Is Link Building Dead?
-
I know there are various posts about this but none of them are up to date.
I am so reluctant to do any linking now as I was hurt by google algorithms (without even knowing I was doing anything bad back in April 2012).
I am just overwhelmed with all the seo info out there - I have written articles, blog on my site, lots of facebook postings but I don't seem to reach people
I now have someone who wants to help me get a new linking structure to get my ranking back but the whole idea scares me. He basically wants to do the following using social media platforms only to get natural links (is this a very bad idea? ANY comments will be appreciated:
Proposed Plan includes 200-250 Do-Follow Themed Links to your “TARGET SITE”
50 Approved Social Bookmarking Links: - 2 articles are used to build 50 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals.
25 Approved Article Submission Links: - 2 articles are used to build 25 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals.
20 Approved Press Release Links: -2 articles are used to build 20 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals.
50 Approved Web 2.0 Properties: - 2 articles are used to build 50 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals.
30 Approved Classified Links: - 2 articles are used to build 30 PR 3-9 do-follow links with guaranteed approvals.
-
You're right to be scared! Earn backlinks via quality content and clever PR instead.
RE: News releases... http://searchengineland.com/google-links-in-a-press-release-should-be-nofollowed-like-advertisements-168339
-
Llanero,
I was going to write a long list of reasons why you shouldn't do this but there are so many posts out there on the topic, I'm just going to say it's a horrible plan. Rather than looking for someone to build links for you, you're better off looking for someone to help you write content that is going to make a positive difference in your marketing.
-
I agree with Kevin. Those sort of tactics will not work and will ultimately bring your site more pain.
No, link building is not dead, but it has changed.
If your blog posts and articles are good and target information that people are searching for your pages will rank well and people will link to them either through social media or via their own sites.
Consider also backing up what you are doing with content on your site by making sure you include authorship that is connected to a Google+ account. Then use content sharing platforms like Google+ and LinkedIn (possibly specific LinkedIn groups if they exist for your industry) to place snippets of your articles with read more links to your articles and posts.
Peter
-
Run. Google is extremely good at figuring out unnatural link profiles, so please don't do this.
The key is to earn links by having unique, compelling content that people want to link to. Invest time and resources creating content that is useful. This is difficult to do (as you know), so read up on successful campaign and look for firms in your industry that is successful in doing this. Try mixing up your content strategy to see what works (video, images, how-to guides or whatever). Study your analytics and leverage any data source you have to get inspiration. Good luck!
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
-
Never ending new links and our rank continues to plumet
HI everyone, I've been having an issue with a severe drop in rankings (#2 to #36ish). All of my technicals seem to be ok, however I seem to be getting my images hotlinked (which I have killed in nginx) from these spam like pages that pull and link to an image on my site, then link again with a " . " for the anchor. Even more strange is that these pages are titled and marked up with the same titles and target key words as my site. For example, I just got a link yesterday from a site leadoptimiser - d o tt- me which is IMO a junk site. The title of the page is the same as one of my pages, the page is pulling in images relevant to my page, however the image sources are repos EXCEPT for 2 images from my site which are hotlinked to my pages image and then an additional <a>.</a> link is placed to my website. I have gotten over 1500 of these links in the past few months from all different domains but the website (layout etc) is always the same. I have been slowly disavowing some of them, but do not want to screw up anything in case these links are already being discounted by G as spam and not affecting my rank. The community seems to be really split on the necessity of disavowing links like these. Because of these links, according to Ahrefs, my backlink profile is 38% anchor text of "." . Everything else checks out in my own review as well as Moz tools and Ahrefs with very high quality scores etc. Webmasters is fine, indexing is fine, pagespeed insights is in the 90's, ssl is A+. I've never had to deal with what seems to be an attack of this size. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | plahpoy1 -
Will including a global-site link in all 100 local-sites footer be considered spammy?
If I am a car manufacturer brand site(global), and I request all my location-specific domains include a link to the global site in their footers, would this trigger a red flag for Google? There are roughly 100 location-specific sites, but I would like to come up with a long term solution, so this number could be larger in the future. Is it best practice to only follow the footer link on each location-specific site Homepage, and nofollow the rest of the footer links on each site? Is it best to only include one followed link to the manufacturer brand site (global) on each location-specific domain? Is it best to not put this global link in the footer, but rather towards the top of the page only on the homepage?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jonathan.Smith0 -
Link building freelancers or referrals to link building freelancers
Hi, Are there many freelancers in this community that advocates the MOZ linkbuilding philosophies? Or does anyone have references for link building freelancers at a reasonable rate? Thanks, Jack
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jackgao840 -
How do you check if a website has a link network (From the same C Class)
Hello Mozzers, I'm conducting a link audit and I see a red flag for one of my guest blogs i did in 2012. let's say the IP of the website was 62.658.62.9 Little did I know that the blogging website is a link network with the same content on each IP via it's specific C class: 62.658.62.9 62.658.62.10 62.658.62.11 ETC... How does one find a website to blog on and check to see if they have a blog network or better yet, see if there is a similar distinction of duplicate sites based on its C-class?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Link worth?
These are not my links but does anyone know what the value of one link from something like below is (bio or body) http://designwebkit.com/web-and-trends/how-many-fonts-designer-really-need/ www.thebuildingblox.com/termite-turmoil-how-to-identify-and-remedy-the-problem/ http://creativeoverflow.net/the-10-best-alternatives-to-dropbox/ in comparison with links from below www.01fangchan.com
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobAnderson
www.1.inerdentos.ru
www.1000empregos.com
www.1stdirectory.co.uk
www.2halsi.com
www.3dir.co.uk
www.514friends.com
www.57billion.com We disavowed around a 1000 links of the above quality (crap) and need to rebuild decent quality links and i would just like to know what the guess is on how many links such as below would need to be built to compensate for the loss. http://designwebkit.com/web-and-trends/how-many-fonts-designer-really-need/ vs www.01fangchan.com Would need to replace 1000.0 -
Cross linking websites of the same company, is it a good idea
As a user I think it is beneficial because those websites are segmented to answer to each customer needs, so I wonder if I should continue to do it or avoid it as much as possible if it damages rankings...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcany0 -
Link Building Agency refuses to report Hours of work completed, is this normal?
A link building agency we are interested in is promising to work until X number of whitehat (manual) links are acquired for $YYYY each month. They say they don't report on hours, but instead focus on results. Is this common or is it a red flag?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Can I be penalized for offering incentives for links and social followers?
A competitor of mine is using contest/loyalty software like ContestBurner or PunchTab to generate social followers and links. This has been very successful, and over the past several months his rankings have improved. Does anyone know if Google is "OK" with this type of program? I'm trying to decide if I should start one myself.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dfeemster1