What not to do while building Links !!

This post was published originally in our forum. I just wanted to share it with the members of this forum also so I am sharing a short version here.

"This question I am hearing from many website owners that 'What not to do while building a Link'. Often site admins left with spamming their own link base while trying to build links aggressively. So getting to the point here are some points that I want to point out for them.

1. Building Links through Blog commenting

Believe it or not. Commenting on other blogs try to get a link for you site is not going to get you ranked. Most of the people think that links from comments are useful but they are actually not. Most of the blogs give you a no-follow link and the ones which gives do-follow they are basically of zero value.

I am not saying that you should not comment on blogs but I am saying this just don't do it for links. If you like some article and you think that you can add some value in it then comment. Put your site's url in the website section along with your full name. If the visitors of the host blog like what you added then probably you will get some referral traffic.

2. Building Links through Forum Posting

Forum or online communities are strictly for gathering and sharing information. They are not for building links. They are just like blog commenting most forums provide no-follow links and the ones which does give do-follow they don't' have any link juice.

Forum Marketing can be done. Share information with the members, add useful information, help them. You can build a solid trust in your community and make your brand glaze like a diamond. They can send you a ton of traffic if you play it well.

3. Getting Links from irrelevant niche

Trying to build links aggressively is not a bad thing but it must be done right. Getting links from every niche that you can get is not going to get you ranked. They will provide no value to your link base. And even worse they can get you red flagged in the eyes of search engines. In this age of Google Penguin Algorithm if once your ranks fell then it may take months to get you rank back. It may also occur that you never get your rank back.

4. Irrelevant Anchor texts

Everybody is trying to get textual links now. Putting an anchor text which is not at all relevant to the surrounding content or page is not going to work at all. You must put an anchor text which is similar or relevant to the hosting page. You may get some referral traffic but it will provide no link juice. And also not to mention search engines are not going to like it at all.

5. Anchor text ok but the linking page is not

You must keep this always in mind that your anchor text may be relevant to the hosting page but this is not the entire scenario. The page which you are linking to also have to be relevant to the hosting page and anchor text both. Otherwise, the search engines are going to see this as you are trying to manipulate their SERP's."

I hope that it helps everybody. Feel free to correct me or add some information anytime.

expmrb said:

1. Building Links through Blog commenting

Believe it or not. Commenting on other blogs try to get a link for you site is not going to get you ranked. Most of the people think that links from comments are useful but they are actually not. Most of the blogs give you a no-follow link and the ones which gives do-follow they are basically of zero value.

Click to expand...

I saw some blogs are allowing dofollow links on their comment system and even checking backlinks from competitors I saw they have some good backlinks from blog comments. What would you say?

expmrb said:

2. Building Links through Forum Posting

Forum or online communities are strictly for gathering and sharing information. They are not for building links. They are just like blog commenting most forums provide no-follow links and the ones which does give do-follow they don't' have any link juice.

Click to expand...

Some forums are allowing do-follow links on their signature like this forum and why you think forums provide no-follow links only?
I think that getting baclinks from dofollow and high quality forums are really effective in SEO & keyword rankings.

expmrb said:

Forum Marketing can be done. Share information with the members, add useful information, help them. You can build a solid trust in your community and make your brand glaze like a diamond. They can send you a ton of traffic if you play it well.

Click to expand...

Agree with you on this.

expmrb said:

3. Getting Links from irrelevant niche

Trying to build links aggressively is not a bad thing but it must be done right. Getting links from every niche that you can get is not going to get you ranked. They will provide no value to your link base. And even worse they can get you red flagged in the eyes of search engines. In this age of Google Penguin Algorithm if once your ranks fell then it may take months to get you rank back. It may also occur that you never get your rank back.

Click to expand...

can you share evidence for this? is this official news from Google?

Many blogs and forums provide do-follow links. That's true but the fact is that links from them does not pass any link juice.
And if you got your backlinks from irrelevant niches then clearly you will get red flagged by Google Penguin.

expmrb said:

1. Building Links through Blog commenting

Believe it or not. Commenting on other blogs try to get a link for you site is not going to get you ranked. Most of the people think that links from comments are useful but they are actually not. Most of the blogs give you a no-follow link and the ones which gives do-follow they are basically of zero value.

Click to expand...

Well, that's very true of course for the blogs that do nofollow comment links. However, there are some blogs out there that don't nofollow your link and some that even provide dofollow, keyword luv enabled blogs etc. Finding them in your niche though is a different matter!

However, whether a link is nofollow or not, getting a link on a blog that is in the same niche as yours, even if it is just a blog comment nofollow link, is still considered a link from a site in the same niche as yours.

For this reason, blog commenting on blogs in the same niche as mine is my first go to for links, not just because I will get a link from a site in the same niche as me, but because I am slowly building brand awareness through it and its like networking with people in my niche, meeting new people etc. And also yes, you can get a lot of referral traffic from them if your comment is really good and valuable.

I only ever leave very valuable comments though and have a high success rate because of it. Also I wont always use the same anchor text, I'll use real names and sometimes put my link in the actual comment below it.

Like this.

John from www.example.com

That seems to work better than putting a URL in the URL field (sometimes).

Hawker said:

Well, that's very true of course for the blogs that do nofollow comment links. However, there are some blogs out there that don't nofollow your link and some that even provide dofollow, keyword luv enabled blogs etc. Finding them in your niche though is a different matter!

Click to expand...

Anyone using public dofollow keywordluv blogs for link building purposes since Penguin is insane in my opinion. You are way more likely to hurt your rankings than help them.

Hawker said:

However, whether a link is nofollow or not, getting a link on a blog that is in the same niche as yours, even if it is just a blog comment nofollow link, is still considered a link from a site in the same niche as yours.

Click to expand...

I'm curious to know what you mean by this? It seems like you are suggesting that the link is still beneficial for Google rankings in some way, shape or form?

If that is the case, I would be interested to know your mindset about how it is beneficial. How do you think Google is using that link? Do you think they are using it in some algorithm somewhere? Please elaborate.

PTTed said:

Anyone using public dofollow keywordluv blogs for link building purposes since Penguin is insane in my opinion. You are way more likely to hurt your rankings than help them. I'm curious to know what you mean by this? It seems like you are suggesting that the link is still beneficial for Google rankings in some way, shape or form?

Click to expand...

Yes if you use JUST them and them ONLY. But not when used as part of a diverse link building campaign.

If you spam and use them ONLY purely for a backlink then yes, that could have an adverse effect. Google could consider them as a low value links.

But if the link is on a blog that is related to your niche/industry and the page is a good quality page. then it could be well worth having. Even if it is a nofollow link.

Or no nofollow because dofollow doesnt' exist and there is no such thing. There is only either a nofollow link or not. Of course, a non nofollow link is considered a dofollow link. But the actual tag dofollow doesn't exist. I guess I'm teaching you how to suck eggs here but it's worth a mention.

PTTed said:

If that is the case, I would be interested to know your mindset about how it is beneficial. How do you think Google is using that link? Do you think they are using it in some algorithm somewhere? Please elaborate.

Click to expand...

A link is a link is a link at the end of the day. Obviously, not all links are created equal. My argument is that even if it's a nofollow link, it's still a link. And if it's a link from a site in the same niche/industry as yours (even if its a nofollow link) then that will be counted as a link. Or rather, not a link that would get you penalized anyway.

Now if you go and build 10k blog comment links in one day, and none of them are related to your niche, then that is going to raise flags.

But if you build links slowly, steadily and gradually using blogs in the same niche/industry as yours to comment on, those wont harm your rankings.

In my experience, I find these types of links really help boost new sites as far as ranking goes and brand awareness goes.

That's why commenting on blogs in my niche/industry is my first go to for link building for new sites.

But I don't just comment on them purely for a link. Sometimes I wont even leave a link until the next time I comment.

And I always add real quality comments that have a high approval and stick rate that the Admin's just can't help approving and responding too.

That makes a good link and one you're much more likelier to get referral traffic from from that blogs readers.

As for whether Google uses it in its algorithm or not nobody can say.

All we can say is that a link from a blog/site in the same niche/industry as yours.

Regardless to whether its a guest post contextual link or just a blog comment link.

It's still a link from a site in the same niche/industry as yours.

No?

Hawker said:

Yes if you use JUST them and them ONLY. But not when used as part of a diverse link building campaign.

Click to expand...

Okay. So here's the thing in my book. If the link can't stand on its own merits all by itself, then why would you think it would be any different (any more effective) if you just buried that link in among a bunch of other links in your total inbound link profile?

Let me say it another way - What makes a link count any more or any less whether it is a stand alone link pointing to your page or just one link out of a hundred other links pointing to your page?

In my opinion and in my experience - a low quality link is bad for your site no matter if it is the only link or if it is just one of a hundred links. It may be worse if it is the only link, because you don't have other good links offsetting the bad one, but just because a bad link is included with a hundred other links, it doesn't change the fact that you are still better off not having the bad link at all. Get what I mean? Why bother building any bad links to your site? How in the world would it possibly benefit you? It is more likely to work against you than help you at all.

It's not the fact that the blog is using keywordluv that makes the link low quality. It is the fact that keywordluv enabled blogs generally allow almost any type of site to drop a link there. Maybe they might not allow gambling or porn or pharma. But, they typically would allow a limousine site to drop a link and an SEO blog to drop one and some guy with an Amazon affiliate site and ten other different types of sites each using a different keyword that is specific to their site. - That makes Google Penguin perk its ears up and say - these links aren't natural.

Hawker said:

A link is a link is a link at the end of the day. Obviously, not all links are created equal. My argument is that even if it's a nofollow link, it's still a link. And if it's a link from a site in the same niche/industry as yours (even if its a nofollow link) then that will be counted as a link. Or rather, not a link that would get you penalized anyway.

Click to expand...

What do you mean "counted"? Who counts it and how do they count it?

To be honest, for the reason you stated about Keyword Luv blogs, that's why I avoid posting to them for that reason and that reason alone.

That said, not EVERY Keyword Luv blog is spammed to death. You need to do some research on it first, check it's OBL's that kind of thing.

Then you will know if it's worth commenting on it, or not.

In my experience, I've ranked many new sites by blog commenting.

Do I do just that alone? No.

Was it just that alone that ranked my sites? Probably not.

But as part of my overall link diversity, probably. Or it probably helped.

Also, those blog comments go on to send me some referral traffic for many years.

Some of them have resulted in sales.

So was it worth placing the comment? Definitely.

PTTed said:

What do you mean "counted"? Who counts it and how do they count it?

Click to expand...

Well we're talking about Google here right? So counting as in seeing (crawling/indexing) site B (their site) linking to site A (your site). Then attributing that as a backlink (vote/citation/whatever) to your site. Counted.

It's worth mentioning here that Google still considers a non hyperlinked URL as a backlink. Or as a citation, as a backlink. Whether its hyperlinked/anchored or not.

Example. Putting the URL webmastersun.com in a blog post or something on some other site, that would still be counted as a backlink by Google.

Even if its hyperlinked or not.

Also citations don't necessarily have to be a link, they could be your business or company name, address etc.

https://moz.com/community/q/do-citations-count-as-backlinks

It's not really relevant here but I feel it was worth a mention anyway.

Hawker said:

That said, not EVERY Keyword Luv blog is spammed to death. You need to do some research on it first, check it's OBL's that kind of thing.

Click to expand...

It is entirely possible that some keywordluv blogs exist that aren't targets for Penguin because they allow very few links and the links they allow are approved cautiously/selectively enough that they avoid Penguin consideration.

I honestly can't say I have ever seen one.

But, in fairness, somewhere around 2 months after the initial Penguin algorithm was released, I entirely swore off such things. I saw those types of links kill sites of mine and I don't wish to ever repeat it. It is a waste of money to kill a site you are working on because you built these kinds of really crappy links.

Maybe if you looked hard enough you could find one keywordluv site that you might want to target. I think your time spent looking for such a site would be a giant waste of your time considering the quality (lack thereof) of the link you are going to get even if you find one. There are easier and much more effective ways to build links that are less risky for sure.

To each his own though.

Hawker said:

Regarding Nofollow links from relevant websites: - Well we're talking about Google here right? So counting as in seeing (crawling/indexing) site B (their site) linking to site A (your site). Then attributing that as a backlink (vote/citation/whatever) to your site. Counted.

Click to expand...

Okay got it. Well, to my understanding, Google is dropping nofollow links from the link graph entirely before they calculate PageRank and also removed from the link graph before determining any anchor text relevancy bonus that might be applied to the URL linked to. So what I was digging at with you was to see if you thought there was something about the link other than PageRank and anchor text that mattered - and if so - what is it and how do you think it works.

Hawker said:

It's worth mentioning here that Google still considers a non hyperlinked URL as a backlink. Or as a citation, as a backlink. Whether its hyperlinked/anchored or not.

Example. Putting the URL webmastersun.com in a blog post or something on some other site, that would still be counted as a backlink by Google.

Even if its hyperlinked or not.

Also citations don't necessarily have to be a link, they could be your business or company name, address etc.

https://moz.com/community/q/do-citations-count-as-backlinks
.

Click to expand...

The article you linked to is talking about ranking in Google's local search results. The algorithm for local search is not the same algorithm as regular organic search. There are some similarities but also many differences. This is why you can see a sites ranking in the top few local results and not appear in the top 10 or 20 organic results. It has been suggested that citations (mentions not links) work for local SEO. To assume that they also work for organic SEO rankings as well is a stretch and not a good assumption.

Even the last poster in that article - who is a staff member at Moz says -

If your business model isn't truly local, then citations aren't really meant for you.

Click to expand...

I don't feel like getting into a long dragged out discussion about this, but I will share one of my own experiments so you understand why I say that. Some years back I recall reading (probably on Moz or some other popular public site like that) that someone thought you could just throw a URL into the content of a page without creating an actual link - And then Google would discover that URL and index a page because of it and count that as a regular hyperlink from that page to the other one.

Well I tested that theory and it proved false. Google did not index the pages I tested. And I placed the URL on pages that had visible PageRank that were crawled daily for their updated content. And I could see that updated content getting indexed on those pages. Yet the URL did not lead to Google indexing the pages mentioned.

Therefore I concluded that - Google isn't using those links/mentions for discovery at all (at least they didn't when I tested it). And obviously those mentions aren't passing PageRank, because if they were, the target pages would be indexed. So as a result of those pages not being even indexed, I then formed the opinion that those URL mentions were entirely worthless for rankings/SEO (at least for any purposes I could care about).

So if you want to believe that just by mentioning a website on a page without linking to it, that that mention is helping you rank higher in the regular Google organic results (not local business search results), go ahead and believe it. I don't.

Really worth reading your thread here. Many SEO peoples are doing the same mistakes like all those things you listed out here.
I like 2 and 5 point. This is where people are usually getting affected a lot.