Link Value: Are All Incoming Links Equal? Part I
The key factor in achieving top positions in search engines is link popularity. The more sites are pointing to your website, the better. Any link you obtain has some impact on your search engine rankings.
Not all the links you build are equal. In this article I talked about the types of links you should avoid in order not to spoil your search engine rankings.
Now I’d like to speak about quality links to help you clearly understand what you should focus your efforts on.
As it comes to link building the key factor is relevance. The relevance means:
- The relevance of the website (or the specific page) that links back to your site;
- The relevance of the anchor text of the link to your site.
The impact a relevant link will have on your rankings will vary from a little one to the biggest one. The more relevant the website where your link is, and the more relevant the anchor text you use, the bigger the impact of the back link on your rankings.
Based on relevance, let’s divide links into 3 types.
Type 1. These are links from the most relevant websites that rank high in Google for target keywords. These links will have the biggest impact on your search engine rankings. Here you can have:
- an "ideal" link when using the exact keyword phrase the website ranks for as the anchor test for your link;
- a "good" link when using the individual keywords in the anchor text;
- a "neutral" link when using neutral anchor text, or using a pure URL without an anchor text.
Let’s assume you want to rank for the "email marketing software" phrase. The "ideal" link would be a link from the website which is on the top position in Google for the "email marketing software" term with the "email marketing software" as the anchor text.
A "good" link would be a link from top websites with the keywords in the anchor text, for example, "software for email marketing", "email software", "software to send email marketing campaigns" and the like.
A neutral link will have unrelated anchor text, for example, "click here" or "read more" , or the website will simply put your URL as is http://www.yourdomain.com. In this case you can rely only on the theme relevance of the already ranked websites that pass the relevance to your site. You cannot benefit from the additional advantage of having the related anchor text.
The downside is that the type 1 links are the most difficult to get. If you decide to buy a link, these links are the most expensive ones if such an option is available.
Type 2. These links are from "theme relevant pages" and will still have an excellent impact on your search engine rankings when targeting specific terms. Type 2 links are easier to obtain because you are not focusing on the exact keyword phrase anymore.
Generally, all websites related to email marketing fall into this category. These may be the sites that rank for such terms as "how to send email newsletters" , "how to create and send HTML email" , "how to build email list" and so forth. Basically, any website themed around email marketing is OK to obtain the Type 2 links.
The same principals apply to the anchor text here:
- an "ideal" link will have the exact term (email marketing software) in the anchor text;
- a "good" link will have your keywords (not the exact phrase) in the anchor text;
- a "neutral" link will contain unrelated anchor text or show up as a regular link.
Links obtained from blog comments and directory submissions can also be labeled as the Type 2 links. Probably, you already have Fast Blog Finder. If you don't have it yet, you can download it for free here and start searching for relevant blogs where you can submit a comment and get a link back to your site.
The advantage of directory submissions is that they are often easier to build than other Type 2 links. Though these links will have less impact on your site ranking because you submit your site to the relevant category and that only page will hold the relevance to your theme.
There are many directory submission services on the Internet that can do the work for you. But if you want to have a full control under your submissions, directory submission software is exactly what you need.
Fast Directory Submitter is a semi-automatic submission tool. It contains a database of 2000+ free directories. Only for $20 per site you get access to the full directory database. Since web-based submission services charge $100 and more per 1000 directories, you save $80 at the least on each thousand directories with Fast Directory Submitter.
And unlike submission services, with Fast Directory Submitter you’re not limited in the number of titles/descriptions you can have for your links. You can add an unlimited quantity of keywords/descriptions to the site profile in Fast Directory Submitter. The program will take the keywords/description randomly when you pass from directory to directory so your links will look natural.
You have a full control under the site submission process. You can ensure that the program selected the right category for your website. If the category is wrong, you can choose the relevant category yourself. Type the captcha if required and click Submit to go to the next category. Submission to one directory takes just 5 seconds.
You can download Fast Directory Submitter now and start building valuable one way links right away.
Type 3. These are links from totally unrelated websites. However, they can have a positive impact on your site rankings if you use the exact term you want to rank for or your keywords in the anchor text (an "ideal" link and a "good" link).
A link from an unrelated site with an unrelated anchor text will produce no effect and you should not really focus your efforts at getting such links unless you write a description for your link that would add some relevance to it.
But don’t be obsessed with obtaining Type 1 and Type 2 links only. They are harder to obtain and more expensive to purchase. You can achieve the same results with the Type 3 links. The more Type 3 links you get, the bigger impact they have on your search engine rankings.
In the Part II we’ll continue talking about link building and examine other factors that determine link value and PageRank.
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Tags: anchor text, blog comments, build incoming links, directory submission, directory submitter, Link Building, link popularity, relevant link, search engine ranking, target keywords
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Filed under: SEO
Basically, I am obsessed with Fast Blog Finder and Fast Directory Submitter when they are first launched (I’m still obsessed now ; ) However, it is not easy to maintain a discipline to carry out the link building exercise. A lot of people when first started out, have tried too hard to search for dofollow blogs, leaving comments or filling up the Catcha when using the Fast Directory Submitter. It is like trying to run 4 miles a day when you first start jogging. Persistent is the key in link building. One should do it regularly and consistently before you can see a good result.
Ultimately, my advice is it is good to doing this by your self in the first couple of times to understand the whole process flow, but as soon as you can afford, try to outsource this task. The time can be well spent in other activities such as marketing your site.
Julia,
The 3 types of link building methods you have written about are what Google are looking for now. Gone are the days when exchanging links are popular. If one adds article writing and submission to the 3 then it will be completed. But my question is will one way links last for long? Hope Google will not change it’s algorithm soon!
Thanks for the educative post.
Good article.
Have couple of questions.
1) In my Search Engine Result Page(SERP) are several blogs. But thing is, that their comments system is nofollow. I know that there is dofollow and nofollow counting changes but still – will these comments on nofollow blog give me type 1 backlink bonus?
2) Directories is very fragile things. Very often they are flagged as linkfarms. So you must choose only clear, with good authority directories. Do you agree?
Also what you think about what is more important: document relevance or whole webpage relevance?
regards,
Vytas
Hello Julia, havn’t had an email from You in a while! Read the post… like it! Did a type 2 link for gogvo from a relevant theme blog recently…
The owner went bannana’s thought I was stealing all his potential customers! The concept of reciprical linking went right over his head!
Looking forward to more… On this subject!
Julia, nowadays google has made itself so clever that anything apart from your type 1 and type 2 “ideal” links are not really considered when it comes to SERP and link popularity. It can be helpful to boost the PR, but to get on top of search engines for your keywords, you ought to have links from authority sites which are relevant and has a good ranking on its own right. I am sure it is easy to find niche related blogs using fast blog finder so that you can put in those keywords in anchor text, read the post carefully and comment meaningfully and relevant to get a natural incoming link.
Yet another gem, Julia. Your analysis of link value is very logical and clear. Thanks – I have a question though, relating to rate of link growth. I always used to read advice saying don’t get more than 10-20 links per day average or else it appears unnatural. Is that still the case in your opinion? or is it more “natural” to grow links faster, because great resources can build thousands of links overnight if they get their exposure right?
Chris.
p.s. Thanks for the type 3 “ideal” signature link
)
Hello Chris,
If you have a well established web site, you may not limit yourself to 10-20 links per day. You can grow links faster if you have such a possibility. The limit to 10-20 links per day is recommended for a brand new web site. If the site that has recently appeared starts obtaining a lot of links very quickly, it may be a sign for a search engine to watch closely at this site. So, the site may end up in the Sand box and will not appear on the first pages in the search engine for some time (usually during 6 months).
Julia,
Post is fantastic, very useful, interesting and informative.
I’d like to speak about quality of any link, but in this case inbound link. I’d like to add that title attribute is just one of the equal parts of one link. Title attribute is very important in terms of SEO. IMHO just a little weaker then anchor text.
Anchor text of a inbound link should be almost the same with the meta title tag and heading – h1 of the destination web page. So anchor text should be consisted of about 7 – 8 words.
But title attribute of inbound link should be almost the same with meta description tag of the destination of web page about 15 – 20 words.
Thanks for sharing this post, keep up with that level.
Link quality does really matter. Sometimes it is difficult to get Type 1 and Type 2 links, either because I can’t find sites that fit with my niche and accept links, or the owner of the site might see me as competition and refuse to link to me!? I just discovered your great tools (Fast Blog Finder and Fast Directory Submitter), so finding the types of linking opportunities is easier.
The more relevant the better, obviously. I also think anchor text is very important. I’ve had the best luck looking through directories to access to communities and find many sites related to my niche.
I am really interested to find out whether directory links are of much value or not. I have heard mixed reviews.
Obviosuly DMOZ and Yahoo will help the website’s traffic and ranking, but what about the free directories like the ones used for Fast Directory Submitter?
I guess I will do some experimenting