Assessing the true value of a backlink

[SEMbyotic]

I want to start a discussion about assessing the true value of a backlink. Here's a scenario:

I've just started working on SEO for a new client. Once I've got the strategy stuff out of the way, I like to start by looking at backlinks that competitors have. I use Moz OSE (and other tools) and filter by followed links to the root domain. This gives a good starting sense of where competitors are getting links from. As I start to explore those links, I see some black-hat (or grey-hat) practices at play: display:none links, footer links, sidebar links, comment spam, etc.

The problem I have is, there seems to be no way of knowing whether or not those links are responsible for boosting the competitors rankings. They come from sites that have good DA and PA, yet we're told that tactics like display:none and comment spam will either get those links devalued or may cause some sort of manual action.

My question is, how do others evaluate the full spectrum of the value a link has that goes beyond trust, authority, and citation flow?

[Hedley7d]

I agree with Chris. It is not a question of quantity but natural quality. Hummingbird and Penguin from Google had become smarter and and they quickly detect excessive link building campaigns. Google warned that it is now forbidden to cheat the authority of a site this way and strongly suggests indexing nofollow links. Social Network are strongly recommended such Google Plus, Pinterest, Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook are the strongest. Modern new types of directories are created and respects Paid Link and Link Scheme such as WISE. Many directories are penalized by Penguin for not meeting its new recommendations of Google. A natural baclink profile is now the best way to achieve your goals. Google will always follow a Nofollow link coming from a site that has a strong reputation and will now transfer "Trust" instead of Linkjuice.

[ChrisAshton]

For us, there are five main elements that we look at if we're trying to determine the likely quality of a link.

• Link metrics for the domain (Domain Rank, Trust etc)
• The relevance and placement of the potential link - editorial link from a relevant page or sidebar link on a random page?
• Perceived quality of the website. Does it look spammy with lots of ads, 404s etc
• The liklihood of relevant referral traffic
• Whether or not a link to our site/resource is going to be genuinely helpful to their users

[SEMbyotic]

Yeah, in the end I do the same. I use the competitive analysis to clear any low-hanging fruit. There's always a "well that sucks" moment when I find one of these, but then you ultimately move on. It would be really cool if we could filter on some of these other attributes so that we don't have to spend time looking at those pages in the first place. Maybe I'm dreaming.

[TakeshiYoung]

I tend to focus my time & effort more on the links that we can obtain, rather than trying to analyze the value of a link a competitor has. It's impossible to tell whether hidden links or other black hat tactics are propping up a competitor's ranking, but historically speaking, sites like that eventually get penalized (even if it takes Google a few months or years to wise up).

I look at competitor backlinks sometimes to see if there are any tactics they are using that might be useful for my own sites, or other link opportunities, but aside from the occasional competitor analysis, it's a better use of my time to develop new link building campaigns for our site.