The Race for Backlinks
-
I see that this question hasn't been addressed in 2013 and while reviewing my SEOMoz stats, my competition continues to beat me up in the backlink department. I'm wondering if anyone has advice as to how to build those backlinks without Penguin penalty. I want to do it right and I think that's why I can't win this race against my competitors who I see have backlinks on all sorts of sites that are not related to our business.
Thanks in advance for the advice!
-
Oh, and I do appreciate it! I know that it will definitely help someone out there anyway! I had a higher bounce rate and found out that speed was killing me so, once that was tweaked, our bounce rate continues to drop little by little!
Thanks again for your answer!
-
That's good. Just tossing out a possibility.
-
Egol, my bounce rate is very low so, I'm not worried at all about that but, I do miss out on even being 'seen' because backlinks are just not one of my strong suits. I prefer to garner them organically and because my competitors don't mind going at that the organic way, I don't rank as high. Once folks find my site, they do seem to stay!
-
Thanks.
If people don't see what they want immediately after landing then they will leave. If they have to think they will leave. And, I am pretty sure that will drop your rankings.
-
Being the owner of a web design company, I Like that response, EGOL!
-
Let's say that you do have superior backlinks but your site bounces traffic because it has a busy format or people don't "get it" or the landing page does not provide what the visitor is expecting.
Could that be the case?
Could a design change result in a spectacular increase in user engagement and cause more people to use domain queries to arrive at your site - because they know that YOU have what they want.
-
Thanks, Gina! I'm not always good with those catchy titles--perhaps I need to implement that more myself too (since it worked)!!
-
That is great news, Takeshi, and I'm hopeful that my site will once again, rise to the top! I'm biased, I know but, if I were moving to this area, I would want clear, concise, ACCURATE information on the area and not tidbits of 'junk' information that is on the sites that are ranking higher. I feel for the consumer here more than myself.
-
I do hope so, Karl! Thanks again for your input as well!
-
Thanks, for initiating this discussion, Debe. I sure can relate. AND! Most importantly, great job on the catchy question title. It worked!! When I saw it, I immediately made note to self: "catchy question titles - gotta get better at them to get attention from the big kids".
-
I know, it's frustrating and probably happened to all ethical SEO'ers at some point. Keep at it, you'll be rewarded! Good luck for the future
-
Thanks, Karl! I do agree and that has been my philosophy for years--and for a good number of them, I WAS ranking higher than the spammy sites. Now, it seems that the tables have turned and I really don't understand how that could happen with the recent updates. Backlinks seems to be where I am behind in the 'race' to be #1 but, I refuse to pay someone to link to my site who sells Viagra! It's just a bit frustrating when you've tried for years to stay on the straight and narrow!
I do watch my stats and understand the long term nature of this challenge; it just seems like I should be ranking considerably higher than I am--especially when I personally review the competitors' sites and know the difference in quality is not comparable.
-
Don't be tempted to follow your competitor's lead and acquire lots of low quality links, because Matt Cutts recently announced that they will be releasing a major Penguin update later this year. Don't throw away longterm growth with short term tactics, unless you're willing to lose it all.
Here is a great list of link building strategies if you're short on ideas:
-
I agree, Andy! I just wish Google could go more in-depth and rank accordingly!
-
Moosa - Those are the ONLY backlinks that I do have but, despite the fact that mine are far more quality AND related to the business (not pharmaceuticals or movies but, real estate related), I'm still not ranking as high as the sites with lower quality and more backlinks to non-related topics.
I know it's not a race--I was just trying to draw attention with the title!! Thanks for your input!
-
Thanks, Takeshi! And, yes, I'm referring to Penguin. Content is not a problem and as I compare my content to those who are ranking higher because of their backlinks from non-related businesses (mostly spam sites), it is frustrating that the consumer is driven to their site with either minimal information or misinformation.
-
I agree with the previous comments and be aware that if your competitors are building dodgy links, there is a good chance that they will get a penalty in the near future! Keep the faith with natural links and you will reap the benefits in the long term. Remember, SEO is a long term strategy so compare your stats each month and make sure you are seeing an improvement...if you are seeing an increase then keep it going, don't worry too much about those above you because there isn't much you can do about them.
-
I think what we are all trying to say is... as always with SEO ...
Quality Trumps Quantity
-
Building links was never a race for me it was more like how quality my link profile is and this is how I beat my competitors and rank over them again the money making keywords.
It’s not about how many links your competitors have and how many links do you have... after the panda and penguin update it’s quite clear that its more about the quality of links your competitors have as compare to you!
I would advise you to build some high quality, valuable links within your niche so that you can easily outrank your competitors for the desired key phrases.
-
I think Penguin is the penalty you're thinking of (Penguin targets links, Panda targets low quality content).
First of all, if you are manually building backlinks, avoid getting too many exact match anchor text links. So, if you're trying to get a page to rank about "cheap real estate", avoid having too many links that have that exact anchor text, because it looks unnatural and you could get penalized. The latest Penguin update penalized sites with as low as 50% of links with exact anchor text.
The best way to avoid link penalties is to get links where you can't control anchor text. These include things like organic mentions on newsites, blogs, and magazines. Instead of thinking "how can I build more links?" think: "how can I create content that people will want to link to?" Those are the links that are going to carry the most weight anyway, not random backlinks from unrelated sites.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Web 2.0 Backlinks
Hi Normal Web 2.0 websites like Wordpress.com, blogger.com have very High DA and PA. But when we create a subdomain, DA and PA falls to 1 as Google treats subdomain as new websites. Does it make any sense then to get backlinks from web 2.0 websites? will it help in Google rankings?
Link Building | | aliasgarbabat1234567890 -
Backlink and Citations: "Google my business" title name too long!?
Here is my situation.
Link Building | | H.M.N.
I am currently doing backlinks and citations for one of our clients. The title name of the client on "Google my Business" is 75 characters. However, for most citation or back link websites, the limit for the title is 50 characters. Here are my questions: How important is it to have the exact same title in citations and backlinks? If it is, is the only solution to change the name on google to have only 50 characters? Thanks in advance for your help!0 -
Does LinkedIn Pulse Backlinks add to domain authority?
I'm working on linkbuilding and content partnerships to drive referral traffic and boost our page ranking and domain authority. I wanted to check and see if Medium and LinkedIn Pule backlinking work just as well as other sites? Best, Jonathan
Link Building | | kjomalley0 -
SEO companies, Backlinks and Trade Secrets
I have spent so much time investigating what it takes to move my domain up the ladder. I have so far determined good quality optimized website and I am almost done with that. MOZ Rules! If I look at Open Site Explorer at my competitors it gives me some of their backlinks... Some people say backlinks are not as important anymore. But If I am in a Vacation Rental business and I can get other websites/blogs with high PA to post some good content that I write to link back to my website this should raise my SEO? Correct. I am fortunate that online media assets always seem to have articles such as "The best destinations this Fall", "Getting away for a long weekend", etc...... In the past I have been contacted by writers/bloggers that wanted to trade free stays at my homes for an article.... back then I had no idea what a PA was, but now I can at least point MOZ at their website to see if it is worth it. I was also thinking about hiring somebody to do this.....My question is two part... Am I on the right track about building good quality backlinks from high PA with truly good content. I have been writing articles now for 30 days along with this other stuff and have probably 10 unique pieces plus another 20 in our recent blog... When SEO companies call me weekly they all say "we can get you to the top 3 placements in 60 days or other say 3 to 5 months or others say 6 to 7 months." Being a business person I ask, "How do you do it? and what tools do you use?" I never get a straight answer, because they say it is trade secrets..... or they say they use internal tools.... This kills me! I do not want to do this myself, be an SEO company I just want to know the process a vendor will use to raise my SEO. If they were to say I have contacts at these 5 major websites and I am going to get your content listed on these websites... I would say great. 4 years ago I paid a company monthly for a year who moved my domain name from 70 to 35 but that happened in the first 3 months and then nothing. And he would never tell me what they were doing... plus now I realize my site optimization was crap. Out of 10 keyword phrases, the highest I got right now is 32 and a new guy on the block is less than 10 and has less content and backlinks... I wonder once my site optimization is done will that really really help me. Is it too much for a SEO to tell me specifics! I have purchased MOZ, Authority Labs, Buzz Stream, SEO tracker, I am committed to this... I have 15,000 facebook page likes and 80 you tube videos, pinterest and twitter too... M
Link Building | | nickcargill0 -
What are "naked backlinks"?
Hello SEOmozers! I have a question for you all. What are "naked backlinks"? Can you also give an example? Thank you! woo aka STPseo
Link Building | | STPseo0 -
How to track/find new organic backlinks to your domain
I use Google Alerts to track domain-level backlinks (via the link:http://www.example.com trick) but is there a way to track/be alerted of long urls, not just the domain, without having to set an alert for each specific url?
Link Building | | EricPacifico0 -
Can PR0 backlinks be harmful?
Having a discussion on someone with whether or not PR0 backlinks can be harmful. Managed to find these blog posts that support my argument; http://geoland.org/2011/02/can-bad-links-hurt-your-google-rankings/ http://www.johnmcelborough.com/bad-links-good-site My argument: Things like article spinning and distribution are pretty much pointless. I used UniqueArticleWizard for a while when I first started out with SEO. It gave me around 1000 PR0 backlinks. A few weeks later my site was penalised from PR5 to PR2. Thanks
Link Building | | craven220