Linking Strategies And Paid Links In SEO
Posted Wednesday 23rd September 2009 by Tobias in Link Building.
Linking Campaign
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In previous years, the first port of call for any webmaster looking for off-site search engine optimisation was a linking campaign or two, but as Google has updated its algorithm over time these have gradually become less important links in the chain (pun intended).
That’s not to say that linking campaigns are past their prime – far from it – but where an extensive linking campaign was once all you needed to get a page one position for your site, this is no longer the case and there are other aspects which must be taken into account.
It seems that links are more about quality rather than quantity with Google’s current algorithm, so the question is which path should we take when it comes to generating links for search engine optimisation purposes?
Directory Linking
Should we be all submitting our sites to directories and taking the mass directory linking approach? Should we be adopting social media marketing techniques on blogs and other social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook? Or should we simply stick with the ’shock and awe’ directory linking approach from years past and get as many links as we can from wherever we can – whilst remaining compliant?
As with everything in search engine optimisation, there are no hard and fast answers to this question. Google’s position is that people link to quality content, any link which is exchanged for any other reason is in violation their compliancy guidelines. They have people physically trawling the web searching for sites that sell links and it is thought that the Google Caffeine update will be hard on this.
As Google states on their webmaster support resource, ‘not all paid links violate our guidelines’ however only if those links are used for advertising purposes and not to transfer page rank to manipulate search results. There seems to be a mindset that everybody does it so it’s acceptable if not completely ethical, and it’s often easy to tell when a site is selling links to others.
Paid Links
How often do you walk into an electronics shop and expect to see pets for sale? It’s probably not very often. Why then, do webmasters expect this to change on the internet? For example, if someone is visiting a site with a Page Rank of seven with the URL ‘funnycatpictures.co.uk’, why would the viewer expect to see links for a site which sells computer parts, washing machines or pornographic material? These are examples of obvious paid links.
For organic search engine optimisation purposes links need to be relevant. This is linking 101 – make sure the link is relevant and from/to a reliable source. Paid links are being cracked down on so even relevant and seemingly organic paid links are fair game for the Google paid links squad, which can end up with penalties.
Going back to the funnycatpictures.co.uk example, if there was a link to a pet store or other site with funny pictures of cats, this link is relevant and may well help to generate traffic, however the above example is quite clearly a non compliant method of linking and should be avoided at all costs.
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3 Responses to “Linking Strategies And Paid Links In SEO”
Interested in this subject? Have your say...
Great post. I just used ineedhits to submit my tech-based web site to their “300+ directories.” Figured that it couldn’t hurt since I was just going to hit “add url” on most of them myself; this was just about saving time.
Now I see a lot of the sites I will eventually be listed on (via their “main” search engine, ExactSeek) are pointless sites that have nothing to do with my business or even my industry (example: Golf directories, retail shopping sites, entertainment news, etc.)
Will this hurt me? Other than not renewing the listing next month, is there a way to contact all the poorly matched small directories and request they keep my company off of it? Are there even real people running these dime a dozen directories?
Just trying to get a feel if my effort to improve my time management will hurt my company’s strong search rankings. Thanks.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:27 pm@Jason S
I have replied to you via email in more detail, however a basic rule to follow is that anything automated will generally be no good for SEO. Organic linking campaigns take time and people are continually looking for short cuts that do not exist. Links have to be from a relevant source and on anchor text related to your site, so in your case you have most links on ‘Spiceworks’ and you should try to push anchor text like ‘IT Management Software’ or another main keyword.
September 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am@Jason S
Automated linking campaigns are never a good thing and tend to be a waste of time and money. Any company in the world can run bulk link building campaigns via the use of automated software which defeats the point of natural search and the organic progression of inbound links.
On top of that you get the problem which you have of obtaining many irrelevant links. Will this hurt you? Well its debatable. Chances are these links will not damage your site within search – you just wont see any benefit! You are more likely to be penalised for flooding too many links into your website in one bulk campaign, especially if any of these ‘dime a dozen’ directories are known to search engine for potentially undermining their algorithm.
My advice is stay within the guidelines and do not try to undermine a search engine algorithm, it will do more harm than good. Or better still, employ an SEO agency who can help!
Chris
October 1st, 2009 at 1:04 pm