valuable backlinks

valuable backlinks

With the Google Panda Update punishing low quality links and unrelated link exchanges, websites are uncertain about how to proceed with a backlinks strategy.  Google penalized JCPenney, Forbes, and Overstock.com for “shady” linking practices, so what differentiates a valuable backlinks from bad backlinks in the eyes of Google?

Valuable Backlinks | You might be a red flagged backlink if…

How can you determine valuable backlinks from garbage? To paraphrase a line from Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a red-flagged backlink if the site you are linking to has…

  • Lots of ads. If the site is covered with five blocks of AdSense, Kontera text links, or other advertising chunks, you might want to steer away from them.
  • Lack of quality content. If you can get your article approved immediately, chances are this isn’t the right article network for your needs. If the article network is approving spun or poorly written content, it will be hard for the algorithm to see your “diamond in the rough.” Of course, when a site like Suite101.com, which has one hell of an editorial process, gets dinged, then extreme moderation may not necessarily be a sign of a safe site either (in their case, ads were the more likely issue).
  • Lots of content, low traffic. A blog with a Google PageRank of 6 probably looks like a great place to spam a comment. But if that blog doesn’t have good authority in terms of traffic and social sharing, then it may be put on the list of sites to be de-valued in the future. PageRank didn’t save some of the sites in the Panda update, considering there are several sites with PageRank 7 and above (including a PR 9).
  • Lack of moderation. Kind of goes with the above, except in this case I mean blog comments and directories. If you see a ton of spammy links on a page, you don’t want yours to go next to it. Unless you consider it a spammy link, and then more power to you to join the rest of them.  http://searchenginewatch.com/3641987

When determining your valuable backlinks strategy, don’t focus on what everyone else is doing, as ‘everyone’ else is watching their site rankings plummet faster than MySpace’s popularity.  Instead of focusing on cheap, easy backlinks, focus on obtaining quality links by publishing good, quality articles, blogs, whitepapers, webinars, infographics, and other high quality content to leverage for link building and to attract natural, organic links.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Article:  Valuable Backlinks