How to Check if a Sites Backlink Profile is Penguin Friendly?
-
Post penguin I am of course very wary about which sites I proactively solicit links from.
Here is the scenario. Let's say for example I found a blog relevant to my business sector, had good domain authority/moz rank and noticed that they accepted guest posts. Sounds great?
Well on the surface it sounds like it would be worth reaching out to the blog owner - but what if that blog had been involved in some really shady link building practices in the past and the reality is that I could end up damaging my own site by association.
Can anyone share any useful resources such as articles or tools that will help to understand how to qualify if a sites backlink profile is shady and should be avoided as a link prospect?
-
Hi Luia, Ryan's answered your question in terms of detecting penalties / shady link building.
I would just add that if you are going to guest post, it should be to reach the audience and less about the value of the link. Ultimately, if you can get readers to your site and interested in (and sharing) your content it's going to be much more rewarding on an ongoing basis than that single link.
-
Post penguin I am of course very wary about which sites I proactively solicit links from.
For the most part sites penalized for manipulative links have had specific pages penalized, not the entire site. If you are writing a new article on the site, then it should have a new URL which would not have had any manipulative links pointing towards it, so that page would not be penalized.
If you want to examine the site anyway, an easy way to check is to perform a Google search for a term you expect them to rank well for. If you are trying to earn a link from SEOmoz you can search google.com for "seo tools" and you will notice the site ranking in position 3 (Rand? What's up with that? If you are the best seo tool provider shouldn't you rank as #1?)
You can also check the site's backlink profile in OSE. If you examine the top 50 links and most offer anchor text, especially if it is the same anchor text repeated, that is a warning sign.
Now that I addressed your question directly, I would also share none of the above really matters. Ideally you should be posting your content on your own site. If you decide to post on another site, then you are doing so to reach their audience. SEOmoz, for example, has a dedicated community. A large percentage of the community visit the site because they have the URL memorized, or bookmarked, etc. You are trying to connect with that community and even if your article had no direct search traffic, look at the numbers of followers Moz has earned (check the upper right corner). When an article is published it goes out to over 100k RSS feeds, 130k+ twitter followers, etc. That is who you should be trying to reach with a guest blog. If you are going to depend on search traffic, then the article might as well be on your own site.
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
-
Backlinking
I read the moz begainers guide and I am confuse over this point. " If i have too many back links from a single site. It's considered too spammy. " Q: I have a blog and it constantly black links to my ranking page, is this considered bad? Q: I have an active forum that I go to and I am constantly contributing to the topic however i will always try to relate back to my website, is this considered spammy too?
Link Building | | kevinbp0 -
How do I find what backlinks have disappeared?
I have seen a decrease in backlinks, how do I figure out which ones are no longer there?
Link Building | | EcommerceSite0 -
Backlink from unrelated blogs
Hi I would like to ask Im doing SEO for gambling related website should I post articles only on the relevant blogs, websites related to gambling? I found website with pagerank 4 where you can submit artcile to blog. There is so many articles related to different topics (gambling, sport, finance, health, traveling ) If I submit article this kind of website how google handle with backlink? Does it has positive impact for seo?
Link Building | | centrum0 -
Backlinks from Trade Website - Are they worth it?
Hi I am doing some linking building for a niche and slightly dull industry. I have found that trade magazine want a lot of money to publish press releases with back links. The publications are relevant to my industry but have a low page rank on Google. Is it still worth paying for these links? Thanks David
Link Building | | DavidLenehan0 -
Links not showing up in Site Explorer?
Why aren't some backlinks showing up in Site Explorer? I have links to my home page (www.mortgagesbymark.com) from Trulia at http://www.trulia.com/blog/mortgagesbymark/ but they're not showing up in Site Explorer. Thanks for your help!
Link Building | | MortgagesByMark0 -
Having a link from a foreign site
I just ran an OSE on a competitor of ours that they have a few links from this website, http://www.tz-online.de/ would this not damage there site?
Link Building | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Paul and Angela Style Backlinks
Do Forum Profile Links provided by Paul and Angela hold any SEO merit ? Will it help in improving SER?
Link Building | | krishrun0 -
Value of a link from very large profile site
Hello We have an opportunity to get a link from a very large traffic site. It comes with a price tag, and Im wondering if it is worth it. Is it ok to mention the page and cost? It is the 5th largest internet site. Would be on their benefactors page. There are many other sites linking from the page, and its obvious they are on there for the link value. I know sometimes one link can do wonders for rankings, where thousands of others can not. But wondering if there is any way to quanitfy this. Is it worth it for the value of the backlink? If we link to the home page, the link juice (alot I hope) would pass through to the deeper pages, and increase their rankings for their target keywords? Thanks for your advise. Sam
Link Building | | Impact-2015550