What is a natural link?
-
Hi everyone,
I'm trying to better understand what is meant by a natural link and would appreciate any assistance.
Doing some competitor link analysis I've noticed a web developer who has created a directory for all its customers. This is not a directory in the traditional sense of being of use to an end user, but to my untrained eyes, it looks like an internal directory used solely for the purpose of link building. For all I know this might be perfectly good practice in the industry, but as a beginner, I'm attempting to get an understanding of things.
My question is, what precisely is meant by a natural link? If the above scenario is all ok, whereby there are businesses in the same field of work, but ultimately could be in any given location, on a directory, are they natural links? Do these kind of directories that don't service an end user, exist if the common feature between them is say location only, or an seo agency only?
Appreciate I could be completely out of kilter on this, but it seems the benefit on SERPs is pretty significant for something that seems pretty "unnatural" to me?
Any guidance would be appreciated...tom
-
Thank you for your responses.
It seems it's not quite as clear cut as I was hoping!
I think using your definition Tom, they would appear to be far from natural then. Afraid I can't fathom out how the links are being labelled ameliavargo.... I'm still trying to understand how to decipher the data that moz is providing me.
It's interesting because if this is in fact a valid "loophole" to gain links then it seems pretty effective! Looking at my example, this method is generating thousands of links for the individual businesses listed within the internal directory which I'm imagining must do wonders for SERP's.
So is it fair to assume that the reason this does not get picked up by Google is because all of the links are of businesses in the same field of work? I guess what I'm asking in effect is, how does Google go about assessing the integrity of the links?
-
Hi Moz staff,
Can you put your views about this above question?
-
Hi Tom
It's quite oxymoronic isn't it? "Natural" link building is in itself a strange term, while Google advocates that you don't proactively link build, yet it's algorithm still relies so heavily on it.
In the purest sense, if you are ever proactively looking to build or earn links to your site from another Google is unhappy about it. The reality is though that's completely unrealistic (never mind hard to enforce and hypocritical from them).
When people talk about "natural" link building, they are talking about the kind of link building or earning that leaves you to the lowest possible risk from Google. Many people have their different definitions on the topic, but here's mine:
A "natural" link is one that is:
- Editorially earned
- Contextual within the content it is placed in
- Links to your site using a branded term, raw URL or non-commercial anchor text
To explain these further: By "editorially" earned, I mean that you should provide something, be it an article, resource, video or whatever, that warrants being placed and shared on someone else's website. If your content really jumps out and makes me people go "Oh wow, look at this, I want to share it" or "Hey, that's really relevant to my site and my users", then any link you get as credit for that resource is "editorially" earned. What you'll often find is that it usually means that the site's you get links from are relevant and contextual to your own site - eg if you ran a fishing equipment website, you may get links from local angler clubs. You really want to warrant your link being in there by producing something of excellent value.
By "contextual", I mean that your link should appear within the body of the article or written content of the webpage. If you've "editorially earned" your content, this should usually happen - however what has happened in the past, even on Moz, is that authors or publishers would advocate the use of an author biography that contains a link to their site. In my mind, it is far better to have a link surrounded by the content/video/article/etc itself - as in put the link there while you're talking about it - as I feel Google are blanket devaluing author bio boxes (rightly or wrongly depending how you see it). Rather than leave it to chance, I'd rather get the link in the content of the page itself.
And finally, how the site links to you seems to be a big factor in "natural" link building. I think Google (again, rightly or wrongly) always look for an excuse to hold it against you if they find you have links going to your site that contain anchor text that you might want to rank for. It's quite ridiculous, I know, but in order to keep things "natural", I'd say you should only have links that contain your brand, just your URL, or any miscellaneous anchor text (eg "check out what these guys did at the weekend").
So when we talk about "natural" link building that's what I think people mean. Now, is this the way you want to do your SEO? Is it the best way? Is it the most suitable or usable and will it give the greatest return of investment? That's all up for debate. I wouldn't say I'm either for or against this method - and it really does differ depending on your resources and industry. There are plenty of people there doing "unnatural" link building and getting results and ROI. One thing I would say though is that it's hard to build and keep a brand presence if your site is being penalised, so natural link building does come into its fore there.
I hope this helps - as you can see the question makes for a good debate and I hope my point of view helps explain a few things.
-
From what you've described, this web developer is creating unnatural links. However, it depends on how it's done - if the links are clearly labelled as 'Our customers' or 'Sites we've designed' then it's not so bad. These sorts of links should probably be made nofollow to avoid problems.
A natural link is a link that is obtained naturally - as in you didn't ask for it or pay for it. Most links are not natural!
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
-
Disvowing Links?
I ran a report through SEM rush and it came back with 174 toxic links ( score 100-60). I have been reading mixed reviews about what to do. Most of the websites are not relevant and appear to be linking to the images. Should I disavow these links? Would it help SEO? Or should I leave it be?
Link Building | | higherimages0 -
Nasty links
Hi My first q on here (hoorah!), and it's about links (boo!). I've got what appears to be a handful (but worryingly, increasing in number) of links pointing to my site like this: http://condos.mrgulffront.com/florida-condos-for-sale/320-scenic-gulf-drive-miramar-beach-fl-32550-mls-567591/ I've made contact with the sites concerned, and had only one positive response who flatly denied all knowledge of it. The issue (as far as I can see) is that as in the above example the links (on the bottom right in the grey box) are forever changing so not always visible. Can anyone offer any guidance as to these kinds of nasty links.... I'm right at the v beginning on this "path of seo understanding" so please don't assume prior knowledge! Thanks in advance.... tom
Link Building | | T-J-I0 -
Which Links to Disavow!
We just took over SEO for a new client who is being penalized for a bad link profile. They've asked Google to reconsider multiple times, and Google still claims that the links are bad. Because of this, and because I don't have direct access (logins, etc.) to what the former SEO did, I am considering using the disavow links tool. The most obvious links to disavow are a group of almost 1000 links that come from the same forum. However, when viewing the links on this forum they actually seem natural. People are reviewing the product (ipod cases), both negatively and positively. While this could have been an SEO tactic for link building, I don't want to disavow these links if they're not the problem, even though this domain is the source of almost all the low-quality links. Another site that has more than 200 links is Askives. Do any of you have experience with links from Askives, or removing these links? Thanks again!
Link Building | | newwhy0 -
Pursuing Links on Sites You Have a Link From
Is it a bad idea to spend resources to get a second link from a site that already links to you? It seems like the marginal value of each additional link is much smaller than the first link.
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Do No follow links from social media platforms transfer authority or value when they link to third party websites?
With social media playing a bigger role in SEO (since the Panda, Penguin updates etc) and how search engines rank sites now, does anybody know why Twitter for instance has 'no follow' when I check my client's websites under 'inbound links' on Open Site Explorer?
Link Building | | caroline19770 -
Using an SEO Agency to build one-way links for you via link exchange
There are a number of SEO agencies which offer link building as part of their SEO offerings. I believe they build one-way links to the client site, by offering another link in exchange to the liking site. So, if the client site is "C", and link is being requested from site "A", the site "A" owner is offered a link from site "B" in return. Is this a good and/or recommended practice?
Link Building | | thinkvidya0 -
Reciprocal Linking Strategy
Hello All, I wanted to ask something regarding a link-building tactic that I was thinking about trying. Many sites have what seem to be automated systems for adding a URL to a page in a site, but first require a reciprocal link to be posted from a page on your own. I was thinking about starting up a separate small blog/information site that related to subjects in my industry, and posting links to related resources on other sites as well. Could I use this as a vehicle for acquiring links that point to my main domain, while reciprocating links from the separate domain where the blog/informational site was located? Has anyone tried this before? Do these automated systems only accept a reciprocal link request if a link is verified from the same domain that you request your link to be pointed at? I realize that some webmasters who verify links manually may have an issue with this, however I feel I can overcome that concern more often than not by delivering quality, relevant content on the informational site (as well as promoting that site separately). I think any savy webmaster would prefer it this way as well. I'm certain this has been tried before, but would like to find out what kind of results I might expect. Any experience or advice that may be given here will be much appreciated. Mike
Link Building | | mreisbeck0 -
Porn link ...
I just ran https://www.majesticseo.com report for back links and showed me that I have one link at porn site ... not sure if it will be appropriate to post it here. The link was discovered on 03.05.11 and when I visited today link is not there... I dont know who put that link there. Can I get penalty for that from google? Can it be a mistake?
Link Building | | DiamondJewelryEmpire1