Blog Swapping
-
Hi,
I know that it's not advised to engage in link swapping activities, but what about when it's actually useful for our readers?
As an example, I'm writing a guest post on a hen party website on how to choose the right hairdresser for your wedding day (relevant content to both their site and mine). They asked if I'd like a post in return about the best way to do makeup if you're going on a fancy dress night or hen party (which is again relevant to both our audience groups and will be of great interest to them).
Is this sort of link swapping okay, when the primary goal is to actually provide our audience with a richer experience, or would this still raise red flags for search engines?
Thanks!
-
I think the easiest answer to EGOL is that you would be missing out on a backlink. The whole question here, and thank you to Philip Crothers for asking it, is if this act would be positive or negative from Google's perspective. If Google is saying this is a reciprocal link and all reciprocal links are bad, then I understand. However, if it is truly unique and relevant, would Google be okay with it and could you actually benefit from the backlink? If Google is okay with it, and you will benefit from the backlink, then I think the easy answer is to include the link to your site.
Let's look at the example EGOL provided: For attribution you can say... "Philip Crothers is an expert on wedding day hairstyles and is the owner of WeddingDayHair.com" I'm assuming you are saying just use the URL as text, not a link. I understand what you're saying and I think that's a great idea. However, I think there is some value to the user in the form of convenience if in fact they want to visit WeddingDayHair.com, it would be easier to just click the link rather then copy and paste it into your browser. So I do think there is value in the difference. However, what the most ideal solution is will depend on if Google sees this act as a positive or negative one. I would love to hear an accurate answer on this specific situation.
-
Thanks!
That's a great idea. This is exactly why I love these Q&A areas, everyone is so willing to help and provide assistance.
Once again, thanks!
-
Why not just forget about the link and trade these great articles?
That would be a content gift for the visitors, OK with Google and you get a little diversity in content for your blog.
For attribution you can say... "Philip Crothers is an expert on wedding day hairstyles and is the owner of WeddingDayHair.com"
Now you have a brand mention that can still drive traffic and might be a small signal for Google.
Everybody wins. No worries.
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
-
How To Increase Blog DA to 50+
Hey, I am wondering to know the key metrics which MOZ considers before giving a blog of DA 50+. I have tried to search but couldn't find the best answers so was wondering how it's achieved. For example a site named "SportsALA" have a DA of 20 but i see they have links from many sites. I have checked other sites as well for example and they have less RDs but still had higher DA. Can anyone help me to explain Moz DA 2.0 factors a bit more. Thanks
Link Building | | Hamzayounas11 -
Blog post back link
Hi, I am new to SEO and I am planning to hire someone in Fiverr regularly to submit different guest posts on the different related topic on the website with a good domain authority (>60) as a result to have some quality inbound links. As I am writing the guest post myself, May I know how many backlinks should I have per post are best for SEO? and should I only focus on anchor text backlinks? Also, here is my understanding of what I should be careful when hiring someone on Fiverr to do a blog post, please let me know if I am wrong and if there is another thing I need to be careful. It needs to be dofollow link It is permanent I check the website domain authority and spam sore that the person provides before using it. Please let me know if I missed out something. Appreciated Kind regards Chris
Link Building | | KINSHUN0 -
Blog farm?
One of our clients has recently been approached by a competitor regarding a Link building service and SEO and as part of this they have supplied example sites that they "contact" to post articles that contain a link or links back to our client site. When we researched these sites we found that the sites did in fact have a good Domain Authority but the content was extremley dubious and the links were often forced into the articles in unnatural context. We also found that the Author page of these sites often had a similar URLs but the display names were changed. On the face of it these article sites look like a good idea and to an untrained eye they could appear good value. In fact they could be passing good value and may in fact work. I have found around 150 sites that i think share simialr traits but i gave up and I am sure there are many more. My opinion is that this looks like a large farm of blogs that are utilising similar templates and author set up. I am just looking for any experience/thoughts on how to look at this. My feeling is that i dont want to be in anyway recommending this as a service yet my client may think that this is good value. Any experiences shared would be great. thanks in advance for any comments.
Link Building | | vital_hike0 -
Content - Onsite Blog vs Article Submission
Hey Folks, First post! I have a 4 year old site with reasonable authority (49) and lots of content. Easy first question. I plan to create lots more unique, useful and relevant content however I'm in a quandary as to whether to: A. Post the content on our sites blog or B. Submit the article to an article directory like ezine-articlesand backlink to my site. Is one better than the other? Thanks, Richard
Link Building | | Rich-O0 -
Many Blogs or One Blog?
Hi There, Presently I have many blogs across a range of domains, each one targeting the client/type of user interested in that product (or service in this case). I originally set up this strategy to use the content of each blog to create a "link juice farm" (our products are educational courses so have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT target market depending on the course area), which in turn links to the related page/course on our main site. My question is, is this a viable strategy, or should I be focusing on building content only on my main site blog with subcategories for each product? Link juice farming on product/client specific blogs, or focus on content for each course niche on main site, that is the question?! Thanks in advance for you insights here people. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Link Building | | love-seo-goodness0 -
Reposting my articles on other blogs - good or bad?
Hi there! Our blog is full of really good articles on consumer finance topics. Recently we established contact with some local media and even government agencies who said they will be happy to repost our articles on their sites. Question: is it ok to repost our articles as they are and link back to us, or shall we rewrite them to make them 100% original? The media doesn't insist on original content, but I'd like to get SEO benefit from it (the sites are really good). If original content gives us more SEO value, we're happy to do it Please advise. P.S. Using rel=canonicals is not an option (it's government websites and some old school media - they are very not tech savvy).
Link Building | | imoney0 -
How do I start trying to get links from blogs
Do I just find blogs websites that are in the same topical area and ask them can i link back?
Link Building | | Feily0 -
I started my hungarian Seo blog :-)
http://www.seoblogger.hu/ Give me advice please 🙂 How many articles should I write each week? How many link should I build / month? What can I do to make better position in Google? I just have started my hungarian seo blog and seems very positive. Thanks, Misi
Link Building | | Netkreativ0