Everything you need to know about back-links and link-building

Back-links are the best way to keep a track record of other web pages that links to your posts or pages. Backlinks are also known by the names, incoming links, inward links, inbound links and inlinks. Building quality backlinks help your site attain more traffic and in turn more revenue. If your website is having a good number of quality backlinks, then your website will be more credible and natural within Google’s eye. Always try to gain one way back-links, this will help you in placing your website in a better position.

Importance of backlinks in search engine rankings

Backlinks have a great role in search engine rankings. Web sites are continuously monitored by the search engines,  they rank a website according to different norms and factors. According to a search engine, a site is said to be perfect only when it has a lot of natural backlinks. The search engine checks the back-links obtained by a website and monitor the quality of such backlinks. Hence the backlinks of your website are a major factor. Usually website owners hire SEO services for getting better and quality backlinks for their websites. Hiring SEO service is a good practice until they help you gain quality backlinks.

Do’s -backlinking for SEO

  • Be reliable
  • Distinctive domains
  • Be sure that you optimize anchor text

Safe sites to get quality backlinks

Safe Links

  • Audio sharing websites: Links from Audio sharing websites are considered to be the best way to get quality backlinks.
  • Blogger reviews: Find high-quality blogger sites which suit your website and are relevant to your content.
  • Quality forums: Even though forum submissions are risk factors to attain link. Getting two or three links from quality forums will be an added advantage.
  • Portfolio submission: Portfolio submission sites are another safe zone to have quality backlinks.
  • Guest Posting: Guest posting is another controversial topic in SEO. Make sure that you acquire links from well known and relevant sites. Never build t many links from such websites though.
  • Infographics: Backlinks from infographics sites is a safe way of link building. One creates quality infographics from sites like Easelly.
  • Video submission: Video submission is yet another best method since video links get indexed very soon. Gaining such links is yet another way of getting safe and strong backlinks.
  • Links from the news : Getting links from news channel is the best way of gaining natural links. Getting links from high PR press release sites are also worth.
  • Citation: Citation or listing websites is an easy way of getting links that are strong and quick links. There are a lot of high-quality citation websites, from where one can easily obtain natural backlinks.

How to get backlinks in a natural way

Natural Link Building

Quite this is a very easy method. Be natural and selective while building links. Make sure that you check the page authority, page rank and the site relevancy before building links to your web page.

Factors affecting the value of backlinks

Value of the backlink

  • Backlinks from authoritative sites: The site from which backlinks have acquired must be quality ones.if both the sites have related quality content and relevancy, then it will add advantage to the website. Search engines make sure that the overall relevance f the site is of high quality.
  • Links from the trusted website: Links are always valuable if they come from a high-quality website. High-quality websites are usually trusted ions, search engine gives more importance to such websites. Some of the well known, trusted sites are Wikipedia, BBC etc. Linking to highly trusted sites always help you add valued and quality backlinks.
  • Traffic: People usually going through a website clicks the links given within the website. It’s a usual practice right?? Whenever we are going through some relevant page and finds it interesting we usually follow the link. This is indeed a good practice because your website is going to get a lot of traffic.
  • Importance of anchor text: Anchor text is the words within which you are linking your website is another main factor. Making same anchor text from overall backlinks is not at all a good practice to carry out. So, always making variations while using anchor text.
  • In-content links and its value: Including links within the main text area is always a good practice. Search engines usually value such links as the best ones. While including links within a blog or post make sure that you place the link within the main text or within the top area of content.
  • Page rank matters: Page rank or PR is another main factor which search engines usually checks. The higher the page rank the higher will be the quality of your backlink. Page rank of a website can rise or fall once Google releases updates.
  • Close to authority sites: If you have a strong backlink that is from a very high-quality website, then Google will list you within that high-quality sites. In case you have links have low-quality sites too, there is less possibility of listing your websites within such sites.
  • Backlinks from unique sites: Having 1000’s links from existing sites does not make any huge difference. Links must be made from different and unique websites. So always try to build quality links from new sites.
  • Say no, no reciprocal links: Link exchange is not considered a good practice, even though nowadays penalizing such sites has reduced.
  • Other links within the web page: Search engine usually divides the trust and authority within a page to all the links within that particular page. S, it’s always safe to have fewer links within the page. A page with less than ten external links is considered as the best page.
  • Go for not easily available websites: Easily acquiring backlinks has less value. If you get a link from the easily available website and gets live immediately, then it is sure that thousands of people have acquired a link from the same site. So always try to acquire backlinks from such sites which are not easily available.

Types of backlinks Google does not like 

1. Link Exchanges: Webmasters used to use this method of link exchange during early 2007, this was a very easy method of making links.  Thus eventually Google took action against this method.

2. Blog network usage: Google has started to penalize various websites which attain numerous links from social networks. So make sure that your website does not gain too many backlinks from many blog networks.

3. Widget backlinks: Never use widgets as a link building strategy, popular sites like Godaddy have been penalized by Google for this reason. It’s always safe to include rel=”nofollow” to all widgets.

4. Stay away from Advertorials: Accepting sponsored articles, that include dofollow backlink , then your website has every chance of getting penalized. Such a method is considered as a way of violating Google guidelines.

5. Unnatural way of passing page rank via paid links: Google never accepts passing page rank with the paid link, such links are considered as unnatural ones. Adding rel nofollow to sponsored backlinks is a safe way.

Google Penalties

6. Article directories: Recent studies have revealed that article directories like Ezine Articles and Article base do not provide any genuine way. They constantly add articles of the same topic, which  Google considered as an unnatural and non-ethical way of building links.

7. Hiding links in javascript and CSS: Webmasters usually hide backlinks on various websites,it will be  a tricky method of building backlinks. This is the worst method of having backlinks and one must avoid such way of building links.

8. Footer and side backlinks: It’s a usual practice to place backlinks from blog footers and sidebars which is  a very bad way of acquiring backlinks.

9. Uneven and less distribution of anchor text: Acquiring backlinks from several platforms is good practice only when you link from suitable anchor text. Linking from the same anchor text, again and again, is another unnatural method of gaining backlinks.

10. Gaining backlinks from foreign language websites: If you have a website in the English language, and you acquire backlinks from numerous foreign languages is a bad way of gaining backlinks. Google usually penalizes such websites and flag them. So,  be sure that you gain links from relevant and high authority websites.

11. Gaining backlinks from poor quality guest posting: Guest posting is still a matter of  debate, various updates come each time and Google took action against such method of acquiring links. Google only accepts quality backlinks which are coming from quality guest blogging sites.

12. Easily acquired backlinks: Google reviews backlinks which are automatically generated, such links gets easily penalized by Google. It’s safe to stay away from backlinks which are generated from bots such as web2.o , forums, comments etc.

13. Poor quality web directories: Directory submission is an old practice of gaining backlinks, paid or free now directory submission is at risk. Concentrate yourself on building links from natural and high-quality websites like yahoo directory, Dmoz etc.

14. Gaining backlinks from bookmark websites: Bookmarking sites are another automated technique where users place and acquire links very easily. Make sure that you gain quality backlinks from authority websites.

15. Inappropriate backlinks: Be genuine, never acquire backlinks from irrelevant backlinks. If your website is about web development, then acquiring links from automobile websites never make any sense. Be genuine, create natural backlinks.

16. Acquiring links from sites that carry duplicate contents: Gaining links from sites containing spun and duplicate content will never help you gain any valued links. Google always encourages websites having unique and quality content, such webpage will help users acquires relevant and useful content. Therefore, make sure that your web page contains backlinks from the relevant and useful webpage.

17. Avoid backlinks which intend to influence page rank: Avoid building links from schemes that usually violate Google deadlines.

Four main types of backlinks you must have 

1. Informational backlink: As the name suggests informational backlinks are types of backlinks which lead readers to useful content.  And this is what Google exactly promotes. Always go for websites that allow you to gain genuine links, select web pages that contain appropriate content which appears appropriate for your webpage.

2. Definitional backlink: Definitional backlinks are those which offers linked words. Such definitional links are considered as better links by Google. First of all build a strong and brief glossary which have enough details about your web page and branch. This makes people easily reach your post and link them. 

3. Referential Backlink: Referential backlinks are usually used to give users to link to high quality and authorized web pages. One of the most commonly used referential webpages is Wikipedia.

4. Promotional backlink: Promotional backlinks help the users to land a safe and authorized landing page.

How to identify bad backlinks and clean up your website 

Bad backlinks are easy to find, links become bad when it is acquired from low-quality web pages. Link removal is one of the best practice to remove all your bad backlinks. Even though link removal is a hectic task, you can be sure that your website is safe once you have done with that.

When to check your backlinks??

Actually, one must check their backlinks once in a while. But the main circumstances where you must check out your backlink status are mentioned below;

  1. The time your website is hit with a manual penalty or you get unnatural link warning mail. A manual penalty is a time when Google reminds you that it’s the time to clean your backlinks. The two main penalties which Google hits are Manual penalty and algorithmic penalty (Algo penalty). These penalties remind you that your website has acquired backlinks which are unnatural or unethical ones. Follow this link to know how to clean your website once hit by Google penalty.
  1. The second circumstance arises when you observe your website is not ranking like it used to.

Backlink cleanup becomes more hectic when you face these two circumstances, so it is always advisable to check your backlinks once in a while. Gradual checkup can be helpful to your website. Gradual backlink checkups must be done once you find spammy links within your profile or while you conduct a backlink audit.

How to speed up your backlink removal process

Once you find that your website has acquired negative SE then its time to speed up your backlinks. One of the tools which helps you speed up your backlink clean up is Link Research tools. This tool is achieving maximum reviews and is successful in finding and cleaning up the bad quality backlinks.