Link over-building?
-
Hello all.
One of the first things we do for our clients is to claim their local listings, include them on a set of selected directories (8-10), and blog directories (5), if applicable.
Since they will all be linked to the client site, could doing all of this at once run us into problems with unnatural link growth?
Thanks!
Frank
-
For local results they can be worth the effort. However, in my opinion, you would be better off investing the time and money into content or usability testing.
-
could doing all of this at once run us into problems with unnatural link growth?
The problem here could be one of "unnatural links" rather than "unnatural link growth".
-
Hi
So are you saying directories (even top-end ones such as Yahoo, BotW and Business.com) have NO benefit for organic search rankings? -
A couple years ago directories used to be a decent technique for improving your rank, but have since been devalued through algorithm changes. SEOMoz probably maintains them because they can have an impact in local results as some of them can count as citations.
-
If directories are so devalued, why does SEOMoz publish a directories list?
Serious question. -
In the first month of a new client I go on a huge citation building spree, and I've never encountered an issue. Some of the citations are directories, so I would say that you should have no problems. Just make sure you just use the companies name in the directories, and don't try getting any keywords in there. The links aren't worth much at all, like Jesse said, and trying to keyword stuff will just end up hurting your efforts.
-
Thanks Jesse.
We have done research on the directories we use, and try to focus on sites with high DA and Pagerank, and a few within our vertical. I agree that the majority of directories have no value, and tend to cause a negative effect. We do take care of the social links, but many of our new clients do not yet have a social presence, so it must first be created and built out before we link to it. That pretty much negates my main concern.
Frank
-
Potentially. Depends on the directories. Directories in general carry little-to-no value and most end up hurting more than helping. Especially blog directories. Google doesn't like these sites and generally it's my least favorite method of grabbing links for SEO. Local listings is important, however, and there are some directory sites that are decent enough to warrant grabbing links from but I'd say there aren't many more than 5 in all of the internet galaxy.
To dumb it down, if your question is simply "will building 20 links in one day get us a penalty?" the answer is most likely "no." However if the links are poison and this pattern continues, expect a penalty to be imposed eventually.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Affiliate link building
I saw articles that said affiliate link building is not good. We are a training company that offer only some training programs. My idea is get other training company to link back to us, but only if they do not offer the same training as we do. We could reward them by giving them commission if the sale happens. But to do this we will need to track the URL where the hit came in from from our website. Is this a good idea or not?
Link Building | | Heinwest0 -
What are your link-building strategies?
Link-building seems to be the biggest SEO item that still remains foggy to me. I was wondering what this community's thoughts and strategies are around in for your own personal projects. I think if I can hear some real life success stories, it might make more sense to me in the long run. Anything, good or bad, is welcome!
Link Building | | rachaelpracht1 -
Looking for a Link Building Strategy
Hi, I am looking for information on how to develop a link building strategy... I am wondering if its a good to go through a list of directory sites ( which I do not currently have)... Does anyone have a list? Do people set targets for the amount of links they wish to get?.
Link Building | | paddyaran0 -
Internal Linking Building
I'm launching a new blog for my new website. What's the best way to do internal link building for 3D Scanning? Do I link 3D Scanning to another page on my website or on a different website that has high authority for 3D scanning? Thank You in advance! -Nick
Link Building | | X2Metrology10 -
Link Building Cost
Can anyone share typically what a US Based SEO Agency should or would charge for creating good quality backlinks? All of the pages we are targeting have been optimized with quality content and are ranking half decent. The keywords we are targeting are med-high competition keywords. We've located a few offshore agencies with prices in the 100$ range for 10 keywords but are leery of moving forward, currently it's the cost we are paying for 1 Keyword here in the US. Thank You!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing1 -
Frequency of Manual Link Building Monitoring
Hey Moz! We're in the middle of performing a link remediation campaign, and had a question regarding new links. We do not acquire any links through methods that break Google's guidelines, but we recently discovered a suspicious link to our website that happened organically. What is the recommended frequency for manually checking all newly discovered links to our website in order to catch/remove toxic links? Monthly? Bi-monthly? Yearly? Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | TheDude0 -
Can anyone recommend a great link building firm?
I'm looking for a reputable firm that builds high quality links to a high quality site. These links should be located on a page with high Page Rank/Page Authority and should also have high quality links pointing to the page. I am not looking for forum posts/blog comments or directory listings. Can anyone recommend a firm that they use personally who specializes in this? I've had a look through the SEOMoz directory, which is great, but if anyone could provide some recommendations to go along with that, it would be appreciated! Thanks.
Link Building | | torontojon0 -
Link building strategy - black hat or white hat?
I have a competitor who always ranks very on alot keywords relevant to our business and using Open Site Explorer I note they have a tremendous amount of links. I also noticed that it appears their web company has gone out and set up numerous websites with relevant content, and then have linked back to the competitors main site. Is this kosher? I ask because before I settled on my current domain name, I purchased several keyword rich domain names; should I be thinking of setting up websites with relevant (and original) content and link back to my main site?
Link Building | | leonenobleseate1