Backlinking unclarities.

[Onlinedesignmeubel]

Hello,

I'm trying to get external links from different websites. http://www.meubels.uwpagina.nl/ is one of them.

Now what I am wondering is that 95% of the links on that page arent paid links. The paid links are in bold.

To get a link for free on that website you need to place a link on your page to that page. This is not alloud by google, and if you do so you will get a penalty. How do all those websites manage to do it? They obviously know it is not alloud, but still they managed somehow to do this without getting penalized. Can someone clarify this for me?

Best regards,

onlinedesignmeubel.nl

[WesleySmits]

I'll reply in English here to help other people with a similar answer and i will send a private message in Dutch  to Onlinedesignmeubel in Dutch.

These kind of pages indeed can get a very high authority. I own a couple of these domains myself and i have access to a lot of the data and a lot of people still use these kind of pages. Indeed it is forbidden to do link exchanges.

Maybe the person who made the page linked to your competitors because he found their website and thought it would help the credibility of his page and not that your competitors asked him to place a link?

If you can't get a link from them without placing a backlink I would either send the webmaster a message and try to explain to him that adding a link to your website will also help him because you have good website. But webmasters of pages like this are not always the ones who are generous to give away free links. But perhaps it's worth a shot.

Or you can try to get links from better websites such as perhaps blogs about furniture?
I took a look at your website and noticed that you have a nice set of product images. You can also get backlinks from pages like Pinterest and WeHeartIt. From my own experience i know that the people who use these two social media platforms are crazy about good looking furniture. So maybe this way you can take a different approuch to SEO and marketing then your competitors and stand out.

Hope my answer helps you or someone with a similar issue

[Onlinedesignmeubel]

"I know it's frustrating, but always remember: just because those sites are doing it and getting away with it doesn't mean you should try too."

It's really really frustrating. I simply dont understand how sites like that are involved in thigns like this, since their pretty big companies. Thanks anyway.

[WesleySmits]

What exactly do you mean is not allowed? If you mean placing links to a website who has paid links then i think you are mistaken. There is nothing wrong with placing a link to http://www.meubels.uwpagina.nl.

Why exactly do you want to get a link from them?

If you do it for the traffic then sure. But a link from websites like these doesn't really have value anymore.
I used to build pages like this a couple of years ago and saw that all these links really boosted my websites up.
Until 2011/2012 it was one of the most effective methods. After that my websites have all dropped in ranking and i think it is mostly because these kind of pages are usually not the best quality pages.

I hope i answered your question and if you have any other questions you can ask them here or send me a message in Dutch. Might be easier for both of us

[TomRayner]

Google's web-spam algorithms, such as Penguin, can only work to a certain degree.  These sites might have paid followed links, links from spammy websites and link-farms and so on - but if they're not in huge numbers, the algorithm may not detect it.  Sometimes the algorithm ignores very spammy websites altogether.

So if the algorithm doesn't detect it, it depends on a manual review from Google's web-spam and quality search teams.  These people are obviously super busy with lots of websites and so some may slip through the net.  I've seen quite a few examples of keywords in Google NL that have a lot of spammy websites ranking for it, so it could be a case of Google NL not being as high of a priority for Google.

I know it's frustrating, but always remember: just because those sites are doing it and getting away with it doesn't mean you should try too.

[siteoptimo]

Most of these links have a nofollow link, so it doesn't really matter. You won't get penalized with a nofollow link.

It's better to put your linkbuilding effort in other channels than these low value directories.