Is tiered link building a good thing?

[BridalHotspot]

I think that I have watched all the webinairs and online courses available on the web, but I still don't seem to know how and where to get links from. I know what type of links I should be getting and what type I should be avoiding, but that little luck so far.

I came across the website of Matthew Woodward about tiered link building where he explains how to do this type of link building in depth. It seems quite interesting but also a lot of work so I don't want to invest my precious time in something that will be penalised by Google in the near future.

Is there anyone that can give me some reason why I should or shouldn't do this?

[riyas_]

Hi Keri, here I given moz.com just for an example. I just meant any trusted website

[KeriMorgret]

To elaborate, I'm the editor for YouMoz. If you submit a post that says "At my SEO Company, we blah blah blah" and you link SEO Company back to your site, that link is not going to stay in the post (if the post gets published).

We certainly do allow links in YouMoz, but they must have a purpose. I've written more about the YouMoz process at http://moz.com/blog/inside-youmoz-how-to-guest-blog-for-moz.

[KeriMorgret]

That assumes that you can get a link to your website from a guest post on Moz.

[riyas_]

White hat tiered link building is a great strategy but what if someone mixes both white hat and black hat tiered link building together?

For example

1. moz.com/my-guest-post ---[Linking To]--> mywebsite.com
2. 10 Domains _**---[Linking To]--> **_moz.com/my-guest-post
3. 10,000 Domains _**---[Linking To]--> **_10 Domains
4. etc..

[BridalHotspot]

Yes, I'm in the bridal wear business and links from the top wedding blogs are extremely difficult to get unless you're a top designer or willing to pay a lot of money to be featured.

Again, great tips! I will go and have a play right away

[Backlinko]

My pleasure, Sylvana.

When you say wedding related links, do you mean wedding sites you can get links from?

If so, there are a lot of search strings to help you find them.

For example, if you wanted to do some guest posting, you'd use something like:

"weddings" + "write for us"

Or if you wanted to find resource pages that might add a link to your site (one of my personal favorite link building strategies), you might use:

"weddings" + inurl:links.

Hope that helps.

[Backlinko]

It usually is spammy. But it certainly doesn't have to be.

[BridalHotspot]

Thanks for your reply, Brian!
That are some great tips and I will definitely keep them in mind.

Do you have any suggestion on how to find wedding related links? Is there maybe some sort of link suggestion tool?

[MattJanaway]

"However, you CAN do white hat tiered link building."

Oh absolutely. This can actually be a nice tactic to use and can also be pretty safe if done in a natural way. That's an important note Brian.

However, software cannot do this and more often than not - certainly if you are a novice - it can be hard to implement. Generally, people just assume a tiered link building tactic is spammy.

[Backlinko]

Matt hit the nail on the head: link building software isn't worth the trouble.

However, you CAN do white hat tiered link building.

For example, let's say that you published a guest post here at SEOMoz.

Now, the next time you publish a guest post somewhere else they probably won't hook you up with a contextual link. Your link is usually confined to the dreaded author bio area.

However, they'll usually allow you to link to helpful resources. Instead of linking to a random article, link to your guest post.

Another example:

Let's say that you were doing some broken link building. You found a page with lots of dead links pointing to SEO related content.

While you could suggest that they link to you, they'd be much more likely to link out to an authority site like SEOMoz.

When you email the site owner about their broken links, suggest that they link to your guest post.

The list goes on and on.

Tiered link building can definitely make your links more powerful. But like most black hat techniques, you can do it white hat style and get better results.

[BridalHotspot]

That is a great answer.
I had no idea that bad trust metrics could be passed on, so that clearly answers my question.

I have only joined SEOmoz 2 days ago, so I will definitely spend some time going trough the link building topics. In the meantime, is there anything to you can suggest to get me on the road a bit more? I'm in the bridal industry which is highly competitive and getting links from the top blogs is only possible if you're a top designer or if you are willing to pay a lot of money to be featured.

[MattJanaway]

"The way it is being explained is that the websites pointing at your website are 'clean' websites that have gained rank by the other websites pointing to the second tier and then all the spammy and automated links pointing to the second tier."

Ah, see, there is an issue with this. Google's algorithm is very complicated and clever. If you imagine a link passing PR from tier 1 to tier 2 and then to your site then you can also easily imagine a link passing bad trust metrics from tier 1 to their 2 and then to your site.

Link juice is not the only thing that passes through a link. Just because there is a site in-between doesn't mean you are safe.

These are methods that used to work pre 2010 which are considered (rightfully so) as spammy. Look at it from Google's point of view; their algorithm is built to serve the searchers. If you are doing things to try to manipulate their algorithm then the searchers might not get the best results. It is their job to try and ensure that spammy sites don't rank as well as sites that belong high in the rankings on merit... Whether this happens in reality is a separate topic. As you are already seeing, competitors do rank well whilst using poor methods of link building. I'd argue that they won't rank for too long and will be caught out at some point but there are other who cant beat them so they join them.

[BridalHotspot]

I agree Kenyon, I know that there is hard work involved but like I said before, it can be really frustrating to see your competitors ranking while they are clearly using these type of tricks.

Thanks for taking time to reply!

[BridalHotspot]

Thanks for the reply!

That is indeed what I meant. The way it is being explained is that the websites pointing at your website are 'clean' websites that have gained rank by the other websites pointing to the second tier and then all the spammy and automated links pointing to the second tier.

Like you said it did sound too good to be true, but when reading the comments on his blog and other blogs it seems that is a successful method to get your website ranking within a few months.

I try to stay away from black hat SEO as far as I can, but it is just very disheartening sometimes to see my competitors ranking their websites while clearly using black hat SEO.

[KenyonManu3-SEOSEM]

I couldn't agree with Matt More!!!

That is a great explanation of what tiered link building is, but the key is that no matter how well you execute on your automated link building you can rest assure that one day maybe not even in the near future Google is going to send you that webmaster tools penalty notice that you don't want!

There are many pro's out there getting penalized the idea that someone relatively new to automated link building is going to execute it flawlessly with out any penalties, over the long term is not too likely.

That being said there are link acquisition tools like Ontolo(prospecting) Buzzstream (mainly task assignment, record keeping and some prospecting) that can be used with Open Site Explorer that can be a powerful means to build links in a much more natural way. Yes you may have to do some forum. commenting, profiling, sharing, bookmarking and guest posting. But if your really want it and want it long term there's going to be some hard work involved.

I would stay far away from SENuke

Good luck.

[MattJanaway]

I can see reviews on his site for things like SENuke and many automated link building programs. He might know his stuff, without me looking into it further I couldn't tell you. However, any real SEO who is tried and tested will tell you to steer clear of methods that are automated. His site seems pretty honest though and it looks like he talks about varying methods of digital marketing.

Generally, if something is too good to be true then it usually is. Link building software is something I wouldn't touch personally.

There are a few methods of tiered link building. I'm not sure which one you are talking about in your question. Could you elaborate on the method?

If you are thinking about the generally accepted concept of tiered link building it would go something like this:

Tier 1: 10,000 links pointing to 10 websites

Tier 2: 10 websites pointing to 6 websites

Tier 3: 6 websites pointing to your main website

You can replace the amount of websites above with any you like but I entered 10 and 6 as just random numbers.

Can you confirm that this is your intention? If it is, don't do it. PLEASE! This is considered as evil spam by G.