Will Testimonial Backlinks Work?
-
Hey guys,
I am pretty new to the whole SEO thing.
I did have an idea though. There are things that I like, IE restaurants in my neighbourhood.
If I did a testimonial for say, my local pizza place that I really like, with a backlink to my site, would that be useful.
IE "Jimmys pizza makes the best pizza in the neighbourhood by far
-RafeTLous president http://www.mybacklink.com"Assuming the page has good domain authority would that be helpful?
-
Hi,
The example I quoted in my reply about Paul's pizza (it's not exactly the same - but quit close)
For the newspaper: if it's just an ad random links (e.g. in the footer) it doesn't look really natural. If the newspaper is featuring an article about a legal issue and it's quoting your law firm in the article, than the link would be quite natural.
For the retirement homes: Google is quite aware that if you're in a retirement home you have entered the last phase of your life; so it's not really unnatural for a retirement home to feature some articles on your final "bucket list" - which could include content on how to make a will. If on these articles they quote your law firm, or if the content is entirely written by your law firm, it would be quite logical to mention the original source (or even better - put a canonical url pointing to your site).
Basically - natural links are quite easy to detect. Just ask yourself: if no link building for SEO purposes existed, would the publisher include this link? If he would, it's almost certain that it's a good link. If he wouldn't, it's not really a good one.
rgds,
Dirk
-
I really appreciate the help!! Which one on the google page do you think it looks like?
So if I'm promoting a lawyer website, and I get a link from, say a newspaper, the newspaper is not about lawyers, so does that help?
What if I wrote content on everything you need to know if you are making a will, and I get links from retirement homes. These sites are also not about lawyers, so would this help?
-
With Penguin in mind, a link like this doesn't look real natural to me. Even if you don't pay for it, it still looks like paid link.
It would be different if this pizza place would have a blog, where they would discuss about their legal troubles with their neighbours, and they would mention what a terrific job your lawyer has done to defend them.
I refer again to the beginner's guide (sorry for that). Link techniques that used to be good and are considered bad practice now are
- Blog comments that are not moderated
- Press releases with optimized anchor text
- Article directories
- Guest post signatures
- Advertorials
- Embeddable widgets
- Infographic embeds
- User profile pages
- Guestbooks
- Forum signatures
- Directories that are not moderated
Source: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building/types-of-links
You also might want to check https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en - one of the (negative) examples is quite close to what you would like to do
- Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:
_Thanks, that’s great info!
My advice would be - don't do it.
rgds
Dirk
-
Ok, i'm promoting lawyers.
So I wouldn't post a comment in the comments section.
I would contact the pizza place owner who knows me and say "Hey, I really like your pizza! I'll do a testimonial if you agree to make the link Follow"
So if I got a follow link for a lawyer website from a pizza place, would that be valuable assuming the pizza place has good domain authority?
-
Unless you're selling pizza's yourself, these links are not going to help you much
This strategy is not really going to work - most sites make links on testimonials and comments nofollow (just to avoid that other webmasters are just going to post comments to create links). Not that nofollow links are necessarily a bad thing (check https://moz.com/blog/the-hidden-power-of-nofollow-links) - but these kind of nofollow links normally add no value.
You might want to check this link https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building and all the resources you can find here: https://moz.com/blog/category/link-building
A lot of reading & studying to do - it might be a relief for you that even experts sometimes get it completely wrong http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-failures
Good luck,
Dirk
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
-
Reciprocal Backlinks
Hi all, We've just started looking into backlinks for our website, and we're...a bit overwhelmed to say at least. We thought the best way to start with backlinks is to reach out to our industry partners, and ask them to put a link to our website on theirs (in a blog, or a relevant page of course), as it's relevant for users. However, the question we almost always get is, can you do the same and link back to our website? How does google look at reciprocal links? We think they can be seen as a 'transaction of links' and not have as much link juice as links which aren't reciprocal. Is there any best practice for how to approach this? Thank you in advance. Diana
Link Building | | dianacatrinoi0 -
Backlinks from a secondary domain
Hi i finally figured out why my link profile is out of wack. Apparently we had a second domain registered that for some reason was active and linking to us - somewhat duplicated site. no idea when or how that happened. I wasnt with the company then. anyhow Ive now pointed the domain to a blank folder since I dont know how to disable it in 1&1 Hosting (if anyone knows please let me know!). Im wondering if this is enough? will the links still be there indexed even though the domain points to a blank folder? also how can I get google to profile my backlinks again? so I can see if it worked. Currently waiting for a new Moz crawl so Ill see if at least there my profile is looking healthier. thanks in advance!
Link Building | | ACEmina0 -
Backlink Disavow strategy
Hi, I would like to know what are the things to check when Disavow backlinks? Should we disavow all the low PR and DA backlinks ex: disavow all the backlinks under 4PR? Thanks alot !
Link Building | | bigrat950 -
What Would You Consider a Good Backlink Profile?
I know there's no such thing as a perfect profile but when you're building links, do you try to maintain certain ratios such as: dofollow vs. nofollow exact match anchors vs. raw URL anchors vs. random anchors (click here, visit site, etc.) Thanks!
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
On this element , what will we use? Subdomain or folder?
I am in a divided to chose from subdomain or folder. i think the folder is good for main domain more than subdomain? Anyone here , can you show me a admonition?
Link Building | | imthankyou0 -
How long google & roger need to notice backlinks
Hello, It is three weeks I have begun link building to a client website through partnerships and neither Google (link:mysite.com) nor Roger are seing any of these backlinks Any idea what is the time commonly needed for small and new websites (no trafic at the moment) to see domain authority growing ? Loïc
Link Building | | mandinga0 -
Effectiveness of Forum Backlinks: specifically Paul's Backlinks
I know the general consensus is that these kinds of backlinks are of low value, however I'm curious as to anyones present day experience with them and if they are providing any value. More specifically, I am curious if they can do harm. I don't see how they could, as it would be a very easy tactic for an unscrupulous competitor to sabotage another by implementing them for their competitors. I can see possibly losing rank if they were discounted, however if this is the case, then it would only be rank that would not have been gained in the first place, minus those kinds of links. I ask because I have competing websites who have started to outrank me (they have been climbing and improving through each Google algorithm change in the past year), despite the fact that my mosrank and authority are better than every single one of them. But they have a sheer growing volume of backlinks that I can't match (seemingly low value when I look at their link profiles). Plus my domain is older (9 years as opposed to 3-4 years), and my site is clearly better (in terms of aesthetics, usability, content, etc), as well as my link profile being selectively cultivated from truly relevant sites. None the less, they are starting to kill me at this point -and I don't have the luxury of time. So....I was wondering about the wisdom of upping my volume of forum type links, as this is the only area of measurement where I can see my competitors are beating me. I am a believer in true, difficult, quality inbound marketing - however it is not getting the job done. Any thoughts on this?
Link Building | | csblev0 -
Will Google penalize for redirects related to a company merger?
Company A is set to acquire Company B. As part of the merger agreement, Company A will be redirecting the linking domains of Company B's website (over 1,000 links) to company A's website. Will Google penalize Company A for redirecting Company B's 1,000 linking domains to Company A's website at one time? If so, would it be better for Company A to redirect Company B's 1,000 linking domains in waves?
Link Building | | 5outhpaw0