Why Links Matter?

Whenever I'm asked about what I do for a living, I say something like this: "you know those pieces of text that you can click on inside of a webpage, the ones that take you somewhere else? I place those."
Blank stare. Sometimes they respond with, "OK, but why?" That's a damn good question. The "why" behind the existence of links has been a bit more absent than it should be, especially for people who are new to the field.

Why Do Links Matter?

Hyperlinks were the main method of building the Internet and connecting sites through HTML, allowing people and bots to move around and find what they needed. They were like any other citations, methods of getting additional information by going somewhere else.

Contrary to popular belief, Al Gore didn't invent the hyperlink. The term itself was first used in the 1960s, before most of you were born.

In 1998 there was the first on-paper mention of PageRank, just before Larry Page and Sergei Brin actually founded Google. The theory behind PageRank became part of the basis of the Google algorithm, and continues to be so today.

To greatly simplify the concept, PageRank is a popularity contest wherein the pages with the most support (via inbound links) behind them should be viewed as the most important ones. You could increase a page's importance simply by building as many links as possible to it.

As anyone who deals with SEO knows though, it's a lot trickier than that.

Not All Links Are of Equal Importance

A link from the homepage of a powerful site like the BBC will be of a higher quality than a link from the links page of your high school's blog.

If a competitor that ranked above you in the SERPs had 100 more links than you, you couldn't just go grab 101 links and rank above him. Some links are simply more valuable than others, particularly links from authoritative sites (like respected news sites) and links from .edu and .gov domains.

Like every other SEO tactic, this was abused, differing opinions abounded, and everyone tried to nail down the exact science of it.

In 2005, the nofollow link attribute came along and ruined all our fun. No longer could we throw tons of links at sites in order to make them rank. That can still work as you'll see at times, but quick wins with links aren't as plentiful as they were pre-nofollow.

In 2009, PageRank was removed from Google's Webmaster Tools, mainly due to the fact that people didn't really understand that the number they saw wasn't a true representation of their sites's importance (and was updated about as frequently as your grandma's hairstyle.)

Note: there have been some updates to the original PageRank patent, which Bill Slawski covers in detail here.

The PrePageRank World

What did we do before we had that pesky little toolbar indicator? Without that one commonly misunderstood metric to constantly monitor and agonize about, we used rankings and traffic as an indicator of our performance.

We could also rank a site without links, just by keyword stuffing (cramming keywords into my tags and content to the extent that 50 percent of my words were that exact keyword, for example) and cloaking (figuring out how to send search engine spiders to one place where I keyword-stuffed while showing users a nice, pretty page). Those were the good old days when you could get a link on a site and not get cussed out by your client because they wanted all PR 4s and up and you, stupidly, got a link on a new but very relevant and well-trafficked PR 0 site.

We still knew that links were important. They just didn't make us crazy.

Link exchanges were very big. Having a page just devoted to outgoing links was huge. It was a softer, gentler time when link building as we know it today was innocent. The only people that I knew who built links were generalist SEOs, and looking back now, it's easy to see that we did it badly by today's standards.

Actual PageRank

There's a point that gets lost a lot, one that makes it obvious that actual PageRank and visible PageRank are two very different things.

The PageRank that we can see represented in the bar, a number, from a PageRank checker, etc., is updated infrequently and isn't the actual PageRank that Google assigns to your site. The actual PageRank calculation, if shown here, would make all of our heads spin. Let's just say that it's a lot more complicated than a number from 0 to 10.

Toolbar PageRank

This is what you do see (and sometimes confuse with actual PageRank.) Toolbar PageRank is one of many factors in how your site will rank but its importance is way overblown and oversimplified. You will see sites with a Toolbar PageRank of 1 outranking sites with a Toolbar PageRank of 5, due to various other considerations (like social signals, for example.)

PageRank Sculpting and Link Juice

Now here is where things get particularly interesting to me. Pages have their own specific PageRank (both actual and toolbar) and through linking elsewhere, they can send link juice in the same way that they receive it.

If a page has 10 outgoing links on it and none are nofollowed, each page linked to should receive one-tenth of that page's link juice. If five links are nofollowed and five are not, each of those five followed links should receive 20 percent of that page's link juice and the five nofollowed links should receive none of it.

Due to this idea, people began to experiment with manipulation. (Can you imagine SEOs manipulating anything?) We nofollowed certain links that went to other site pages, ones that weren't quite as important as the others but ones that we did link to in the navigation. That seemed OK.

Later, like with almost everything else, it got complicated. I won't bore you with the details here. Suffice it to say it's not a widely recommended practice anymore. Some still do it, some don't, but controlling link juice didn't work as we hoped it would. You'd think we would all learn our lessons but no, no we never do.

So Why Do Links Matter Today?

Oddly enough, they matter for the same reasons that they have always mattered: they send traffic by making connections and yes, they are still a large part of ranking. I don't see that changing any time soon, even though many people (and myself) think that certain other factors like social signals are becoming important.
A good link will send you nice link juice and help to boost your rankings so that you'll get more traffic and hopefully more conversions. A great link will do the same thing but it will send you traffic on its own.

Some links probably do absolutely nothing positive. You can get a link on a high-profile site and no one will ever click on it. You can receive referring traffic from a footer link on the crappiest site you've ever seen. You can get a rankings boost from both of those links. It's like magic.

Then there's the concept of authority. Links from other sites will lend credibility and authority to your site, ideally, through using you as an example. When a site links to you, the anchor text is viewed as an indicator of what your site is about.

Like the rest of this, that is no longer a perfect system. Theoretically, the keywords that a site links to you with should boost your authority for that topic.

If CNN linked to your site with an anchor of "great place to buy a computer" then your site would probably be viewed as an actual great place to buy a computer, and you'd probably rank higher for that phrase than if you'd gotten that link from your mom's local birdwatching site. However, the birdwatching site would still help you rank for a great place to buy a computer, but since it's most likely not as authoritative as CNN, to actually get a noticeable rankings boost, you'd need to get that link and more of the same for it to make a difference.

CNN has authority signals, which engines can take into account: people link to it, they reference it on Twitter and Facebook, they comment on stories, they comment on videos, the traffic is probably truly amazing, and the brand itself is one that most people recognize. One link from a site like that is much, much more powerful than more links from sites that have no social traction or online footprint.

Here is What I Truly Believe

The importance of links may lessen a bit, but it won't go away completely. The web was built on links. You can rank well without them of course (think breaking news stories or blog posts that get loads of attention on the first few days), but depending upon what shows up in a search engine's results is just as bad an idea as depending upon any one route into your site.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2166568/Why-Links-Matter

Link Building For Life: Determining Lifetime Link Value

The ideal goal for some SEOs is to minimize maintenance and effort for a given website. Get to number one for all desirable keywords, sit back, and then move on to the next website while the previous domain rakes in the cash. This dream scenario is unfortunately rarely the case, because there are other competitors that make number one an increasing difficult mark to hit – and, also, most notably – the link graph has a rapid rate of attrition.

Losing Value – Losing Links

Every website succumbs to the reductionist nature of the web. Although the number of pages increase, the link graph also has a way of deteriorating – meaning that many of the initial links you receive could end up declining in value or otherwise, outright disappearing.

Your backlink profile, if ignored, will shrink considerably, and that number one ranking – or any ranking at all – could be lost. If that ranking’s future value is taken care of like a child and nurtured into adulthood, it’s even possible you can let it off into the real world – without needing but a phone call or two to maintain the same connection.

What you need to do to maintain your link graph – and/or insure its links appreciate in value – is be rigorous in the evaluation of the domain you’re attempting to get a link from. There is much, much more to the value of a link than the present value of the page. SEO is a long term game, so it only makes sense to future-proof your links.

Doing so can make one link, of seeming equal value to another link now, worth 2x as much in terms of lifetime link value (LLV).

Like the much referenced business methodology customer lifetime value (CLV), lifetime link value is a process – and an ideology – that can separate a highly profitable SEO campaign from one that barely covers your bills for McDonalds.

Determining Lifetime Link Value

Although I don’t suggest you plug approximate values in an equation to determine the LLV of any given link, keeping it in mind as a strong delimiter in determining link value is something every SEO should do.
A link with the a high lifetime link value has the following characteristics:

• It will exist on the page as long as the page exists. That is, it is not a “rented” link or a link that faces temporary restrictions, like a listing as a speaker on the frontpage of a major conference website, or as a sponsor of an upcoming, yearly event.
• Its positioning/stance in the current site architecture makes it unlikely it will ever “fall off” the link graph. Many websites, namely blogs, have a temporal state that poorly aligns with site architecture, meaning that your link will eventually be more than 10 clicks from the homepage. When this happens, and no other external links have been obtained, it is a near certainty that it will eventually be worth but a sliver of value, or completely fall off the link graph.
• It exists on a domain with an upward backlink growth trend. If a webmaster is still actively promoting his or her website, it is a near certainty that link growth continues to trend upward. On the opposite side, if a website is trending downward, it is probable that the webmaster cares less, the topic isn’t as important, and overall, future link value will decline.
• It is not off topic on the domain in question. Manipulative, off-topic links trigger disdain in the users that observe them. Even if historical trends show an upward climb, if your link is off topic and prominent, now, that’s a good sign that the future value of the link will trend downward.

Breaking Down Link Characteristics

Many SEOs don’t apply their own on-page evaluations to off-site link evaluation. This happens because we get lazy, because links are hard to get, and because we rarely put in deep consideration for domains that aren’t our own.

This lack of deep consideration – or even, deeper than standard consideration – can handicap some teams into getting links that aren’t worth much, that won’t continue to move the needle, and will cause long term costs to be much higher than they have to be.

Temporal Link Factors

How do you know if a link will be removed by a webmaster or other omnipotent party? If you acquired the link manipulatively, there’s a pretty good chance they are likely to do that at whim – especially if you use the popular “link renting” practice that will obliterate LLV. If you sponsor an event that’s yearly or have a link placed on content that doesn’t have perpetual value, you may face the same fate.

Perpetual value is the same concept that pervades with “evergreen content”. Evergreen content won’t succumb to temporal factors that will make the webmaster update them and potentially remove your link. A static page on the best plugins for Chrome is way more likely to have a receding LLV as opposed to a link on a page about “How to Tie Your Shoes” – as I think we’ll be tying them the same way for a long time to come, and those Chrome plugins, and Chrome in general, are way more likely to become extinct.

Site Architecture Of The Hosted Link

Many blogs are poorly constructed. They have posts that fall off the link graph and then just as quickly fall off our lives. They do a bad job of internal linking, there are no pages that serve as homepage-hosted HTML sitemaps – and as such, the best link in the world from the strongest domain can just as quickly become one that disappears if no external domains link to it.

So, in blogs, look for those same things you profess with your own blog. First, archiving and/or tags in the sidebar. The best blogs in the world probably won’t have these, but everyone else (the links you’re probably getting most of the time), should.

Many “big” blogs, such as TechCrunch or The New York Times, can’t possibly do this due to the less-than-amazing look this setup provides, the sheer volume of content they create, and also, because maximizing ad-space is a must. They make up for it through strong internal linking practices in their individual posts. But for those casual bloggers and other micro-sites with less-than-adept webmasters, you’re likely spending a lot of time getting a link from a blog with a terrible LLV.

Similarly, increasingly popular Tumblr is horrendous for SEO purposes, because there is no way to archive anything, and internal linking is terrible. It can offer some real traffic which can turn into other links, but for the pure power of a link, you’re better off twiddling around Blogger.

As it comes to getting posts on blogs (or any site), you should strive for a link that will always be two clicks from the homepage. Any more and you run the risk of losing the power of the link if the domain drops in value, your post is pushed back, or nobody else links to the post.

Historical Backlink Growth Trends

If we’re trying to determine where a potential linking domain is going and has gone, there’s no better option than Majestic SEO’s Backlink History tool.

There are several options to select with this tool to help determine the velocity of link growth for your domain. It’s not perfect, but with a keen eye, it points out clear situations where a domain has hit a wall or is declining, as opposed to a domain that’s growing exponentially.

If we look at Empire Promos and Amsterdam Printing*, two competitors in the promotional items space, we can see an example of this in action. Although both domains have positive growth trends going forward and aggregate domain strength, they aren’t equal domains in terms of probable LLV. The current map shows that it’s likely that Amsterdam will outgain Empire in the future – even if the current value, at least as this graph is concerned, is comparable for both.

Off Topic Link Placement

Manipulative, off-topic links are a sure sign of a domain that will begin to recede in the future. Even if the webmaster isn’t aware of it, the presence of these will mark the future steep decline of the domain – because they greatly impair user experience.

Understand that they will very frequently mark the beginning of the end for the website you’re placing them on. Your time would be better off obtaining on-topic links on evergreen pages – with the site architecture and backlink growth trends that offer a Lifetime Link Value that would make any economist drool.

Source: http://searchengineland.com/link-building-for-life-determining-lifetime-link-value-77030

What to Do When Your Link Building Gets Stuck

Sooner or later it is bound to happen. You or your SEO professional are in month nine of the year-long link building strategy and you’ve hit a wall. It feels like there are no more quality blogs to comment on, your list of directories to submit to is getting smaller and good, new ones increasingly hard to find and creating new content feels like pulling teeth. You’ve hit the link building wall. If you work in a relatively niche industry, you may hit this wall sooner than others. But don’t let this stop your link building efforts or SEO tactics in general.

Here are a few ideas of what to do when your link building gets stuck:

Don’t get frustrated

It’s easy to feel like you are banging your head against a wall. The first thing to remember is to not get frustrated. Frustration leads to desperation which can lead you into black hat SEO territory. No matter how slow the link building is getting, it’s never worth using black hat SEO techniques to keep the process moving.

Take a look back

Sort through your previous link building activities and check on blogs you commented on to see if the comments actually went through. If they didn’t, trying commenting on another post on that blog. It’s possible that the blog owner isn’t actively monitoring comments, but that doesn’t mean you should keep from trying again.

Also look back at your directory submissions and make sure those got posted. If they didn’t, try resubmitting your URL. If the link did go through, make sure you filled out the profile as completely as you could. If you’ve updated any keywords, go in and edit the profile description to match.

Double check on your article submissions. If an article didn’t go through, feel free to resubmit it to a different site. Why let good content go to waste? As long as it is still relevant, you can publish it on another site.

Check out the competition

If you are really stuck, check out what kind of SEO your top three competitors are doing. What blogs are they commenting on, what kind of news are they pushing in press releases. Maybe one of them stumbled upon a really good link building source that you can use for your own efforts. What associations are they apart of? What trade shows are they going to? Their on- and offline marketing efforts might just be the inspiration you need.

Look outside your industry

If you’re a company that makes tennis rackets, you’ve probably focused your link building efforts to the tennis/tennis racket industry. Take a look outside your specific niche and find related industries that you can work with. Why not see if you can make headway elsewhere? Think outside the box and see where that takes you.

The important thing is to not give up. With so much time and effort already invested in your link building strategy, don’t throw away what you’ve done because you aren’t sure where to go.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/what-to-do-when-your-link-building-gets-stuck-025915

What if My Competitor Buys Spam Links to My Website?

This question has been very often discussed. Yet, we are getting back to it again and again. Let’s try to crear up some confusions?

Here’s what makes us discuss that questions again: Whiteboard Friday from SEOmoz. The question is simple: how Google finds out that a website is building spam links?

Incoming links are not under your control, there is no simple way you can stop your website from getting links back from spammy websites. So what if my competitor buys 100s of spammy links and then points them to my website? Will Google pull my website down like JC Penney and others?

So, is there any way to remove the links from those sites? Is there any penalty for those who are involved in these kinds of unethical activities to pull down the competitor?

Track Your Incoming Links
Gary-Adam Shannon has a wonderful post about this; let me share some important points from the post:

Adam recommends two tools to be alerted of new backlinks: The Google Alert and Link Monitoring Service.

• Set the Google Alert for your website name so you will get notifications as soon as your brand is mentioned anywhere online.
• Majestic SEO (in my opinion) is the best tool for Link Monitoring. Majestic can give you a daily break down on new links and you can use their graphing systems to see link spikes.

Ok, let’s move on… now I know how to get alerts when any SPAM website is linked to me, but what are the preventives once I am under attack? Let’s suppose I come to know that there are some SPAM websites who are linking to my website and this is not natural, it clearly seems like somebody has done some link buying in against of my website, the graph shows something like this:

So What Do I Do If I Suspect I am Being Spam-Linked?


Do I have to email Google or something like that? What should I do? Keeping this situation in mind, I broke down the situation into three questions:

I emailed the same questions to one of the most creative link builders Wiep Knol. Here’s his reply:

Google’s Matt Cutts has repeatedly mentioned that they will try to prevent this as much as they can. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible, but it would be very difficult for aged domains. New domains are easier to burn with spammy links.

In most cases, Google will simply devalue the paid or spammy links, instead of penalizing the buyer. In some cases, either the link seller or the link buyers will get a penalty, but this is quite rare if you compare it to the amount of sites that sells and/or buys links.

And since it would be *really* difficult to determine which competitor has been buying links for website A, I don’t think competitor B has much risk, apart from bad press when things do come out.

Conclusion:
There is no simple way Google can track who is actually buying the links?

So, what I can do? First, don’t get obessed. In reality this kind of situation is very rare. People would hardly do this kind of investment as you can never be sure if and how it will work. Will it pull you down in SERPs? Will it be ignored? Will it result in wasted money?

Al you can do is to maintain a clear natural link building profile. Nothing is earned as hard and works as good as a crystal clear reputation!

Read more: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-if-my-competitor-buys-spam-links-to-my-website/28786/