I’ve spent over a decade building links and publicity for websites. Back when I started in 1993, search engines cared nothing about links besides following them in the hunt for new pages to crawl. Times change, though; now, links rule. Even job titles like “Linking Specialist” are becoming common.
However, there is an ugly downside when a search engine ranks pages based on linking analysis – link spam and scams – the proliferation of incorrect information, such as “Reciprocal links are evil!” and “Paid links will get you banned!”, and an increase in companies offering useless link building services, such as “100 Links for $99!”.
Many businesses are worried they have done something wrong, worried their competitor has more links, worried they are stuck in a sandbox, worried they have too few or too many anchor text links, or worried about links they bought or sold.
Relax. Take a deep breath. Let’s go over a few facts and myths to begin to clear the fog of links. Remember that search engines know how to count links, but the difficult part lies in discerning which of the links they have counted they can trust. A blog comment link? Not trustworthy. A link from a public library website at an “.org” domain? Very trustworthy.
There are many types of links that web marketers can obtain, but all links either help your search rank, help with direct click traffic, or both.
The pursuit of links solely for search rank is precisely where companies get into trouble and where the rumors and confusion start. And if there is one truth about the pursuit of links, it’s that there are plenty of rumors and confusion.
Here are the questions I’m asked most often:
Q: Can a site be banned by search engines for its linking tactics?
A: Yes. Participation in link farms, buying site-wide links, and even some anchor text tactics can get your site into trouble, because any strategy designed to fool a search engine is risky. Before seeking a link, always ask yourself, “Why do I want it?” If your answer includes the word Google, Yahoo, or MSN, then you’d better do a full risk assessment before going after it.
Q: Is the Google Sandbox real?
A: Yes and no. A brand-new site will often take some time before appearing in the search results, and this leads people to believe they have been placed in a sort of purgatory, or sandbox, until they earn their freedom. How is such liberty gained? One way is to be linked from trusted sites.
However, the sandbox is not an unavoidable obstacle – plenty of sites with few links at all appear in search results, and, although I wouldn’t be surprised if this tactic fails over time, sites can buy their way out of the sandbox via links from second- and third-tier directories.
Q: Is swapping links good or bad?
A: Swapping links, aka exchanging reciprocal links, is not a tactic you should be using to improve your search rank; if the only reason you are doing so is to appeal to the bots, you are wasting your time. However, if you are swapping links because you want your site visitors to know about the other site, there’s nothing wrong with that. Just remember, though, that the engines can count, and if you were Google and saw that 90% of a site’s links had been reciprocated, would you trust them? Nope.
Q: Are all paid links bad?
A: Not all, but some are very bad. Paid links are no different from banner ads. Click them, and you go to another site: it’s another form of advertising – even Google AdSense ads are paid links. It boils down to what your intent was when you bought or sold the link. Was it to help the search rank of the buyer’s site? If so, you run the risk of getting busted. I buy links for clients all the time, but not for SEO or link popularity purposes. I only do it for the audience of the site on which those links will appear, so ultimately I don’t care if an engine ever crawls those pages.
Q: Which links are trustworthy and how do I get them?
A: Ah, the heart of the matter. If you are talking specifically about search engine rankings, then the links that are the best for your site will be different from the links that are best for another site. There is no common collection of links that represents the Holy Grail. In simpler terms, if you have a site about poodle grooming, then you need a different set of links than would a site about accounting software. The challenge is in identifying that “perfect storm” of links that makes sense for you. That’s what I do everyday for my clients, and it isn’t easy.
As far as search engines are concerned, there are many factors to consider when looking for trustworthy links. Some of the logic is flawed, to be sure, but most is sound. Links that are older, originate from certain top-level domains (“.edu”, “.gov”), and those that appear on certain “trusted” content sites have a greater link value. This makes good sense – after all, if a site suddenly gets 1,000 new links from “.biz” or “.info” domains, then the engines will very likely just ignore them.
Likewise, a site with a just handful of high-value, trusted links could find itself ranking very high. It’s not about quantity; it’s about quality. A single link from a trusted “.gov” site can have more impact than 100 links from known link farms.
People at the End of the Pipes
I’ve said this many times over the years, and it is as true today as it was back when I started in this business. When building links, it is a mistake to focus solely on the search engines. For every website there is an online collection of people, places, and venues that will care to link to it, write about it, share it. Yesterday’s Geocities home page is today’s blog. A zine becomes a podcast. Zeal begets Furl. Social bookmarking services grow to encompass thousands of members, all sharing links with each other. Tagging sites that let people share content flourish.
Think past the search engine algorithm: in a web full of User Generated Content, the user becomes the algorithm. It’s still about people sharing content, one link at a time.
Posted on February 9, 2007
