Been offered a no follow link on a blog post ?. Is it worth it ?
-
Hi All,
We are having a go at doing our own link building and just wanted some advice on a couple of questions
-
I've found some industry related blog sites which could be good but alot of them only offer a no follow link ?. Is this worth it ? And if ,so what is the advantage of having a no follow link ? as it won't directly help with our DA etc ?
-
I've also noticed some of these sites link to each other or recommend each other (i.e other blog sites) which may be some sort of link network ?.. I take it this is bad ? and could be penalized by google ?
thanks
pete
-
-
Cool, Many thanks Andy
I will check out Buzzsumo to
thanks again
Pete
-
...but it's something I am very wary of , especially considering the mess the last chap caused
I do feel your pain and links that are not natural to Google and are not earned, can cause you issues.
As a little tip, look at your site - if you were visiting your site for the first time, would you consider it link-worthy? Do you carry good linkable assets that others will feel they want to link to because they are useful? If not, then concentrate on this first. You can also use BuzzSumo to have a look at what the winners in your market are sharing and reach-out to those individuals who share it. You are also able to see if it has lead to any back-links.
Make / write something better than the other guy and then get busy with your outreach.
-Andy
-
Yes thanks Andy, got the penalty finally removed at xmas but no real uplift since apart from what I can only assume is seasonal search variation.
Have kept away from link building over the last 6 months , just concentrated on citations and doing a lot of content, housekeeping and generally tidying the site up. Will see whether my efforts have been in vain or not, when the new Panda gets rolled out anytime now.
I may look at some freelance link building in the near future if we dont get very far trying it ourselves but it's something I am very wary of , especially considering the mess the last chap caused.
thanks
Pete
-
Are you all sorted on that front now Pete? It can be daunting when you get a penalty and disavowing can take a long time to kick in.
-Andy
-
Many thanks All,
Some very good points here. I will take a look at all your suggestions and articles links and see if I can also see find a video out there on how to do it i.e what metrics to look out for etc etc .
We previously had a manual penalty (unnatural links) due to our naivety when we outsourced some link building work and they were using these blog network sites which got us hammered so we are naturally pretty worried on who and how we to get links from .
Many thanks
Pete
-
Hi Pete,
If you want to see what a site is doing the in the SERPs, head over to SEMrush, enter the URL and see what the organic traffic has been doing. This is a wonderful way to see if there are indications of the target site having acquired a penalty - in which case, stay well away. Their Alexa ranking might show you trends as well.
Assuming the site OK, as with any link, keep the anchor text very neutral. Don't try and add keywords or money-phrases in there. Just use your company / brand name, click here, URL, etc.
Another very useful tool to see what else is going on, and if you suspect a link farm, have a look at them with http://www.geoipfacts.com/
-Andy
-
It's hard to expand on this topic after what was just written, however I will reiterate pretty much every point that was stated above. Nofollow links are still links and the source of the link can have a large impact on your website. For example, Wikipedia links are Nofollow, but I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody who would say a Wikipedia link is not worth it. There is also argument on how much nofollow links actually affect SEO.
Although they technically don't add any link juice, Google can still see the categorization and labeling. If your website has 100 no follow links from Car Repair websites, to a page on your site about Car Repair, that will still help Google identify what your page/site is about.
Anyway, any link is worth it in my opinion, as long as it can benefit you in some way. I.e. exposure, positive SEO, conversions, etc. And the other website isn't utilizing any negative/blackhat tactics.
-Hope this helps!
-
Another point to touch on is where will the link be located? If it's in your author profile on an article you wrote for them, then I always nofollow the link. If it's within the content and is a valuable resource for the readers then a dofollow link shouldn't be an issue.
Regardless, treat links as more than just for SEO value. I mean it gives people a chance to click and visit your website. That's the main goal right?! As long as it's linking to a relevant page/article on your website then you shouldn't worry as much.
-
Many thanks Patrick,
I will take a look at those points
thanks
Pete
-
Hi there
Don't disregard links because they are nofollow. They can be valuable and important, especially if that link is relevant to your business and helps expand your visibility to your audience. There's a great article here about nofollow.
The best way to assess links are to ask the following questions:
-
Does this link help my website?
-
Does it send quality traffic?
-
Is this link relevant to my website?
-
Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?
-
Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?
-
If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?
-
Are the links from directory templates? (example)
-
Inspect URLs with blatant spam words
-
Free
-
Porn
-
XXX
-
Submit
-
Directory
-
Paid
-
Links
-
URL
-
Sex
-
etc.
-
Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs
-
This can usually show link farms or spam
-
Don't forget - don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag
A lot of this comes down to common sense, so if you trust the site, it's relevant, provides quality content, and don't feel weird or shady about it, then I say explore the option.
Hope this helps! 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
-
Blog post outreach for backlinks
Hi all, My understanding of obtaining backlinks by way of blogpost outreach is that it's best to include several outbound links to related high domain websites within blog post copy (as well as a link to the website you're marketing, obviously) such as this post https://www.scoopearth.com/why-should-you-use-royalty-free-music-for-youtube-videos/ or this one https://small-bizsense.com/how-to-create-quality-content-for-your-business/. However, I've recently read a few articles that suggest that from a human perspective only having one clear link in the copy, such as this post https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment/movies/the-benefits-of-royalty-free-cinematic-music-for-your-videos/, increases the chance of the reader visiting the site in question. I guess the thinking is that if there's only one link to be clicked on it increases the chances of click-thru, as opposed to the reader possibly clicking on another external link that's only there because of current SEO advice. So is it best to follow SEO guidelines and include several outbound links within guest blog posts, or is it better to only have the one link to your client's site (to focus the readers attention on it)?
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Blog post back link
Hi, I am new to SEO and I am planning to hire someone in Fiverr regularly to submit different guest posts on the different related topic on the website with a good domain authority (>60) as a result to have some quality inbound links. As I am writing the guest post myself, May I know how many backlinks should I have per post are best for SEO? and should I only focus on anchor text backlinks? Also, here is my understanding of what I should be careful when hiring someone on Fiverr to do a blog post, please let me know if I am wrong and if there is another thing I need to be careful. It needs to be dofollow link It is permanent I check the website domain authority and spam sore that the person provides before using it. Please let me know if I missed out something. Appreciated Kind regards Chris
Link Building | | KINSHUN0 -
Buy domain, redirect, get all the good links (+link juice) and disavow the spammy ones?
There is a domain for sale that has a quite nice profile and a lot of good backlinks, but also quite a few spammy ones. This domain has a Spam Score of 14% acc. to Moz Link explorer, ours has only 2%. My questions: 1. The domain and the good backlinks are related to or close to our content/keywords. But we are worried whether the "spammy" ones will hurt us. Does anyone has experience with this? 2. Would it help if we disavow the spammy backlinks afterwards? And if so, how do we do that? Add new domain to search console, disavow the bad links and then redirect the entire domain to our domain or redirect the domain first and then disavow from our property? Many thanks for your help!
Link Building | | pissuptours0 -
Is it worth pursing PR and guest posting just for links?
I'm still new to SEO, but I have a decent foundation on it. To me, it seems like guest posting and earning PR on quality sites is good for the coverage, but will those one-off links really make a difference? I'd have to assume that SEOs earn their worth when they build scalable links (i.e. tools that people link to, guides, etc) So, while PR is nice, I feel as if I shouldn't focus my time there, but spending time on building a product such as QuickSprout.com's SEO audit tool, Cappex's college match tool, CNN's budget calculator, Moz's google weather report, etc.
Link Building | | BrandonPindulic1 -
Moving off page blog to on page blog
Hi, I was using free wordpress blog and i have around 18-20 content on the blog. Now, we've managed to have blog on our main website which has www.mysite.com/blog extension. We did this so we could create more links on the website/ I am a little unsure how to move the blog now. Should we copy & paste the blog articles from old blog to new one and remove them from old blog? I am just not quite sure how would it effect the links. If i keep the old articles on the old blog and create new articles for the new one, it'll take me a while before i get them written. Any recommendation appreciated. Thanks
Link Building | | Rubix0 -
Guest Blog Posting : Is that all it is made out to be?
Experts frequently mention that one of the best way to build the link is to guest blog with some authoritative blogs in your niche after Penguin, Panda and other animals invaded SEO landscape. At the same time everyone agrees that "Content is the king" and if you have unique and useful content, people would link to you without any extra efforts on your part. Do you see any contradiction in those statements? I spent my time, my resource, my genius writing up very good posts. As a matter of fact all my post are good (IMHO), but I can churn out only 2 or 3 masterpieces per month. Should I share my content willingly as a guest post to other websites who are not my local direct competitor of course, but nonetheless are in my niche, thus adding to their authority on the subject? I will get a link out of it. Would I get a significant traffic? I doubt that. At least from my limited experience. Or should I strengthen my own site striving to be such authority in my niche? But without strong external link profile Google shall frown upon me and my site. Personally I inclined more to save most of the content for my own blog. What do you gals and guys think?
Link Building | | SirMax0 -
Too many links in my blog post created by comments. Should I worry?
Every year, we do a popular "Favourite pictures of the year" contest where people vote on the best picture (i.e: their mate's) in order to win something. But I just found that I'm going way over the "Too many links" limit and I think it's because of all the comments. 1. Is it a problem 2. Is there a way to de-activate the links? Thank you! 🙂 Ioan
Link Building | | IoanSaid0 -
SEOs and web developers frequently leave links to their site in the footer of their clients' sites. Does this negatively impact the site with the links?
Does this provide any SEO value to the receiving site? Has anyone experienced problems doing this?
Link Building | | KatMouse2