Obtaining followed links - white or black?
-
I have just watched the overtake of the number one UK position for garden accessories.
The old 1st place holder held it for the last 2.5 years (min) ....taking a look at the back links of the number one holder it seems they are paid links ...as they are little follow image adverts with anchor text posted on the home page of niche blogs, forums and design related website..
....so is this white hat or black hat?
-
lets say I have 2 sites (two companies I am doing SEO for) one is for a Taxi service and one is for a limo service. Would me offering my taxi traffic a link to a limo service be black hat? **no way! ** Would google look at that link as a bad link? I highly doubt it!
Kink building is great and works as long as the sources are relevant.
Googles goals are to make money. in order to make money they need the best search engine. In order to have the best search engine they need the best SERP's. The only way have the best SERP's is via user interaction. If the user likes the link so will Google.
-
Buying links to benefit for SEO is frowned on from google. However, if your buying to gain real traffic to your site such as links within a directory it is not a bad thing.
For example, I can pay yellow pages (Just an example... I would never do this) for their best tier package and it will not affect my results, in fact it can help them.
-
hey thanks - i'll take your advice - life is too short !!! plus I could be wrong - this SEO world is fun and games indeed
-
You do have an option of reporting them to Google (with detailed explanation of what they did). I have to admit in all my years of SEO I have never actually done it. Firstly not all spam submissions get looked at and actioned and many are used to simply improve the algorithm on a global scale, secondly there are much better things to do.
I would suggest that you continue marketing, branding, networking and building compelling content for your site and products. Create as much buzz about your business as possible and get people talking about it.
On a technical side of things there are probably links that you SHOULD have and didn't think of it.
Here's a few tips:
- If your web design company linking to you via their portfolio page?
- Have you given testimonials to service providers you used?
- Are you involved in the local chamber of commerce?
- Where you rent your office space, do they have a website with a tenant directory?
- Do you allow user generate content on your site?
- What happens when people buy on your website? Thank you page can be a great time to get people tweeting and sharing what they just bought. Use the momentum of after purchase to get links for free
-
Yes - my competitor - I held number 2 for 2.5 years as well but due to some site rearrangement have fallen for this term - but am really annoyed if they are paying for these links - they are chasing very similar terms to me and at the peak of the gardening season seem to have raised to the top -
-
Are they your (or your clients) direct competitor?
-
right - so is there anything that can be done?
-
OK, let's keep the various colored hats out of this for a sec. What they did is simply against Google's Quality Guidelines - and that's it. The level of severity is not as high as if they hacked somebody's website - nevertheless still in breach and it could bite them back if Google should ever audit their link profile.
-
Buying links or using any marketing tactics that are against Google's guidelines would be considered Grey to Black Hat methods.
Buying a link period from another website to be listed on their home page for an anchor term you would like to optimize for would be black hat. However there are linkbuilder's out there paying for Guest Posts which can be considered Grey Hat.
Obviously everyone has their own opinion on what Black, Grey, White hat methods really are.
-
buying links is generally blackhat. You can sell advertising, but to keep it whitehat, it's best to use nofollow.
Pete
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
-
I am looking for a software to keep track of the back links or link building
Hi Guys, I am very new hear. I just joined. I have a few websites that I need to manage. I am looking for a software that will allow me to manually add the links that I have been able to acquire. It would also be a bonus if it could search for the links to my site and to see if its still active. Because I have a freelancer working a few hours a week on link building and I need to keep track of the links. I am looking for something simple and good. Any suggestions? By the way, I used Raven Tools many years ago, and it had this feature. But since joining Moz, I don't want to be paying for 2 subscriptions. And I don't know if Raven still has this feature. Your suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. Ryan
Link Building | | RyanNewman0 -
Refferal links
I have a site where I can pick up where my hits came from. So if somebody clicks from another website link to visit my website, I will then pick up from which website they came from and also which page they landed on. Will google penalize me for this and see this as paid advertising?
Link Building | | Heinwest0 -
Am I better off with ten links from one site or one link from ten sites?
I am writing a series of linked-back articles for a highly-ranked web publisher, but wonder if I'd be better off sharing the articles across different sites. My goal is to grow our domain authority and SEO rankings.
Link Building | | Lysarden0 -
A link with "return false"- OSE sees as a No Followed Link
Hello, I couldn't find a clear answer to the impact on SEO for a link written in this way: [" class="expert_info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=) [Does the "return false" act as a "no follow"? I came across this in our link data in Open Site Explorer which lists these links all as "no follows." However, an engineer I spoke to said that it shouldn't impact search engine behavior. Any ideas? Thank you in advance! -Sarah K.](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=)
Link Building | | OneMedical0 -
Link-Building
Hello, I have been doing link-building for my website since 2 of January. However those links are not in the Open Site Explorer. For example I have the DMOZ website pointing to my website and I cant see it in open site explorer! Why?? Tks in advance!
Link Building | | PedroM0 -
Links below the snippet
Hello, Does anybody know how can i obtain links under the snippet (see the example in the image attached) ? Thank you in advance! Cosmin zXhsG
Link Building | | cosmin_bicoiu0 -
Link baiting with bloggers:
Are there any risks of getting penalized by Google if one was to publish a blogger competition on a corporate blog, in which participating bloggers have to include a link* on their blogs to enter? Bloggers also receive a small prize (CD, book,..) to thank them for participating. After what happened with Overstock.com do you think this kind of link-bait is risky? *each blogger has to write an original article and the links are organic. Thanks for your help. o1rRl.png
Link Building | | ref.price0