doesn't necessarily follow all of the tags. Is this true? Is there any value in obtaining nofollow links? Can they also hurt in any way? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold
Afshin Apples of Gold0 -
Link to domain
Let's say i want to rank for rental car service and purchases a domain rental-car-service and creates a site http://www.rental-car-service.com There will be few persons who won't use anchor text to link to the site, but will simply link using URL ( in this case http://www.rental-car-service.com ) So, will a link to http://www.rental-car-service.com from another site using http://www.rental-car-service.com as anchor text help the keyword rental car service ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoug_20050