How Do You Determine If A Link Is Quality?
-
What tools and signals do you use to determine if a link is quality or not?
How can you tell if a link is going to hurt your ranking?
-
Hi Anchorwave,
You can check out a post published earlier this year by SEER Interactive. It's my favorite article of all time in helping me determine whether a link is quality or not. Feel free to check out the 25 ways to qualify a link.
Cheers!
-
I just wanted to add to what Brendan said, I would start by searching in Google by using keywords you want to rank for and then keep searching, using keywords that are thematically relevant to your site.
Using the SEOQuake (see below for optimal settings) and SEOMoz toolbar in the Google SERP will give you an indication of whether or not you even want to view the site (If PageRank is 4, DA is >50, etc, etc.). Go 100 results deep, the first two pages will likely be competitors that wouldn't link to you anyway.
Again, like Brendan said, if the site is ranking for a relevant keyword then it's safe to assume Google views that page/site favorably!
Once you have looked at the site and made sure there aren't any irrelevant (or paid) links on the site and it passes your metrics be sure to check the inbound links to the site and the page if it's an inside page.
It will depend on your industry but generally I won't look at an inside page if ti has less than 10 links to it. I've seen too many PR4s lose page rank in the next update because it was only getting juice internally, so the inbound links must be from external sources.
I also question the tlds of the inbound links. I will usually 'head for the hills' if I see .ru, .cn, .id, etc you know the drill.
Hope that helps.
**For SEOQuake, when I use it turned on in the SERP I have it show Google PR, Indexed Pages, and I used to show the Yahoo Link and Link Domain counts
Make sure you have it set for 'parameters by request' otherwise you'll timeout in Google in no time.
-
Hi,
Make sure you've got the SEOmoz toolbar installed in your browser. This will give you a decent idea of page and domain authority and trust.
Is the topic of the page and other links on the page relevant to your site? Are there links for all sorts of sites and industries on there with no clear focus? That's a sign of site which is selling links.
Put the URL of the page in to Google and make sure it ranks first. If not, steer well clear. Also take a few title tags from random pages on the site and google those too to make sure they're ranking and haven't received a penalty.
There are many more factors but I hope those will get you started.
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
-
Penguin: Is there a "safe threshold" for commercial links?
Hello everyone, Here I am with a question about Penguin. I am asking to all Penguin experts on these forums to help me understand if there is a "safe" threshold of unnatural links under which we can have peace of mind. I really have no idea about that, I am not an expert on Penguin nor an expert of unnatural back link profiles. I have a website with about 84% natural links and 16% affiliate/commercial links. Should I be concerned about possibly being penalized by an upcoming Penguin update? So far, I have never been hit by any previous Penguin released, but... just in case, you experts, do you know what's the "threshold" of unnatural links that shouldn't be exceeded? Or, in your experience, what's the classic threshold over which Google can penalize a website for unnatural back link profile? Thank you in advance to anyone helping me on this research!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | fablau0 -
Google +1s Quality Factors?
It is apparent that Google +1s are becoming an increasingly large factor in results pages and I had a few questions about some of the dynamics. Do +1s take into account factors such as c-blocks, location diversity based on IP, and similar elements? To what degree? Do +1s from well-diversified and historically more active/authoritative G+ accounts carry more weight than someone who simply has a G+ account because they use Gmail and were prompted? What is the spectrum here? How much weight would a +1 from Rand Fishkin hold in contrast to an account created one year ago with little activity? I know Google has a great deal of user data from Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Docs, search history and many more so would imagine this plays a role. Do +1s from newly created accounts that only target one business or niche cause damage? I am assuming that +1s should accumulate naturally just as backlinks so if what would be considered an unnatural amount of +1s in what time period? Any insights here are greatly appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOGroup1230 -
Link "Building" or "Earning" Which one are you doing? Both?
I'm curious to see how SEO's interpret this section of the Google Webmaster Guidelines on Link Schemes: The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. (Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) I'm not asking what you "should" do, but rather what do YOU do... Do you interpret this as: Create awesome content and the links will come? Create Awesome Content and Outreach a bit? Perhaps you don't follow it all and concentrate on building links over content? What do you do and why? Discuss!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BrettDixon0 -
Infographic submission sites potentially offering paid links....
Good Morning/Afternoon fellow Mozzers, I recently created an infographic and am now looking to get it distributed via as many publications as possible. I discovered some great sites with collections of infographics.However I have discovered a multitude of sites offering to review and feature the infographic, or "express" submissions so the graphic features faster for a price..... links below. http://www.amazinginfographics.com/submit-infographics/ http://infographicjournal.com/submit-infographics/ 2 questions 1. Is this considered as buying links? My instincts say Yes. 2. Some sites offer mix of free and "express" paid submissions. If the answer to Q.1 is yes, should I avoid them all together even if my graphic gets picked up free? Thanks in advance for the feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Link farming and related websites
In my niche I have about 17 sites I have created. They all provide unique content, html, and all have a variety of uses that differ from each other mostly, some repetition but not really. All these sites are related to the same niche. I do link to each other in my sites. I don't go crazy and link every site to every other site or span links on footers. I somewhere in the content link here to there. Not even consistent, just linking to related pages from others. I was wondering if this is something I need to be careful about or could I get hit with link farming?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | cbielich0 -
Low Quality Highly Relevant backlinks, should we get them?
I see a lot of opportunity to get lower quality, but highly relevant backlinks, should we try to get these? I'll give you an example, lets say we have an asphalt paving company ( not a lot of authority blogs out there, that we can find yet) We found this one http://www.wolfpaving.com/blog/ - DA of 27 and PA 29 should we go after links like this. I would actually like to know about sites with less authority than this one, I would probably go for this one without question. So Should we go after worse DA and PA but still legitimate looking sites and highly relevant?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RonMedlin0 -
Getting Credit for your own inbound links
Good afternoon, I have been comparing competitors with the Open Site Explorer looking at their inbound links. I have noticed that they have been getting credit for their own inbound links within their site. Is there something I am doing wrong as inbound links on my site aren't getting found? Could this have anything to do with Webmaster tools? Thanks in advance, SEO_123
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TWPLC_seo0
