How do I know if an inbound link offers value?
-
Is there a way to find out if inbound links that have been pointing to my site for a year or more are still offering value to my site.
I know the value decreases over time (especially press release and blog article links), but it would be nice to know how much value bring to a site.
-
No problem Everett. Thanks for the information.
-
Brad, sorry I didn't mean to imply that you were buying links. But to answer your question then, yes your links aren't going to be as strong once they drop off the home page of a blog. But that, technically, is not the same link as the one from the blog post page. Yes, you'll lose the power of the link when it's no longer on the page. It's the same as losing the link. But the link on the post page will retain its value, although that may not be much if nobody links to that blog entry.
I hope that helps. Sorry about the confusion.
Regards,
Everett
-
Hi Everett,
Good information, thanks! The reason I think they lose value is exactly what you said, they "drop off the home page" and get pushed back.
There are reasons for this quesiton other than paying for a link. For example, guest article links where you want to know if your efforts are working. Also, if you are asking for a link on a site, it would be nice to know that your link will count by looking at current links on the site.
-
Hi Brad
You should be able to look at the metrics provided by the SEO tools to see the authority of the page the link is from. If it is still a highly relevant site, with high domain authority then there would be no reason to suspect that the value would be lessened by the passing of time.
If the site or page that the link was from was devalued then this reduction of value may occur but this would be because of this rather than because time has passed.
-
Hello Brad,
Where did you hear that links lose value over time? My experience has always been the exact opposite. As for blog, PR and article distribution links, one reason it may "seem" like they lose value is because they drop off the home/index/category pages as new content is added. But in terms of a URL that has a link on it that is five years old and that same URL that has a link on it that is three weeks old - all other things being equal - I find more value in the aged link. But that wasn't your question so...
I'm assuming the only reason one would want to know this is if they are paying for links on a recurring basis. Otherwise why not just leave it up? SSCDavis is sort of correct, although I have seen sites that sell links stop passing page rank even though their toolbar Page Rank was never removed, meaning that just because a link is followable and the site has page-rank doesn't necessarily mean the links pass page rank.
The only real way (that I know of) to figure that out is to run anchor-text tests on the page. I wouldn't change the anchor text on your old links, but you could get a new link on that same page going to a different site and see what that does for your rankings for that query. It has to be anchor text that is already on your page though. So take a two or three word phrase from your page that doesn't get many searches (and that you're maybe below the #5 spot for) and get a link from the page you're testing into the page from which you took the text with that phrase. See how your ranking changes.
This, of course, won't help you determine if your old links on that page have lost any value but, like I said, my experience has been that older links are more valuable, not less.
PS: Rand does a better job of explaining this here than I just did above.
-
I agree with you about the value of links over time. I think an aged, older link from an older page is definitely stronger than the average link. I also think there is a temporal boost for a new link. So when you get a new link, it might be valued at a 7 on a scale of 1-10. After that initial window (whether it's weeks or months) it may drop to a 4 or 5, but then over time will work back up to a higher number. I think it's a bit more complex than that, but in general that's how I look at it.
I use the same criteria for looking at existing links as I do for new ones. Is the site relevant to yours? Does it have authority? Is it spammy? Does it link to bad neighborhoods? If not, I'd say it's always valuable.
-
**Is there a way to find out if inbound links that have been pointing to my site for a year or more are still offering value to my site. **
If they are followed links and the host site is still ranking and has not seen a PR reduction then they are probably passing value, especially if the topic of the site is related to the topic of the page that they are linking to. If any of these have been violated then all bets are off.... also if that site is selling links or doing other naughty things then the value of the links could have been turned off by Google and you will never know.
I know the value decreases over time (especially press release and blog article links), but it would be nice to know how much value bring to a site.
Some people think that the value of aged links is higher.
-
From a SEO standpoint if the link is on a page with good PA/DA and is not 'nofollowed' then it is still offering value.
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
-
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | | Happy-SEO1 -
Links from same server or not?
Hello, I make websites so every website I make has a backlink to my website. Currently all my websites are hosted on server A, but my OWN website is hosted on server B. I plan to move my website to server A too. This will indicate that all the backlinks I have currently are from a difference server, now all these links will come from the SAME server. Will this have any results on my positions? Is this something that you have to take into account? Jeroen
Link Building | | conversal0 -
When do my links show up?
For the last two weeks I have been working on linkbuilding. I have downloaded competitors link reports and started contacting or submitting links. In the last two weeks I have gotten about 50-60 or so. In the newest report it shows I went up four c-blocks. Why is that? It is kind of discouraging.
Link Building | | EcommerceSite0 -
How to find inbound links to my site
Hi I purchased a rank 1 domain which i have now put a wordpress blog on. Is there a way I can see all of the inbound links to this site or any of the inbound anchor text? I want to try to rank for the keywords it used to. So really i need some historical information or at least what is linking to this domain. Thanks Chris
Link Building | | chrisleonard0 -
What value do external broken links give to a domain?
I ask, as I've just used opensite explorer to look at external links a competitor has, and I've found the high value ones at the top of the list go to a page that no longer exists on their site. Are these stiill of value in the SERP's, or have they messed up by not putting a 301 redirect on them?
Link Building | | xposurecreative0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
How to improve (ASAP) the linking root domain, the followed linking root domains and the linking C-Blocks? Linkbuilding (or whatever) techniques.
I have a small site (.com) like any website in my sector. 30-90 pages. I have no crawls errors. Everythings is fine, just I need to improve my linking root domain, the followed linking root domain and the linking C-Blocks. Example: my competitors have 300 (one of them have 1300) of total links. I have 30. Anyone know some good strategies? techniques? tips? I just dont want to be in a farm directory, I want free links. I'm already running two strategies but it works so slowly. I want something faster at this moment. Also, any recommendation will be thankful.
Link Building | | NicoDavila0 -
Link Frequency
I understand that good link building is all about the quality of the link / the anchor text attached to it. But, what about frequency? Should I build until I can't build anymore? or create a plan to submit links to a certain # of sites per week/month?
Link Building | | pricefutures0