Domain authority - Low quality links
-
I have a question I hope people can help me on. it is my intention for my next project to focus on domain authority, and a small number of high quality links. I have a couple of scenarios I would appreciate some advice on:
1. Can lower quality links lower domain authority?
2. Would you avoid links from low quality sites no matter what \ what domain authority levels should you avoid links from.
3. Should I be looking at link profiles of the sites I get links from. Does it matter if a site I get a link from has 1000's of spammy links (i.e. something to look out for when doing guest blogging).
4. Should I avoid directories no matter what, or is high pr \ domain authority directories ok to use, if I end up on a page of other relevant directory submissions related to my niche.
Essentially, my aim is to have high quality links, but equally, there are some decent sites on the fringes that I will need to consider (based on a competitors link profile I researches).
-
I wouldn't obsess over DA/PA. People lose sight of the fact those are just Moz's metrics. They're an excellent resource to have, but take them with a grain of salt. If a website is a good resource for you that could potentially send referral traffic, but the DA/PA isn't where you want it to be, go for it anyway. We all know this, but ultimately, the purpose of online marketing is to increase traffic and conversions (traffic being secondary to conversions). If you're forgoing either one of those two for the sake of preserving your domain authority or link metrics, you're making a mistake.
-
Unless I'm mistaken, I think this guy was asking specifically about web directories like dmoz and botw.
There is a distinction between local directories and web directories—and the primary benefit of local citations has relatively little to do with links. The reason behind getting listed in either one is fairly distinct. Local has a lot more to do w/ establishing your address in the area + taking advantage of how sites like yp.com and Yelp take up a lot of space in SERPs.
-
A second question - low(er) quality, as in low DA/PA links from relevant sites - some things are pretty niche, and can be without many huge DA/PA relevant site links, if a site is one of a few, but still good, on that topic, but has low DA/PA, would it be ok to take in links?
-
It's not advisable to disregard directories across the board. Adding your site to a niche directory related to your subject matter can have the dual benefit of a link back as well as a source of some traffic. Whitespark has a terrific local citation finder tool that can get you suggestions on lots of relevant links for your site.
-
Yeh, I think a focus on good quality content is something I am going to have to work on as well. Thanks.
-
That is very helpful, thanks.
-
Keep in mind that domain authority is Moz's metric. It's intended to predict how well your site might perform in search results. You might be able to rank just fine without a high DA.
To answer your questions as they are numbered:
1. It's possible. Low quality links are probably low quality because they lack relevancy and are low on trust.
2. Not necessarily. A natural link profile will have all kinds of links: some good ones, some decent ones, and some not so great ones. But at the same time, I wouldn't actively pursue low quality links. I just don't panic if a scraper links to me and start tearing my hair out over my domain authority.
3. Perhaps. Avoiding websites in "bad neighborhoods" is generally recommended. At the same time, you could probably spend your hours more effectively than reviewing everyone's link profiles.
4. I wouldn't avoid directories "no matter what." I wouldn't avoid anything "no matter what." Consider what the benefits are against the risks and go from there. With any directory, consider if it looks like a resource people would actually use. If it's just there for links, don't bother with it.
Just think for yourself with these things. Don't fall in love with bumping up metrics.
-
When I began SEO for my sites, I spent a lot of time addressing the very questions you posted regarding links and directories and the like. I know more now than I did then and in hindsight, I think I am more productive now focusing on great content for my sites and less time focused on back links. For those who used black hat link building or purchased a domain with a bad link profile, sure, they need to devote time to cleaning that up, but if your link profile is natural, I would not spend too much time on this or that link from a low quality site and spend more time creating excellent content. I know it's often repeated on this and other SEO forums, but if you read the comments / suggestions / experiences on this forum of the SEO experts, it's pretty clear they spend the bulk of their time creating content and an awesome user experience for those who visit their sites. When you have an awesome site, the links will come naturally.
Best,
Christopher
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
-
Linking C blocks strategy - Which hat is this tactic?
This related to a previous question I had about satellite sites. I questioned the white-hativity of their strategy. Basically to increase the number of linking C blocks they created 100+ websites on different C blocks that link back to our main domain. The issue I see is that- the sites are 98% exactly the same in appearance and content. Only small paragraph is different on the homepage. the sites only have outbound links to our main domain, no in-bound links Is this a legit? I am not an SEO expert, but have receive awesome advice here. So thank you in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Buddys0 -
Hiding content or links in responsive design
Hi, I found a lot of information about responsive design and SEO, mostly theories no real experiment and I'd like to find a clear answer if someone tested that. Google says:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NurunMTL
Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details For usability reasons sometimes you need to hide content or links completely (not accessible at all by the visitor) on your page for small resolutions (mobile) using CSS ("visibility:hidden" or "display:none") Is this counted as hidden content and could penalize your site or not? What do you guys do when you create responsive design websites? Thanks! GaB0 -
Does Google Consider a Follow Affiliate Link into my site a paid link?
Let's say I have a link coming into my domain like this http://www.mydomain.com/l/freerol.aspx?AID=674&subid=Week+2+Freeroll&pid=120 Do you think Google recognizes this as paid link? These links are follow links. I am working on a site that has tons of these, but ranks fairly well. They did lose some ranking over the past month or so, and I am wondering if it might be related to a recent iteration of Penguin. These are very high PR inbound links and from a number of good domains, so I would not want to make a mistake and have client get affiliates to no follow if that is going to cause his rankings to drop more. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Robertnweil10 -
Multiple domains different content same keywords
what would you advice on my case: It is bad for google if i have the four domains. I dont link between them as i dont want no association, or loss in rakings in branded page. Is bad if i link between them or the non branded to them branded domain. Is bad if i have all on my webmaster tools, i just have the branded My google page is all about the new non penalized domain. altough google gave a unique domain +propdental to the one that he manually penalized. (doesn't make sense) So. What are the thinks that i should not do with my domain to follow and respect google guidelines. As i want a white hat and do not do something that is wrong without knowledge
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Do sitewide links from other sites hurt SEO?
A friend of mine has a pagerank 3 website that links to all my pages on my site on every page of his site. The anchor text of all these links are the title of each page that it links to. Does this hurt SEO? I can have him change to the links to whatever i want, so if it does hurt, what should i change the anchor text to if needed? Thanks mozzers! Ron
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ron100 -
Suggestion for Link Directory Script?
I own a subscription to PHP Link Directory but was wondering if anyone could suggest an alternative link directory script/software/service to PHPLD. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | fergusonconsulting0 -
Links via scraped / cloned content
Just been looking at some backlinks on a site - a good proportion of them are via Scraped wikipedia links or sites with similar directories to those found on DMOZ (just they have different names). To be honest, many of these sites look pretty dodgy to me, but if they're doing illegal stuff there's absolutely no way I'll be able to get links removed. Should I just sit and watch the backlinks increase from these questionable sources, or report the sites to Google, or do something else? Advice please.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Do Friends Let Friends Sell Links?
I have a friend with a site that has a lot of content. Some of that content has affiliate links with no follows to affiliate urls. Those pages also have a disclosure on them about the affiliate relationship. Now, he's talking about taking some of the existing under-performing affiliate links and renting them out to another site that wants them for the link juice. He says he'd have an on-page disclosure, a display ad for the advertiser on the page and something in the text like "you might check out our advertiser..." and then some keyword targeted link. He was asking me how risky I thought this is for him and really I don't know.Do you think Google would find this and s**t a chicken over it? I really don't know, given that I see really blatant undisclosed rented links all the time.Of course, my easy answer to him is "don't do it," but it does make me wonder how risky that is. Also, is that a realistic site-wide penalty kind of thing or it just doesn't pass any link juice to the advertiser kind of thing? So, I'm posting here for others to weigh in on. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945010