Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to ask for a backlink?
-
Everyone knows backlinks ( plus content ) is the key to good rankings.
BUT, how do you ask for a backlink without sounding douchey?
Does anyone have a template or something they could share?
-
I'd certainly agree with that, Dunamis. I don't ask for links, and I don't respond well when asked for one, unless I have a relationship with the person.
I have even been asked for one by someone I knew, and tried to explain nicely that an OBL from an SEO site to a real estate site didn't really make much sense for either of us.
My advice, Rhys, would be to focus first on establishing a relationship. If the resulting relationship is solid, and both sites are relevant, a simple mention of your need to acquire more natural links may well spawn an offer.
-
I'll just say I don't quite adhere to all of the TAGFEE bullet points and make sure that I'm not wearing my SEOmoz tshirt when I reply.
-
I would suggest that you try and be a little more focussed. Research sites that you might like to obtain a link from and if they have a good Domain Authority then its worth a few hours working on a strategy. Perhaps you have information they might be interested in? If they dont have their own SEO then perhaps running their site through site crawler and giving them a free mini site audit, reporting any broken links, etc. Achieve goodwill and remember the old adage 'Givers Get'
-
What I'm finding is that I rarely get success in asking for a link unless I have some kind of relationship with the person. Sometimes all that it takes in order to have "relationship" is a few back and forth tweets or some facebook comments or for me to have left a few comments on their blog.
I think we all get so many spammy link requests that we tend to shut the door when anyone comes knocking!
-
...unless I'm in a bad mood, and then it's not a positive response.
Haha... do you tell them to jump in a lake?
-
Hi Ryhs,
Here are a couple of other Q&A threads and posts that may provide some ideas. I don't do a lot of link outreach myself, but I do get a fair amount of spam link requests that are obviously taken from a boilerplate and not customized. Those never get a response from me, unless I'm in a bad mood, and then it's not a positive response.
http://www.seomoz.org/q/when-going-about-asking-a-site-for-a-link-on-their-page-how-do-you-ask
http://www.seobook.com/art-pitching-email
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/dont-ask-sites-for-links-find-people-and-connect
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
-
Thought FRED penalty - Now see new spammy image backlinks what to do?
Hi, So starting about March 9 I started seeing huge losses in ranking for a client. These rankings continue to drop every week since and we changed nothing on the site. At first I thought it must be the FRED update, so we have started rewriting and adding product descriptions to our pages (which is a good thing regardless). I also checked our backlink profile using OSE on MOZ and still saw the few linking root domains we had. Another Odd thing on this is that webmasters tools showed many more domains. So today I bought a subscriptions to ahrefs and instantly saw that on the same timeline (starting March 1 2017) until now, we have literally doubled in inbound links from very spammy type sites. BUT the incoming links are not to content, people seem to be ripping off our images. So my question is, do spammy inbound image links count against us the same as if someone linked actual written content or non image urls? Is FRED something I should still be looking into? Should i disavow a list of inbound image links? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | plahpoy0 -
Backlinks from old domain
Hi, We have gone through a change of company brand name including a new domain name.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Agguk
We followed google recommendations at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en and it seems to have worked really well, the new domain has replaced the old in the google search results. My question: Still most of our backlinks, both anchor text and links use the old brand name and domain and it´s a slow process trying to update all references. Although they get redirected fine to the new domain (also following google recommendations), I wonder if the current scenario is doing any harm, SEO wise (other than the missed visual exposure of the new brand name) ? ...since the old brand name is not present at the new site I´m thinking of including "New brand name - previously old brand name" somewhere just to provide some sort of connection to all old backlinks, would that be unnecessary? I should mention that the old brand name actually includes our most important keyword but the new brand name does not. Thanks!0 -
Blog On Subdomain - Do backlinks to the blog posts on Subdomain count as links for main site?
I want to put blog on my site. The IT department is asking that I use a subdomain (myblog.mysite.com) instead of a subfolder (mysite.com/myblog). I am worried b/c it was my understanding that any links I get to my blog posts (if on subdomain) will not count toward the main site (search engines would view almost as other website). The main purpose of this blog is to attract backlinks. That is why I prefer the subfolder location for the Blog. Can anyone tell me if I am thinking about this right? Another solution I am being offered is to use a reverse proxy. Thoughts? Thank you for your time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ecerbone0 -
Removing poor domain authority backlinks worth it?
Hey Moz, I am working with a client on more advanced SEO tactics. This client has a reputable domain authority of 67 and 50,000+ backlinks. We're wanting to continue SEO efforts and stay on top of any bad backlinks that may arise. Would it be worth asking websites (below 20 domain authority) to remove our links? Then, use the disavow tool if they do not respond. Is this a common SEO practice for continued advanced efforts? Also, what would your domain authority benchmark be? I used 20 just as an example. Thanks so much for your help. Cole
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColeLusby1 -
50,000 backlinks in webmaster tools from one site???
Hi All, I'm new to evaluating backlinks, but I just saw I got over 50,000 links from a backlink that was added on ONE page at this site here: http://www.netnewspublisherDOTcom. I presume this is not a good thing, and if I contact them to remove the one link on the one page, it won't solve the other 49,999 links that Google is seeing pointing to us, so what do I do??. Should I contact them and ask to remove it and see if they don't and then disavow? Or would you just tell Google to disavow the whole site? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mlm120 -
Can Google read my backlink in Javascript??
Hi SeoMoz community! I have a software product, which our clients implement onto their websites. It is like a pop up box. I know that backlinks are very important for SEO ranking, and I really want to give our clients 2 options of product: 1. you can get the free/cheaper option if you use the code which has a keyworded backlink to our site on it 2. you can pay small fee if you don't want to use the version with a link to our site on it Now, the problem is that the product is written entirely in Javascript, and I don't think that Google crawls this, do they? Is there a way around this? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qdigi0 -
Please let me know how to improve this email backlink request
Hello, How can I improve upon this email request: Your "Links" section contains a lot of good websites, and we would like our site to be added to the list. Our pagerank 4 website, which carries (Here I said what we carry) You have similar sites located in the "Other" Section on your link page. We would greatly appreciate being added to this list. Sincerely, BobW
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW
Webmaster
Our Site Name Here
Email Address Here
Phone Number Here0