Content Marketing Made Simple

Link Building Techniques-Googles View-Part 2

So which link-building techniques are “valuable services”, as Google calls them, and which “violate Google’s guidelines”? That’s the million dollar question. In order to understand what Google thinks about each of the specific forms of link-building, lets look at several from the list above. As we discuss each of them, try to keep in mind Google’s statements above regarding “natural” link building.

Cross-Linking
This involves site owners creating several of their own sites and linking them all to each other, in essence, voting for themselves. This worked for a very short time back in the early days. Google quickly figured out how to detect this practice and cracked down on it. This technique is still practiced today by sophisticated site owners who work hard to hide from Google, knowing that if they’re caught, they will be penalized or banned.

Reciprocal Linking
Once Google shut down the old “vote for myself” trick, the next technique that became popular was the “you vote for me and I’ll vote for you” trick. This was called “reciprocal linking”. Loads of emails were flying around from webmasters asking each other to exchange links, all with the goal of ranking higher in the search engines.

This technique was bound to fail. Think how easy it is for Google to see that two sites are linked back and forth to each other. Wouldn’t Google naturally assume that these sites might be just helping each other out?

There is still some debate as to whether Google discounts reciprocal links altogether, but most people agree that Google certainly weights them less heavily than natural, one-way links.

Link Farms
To this day, people make the mistake of joining a network of sites that allow you to give and receive links to each other. These links provide no real indication of quality content and are designed only to rank the member sites higher in Google. Again, this was an easy technique for Google to discover and take action to combat.

Submitting to Directories
Some companies offer directory submission services that promise to catapult your site to the top of the search engines by acquiring loads of links to your site. However, Google makes it clear that when it comes to directories, quality matters. Most directories by far are nothing more than links pages and have no valuable content or service. Most of them are designed for the sole purpose of buying or acquiring links to help gain PageRank and rank higher in Google.

It is clear that Google allows some of the larger, higher quality directories like Yahoo and DMOZ that have a human review to ensure quality, to pass PageRank. However, Google knows that simply submitting to hundreds of directories is way too easy and, while your site may not get penalized for it, you won't get any value from it. This is an example of people wasting a lot of time attempting to acquire links but getting no real value when it comes to ranking.

Which Methods are “Natural”?
So which of the above methods seem “natural” to you? All these methods are perfectly acceptable methods of getting the word out on your site, and driving TRAFFIC to your site. However, from Google’s point of view, what’s important is the INTENSION of acquiring the links.

Buying Links
If Google finds that a site is selling links, with the intension of helping other sites rank higher in their index, they will prevent that site from “passing PageRank”. They may or may not penalize any of the sites involve, but by preventing PageRank from passing through those links, their search engine index will not be influenced by any of the links being sold.

“Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results”

Link buying is a particularly difficult problem for Google to deal with, since it is so widespread. However, Google has come up with an interesting way to discover which sites out there are selling links, and taking action to prevent these sites from influencing their results: getting the public to help them out.

Reporting Paid Links
In one section of their Guidelines, Google has a section entitled: Why should I report paid links to Google?

“However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.”

In this section, Google encourages people to report sites that are selling links… not so they can penalize them, but so they can prevent PageRank from being passed to the sites receiving the links, and therefore maintaining the integrity of their engine.

Basically, Google is saying that buying links is not a bad thing, as long as the intension is to acquire TRAFFIC, not PAGERANK.

Google’s Accomplishment
It’s actually pretty amazing when you think about what Google has been able to achieve over the past 10 years of spam fighting and manipulation control. By continuing to make it more and more difficult for site owners to manipulate their engine, Google has forced them to do exactly what it’s wanted them to do all along… focus on unique, high quality content!

Content – The Ultimate Link-Building Solution
Through the years, Google has always told people that content is the only legitimate way to build links back to your site.

“Provide high-quality content on your pages... This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site.” (source: Google Webmaster Guidelines)

That’s it! With all the complicated link schemes out there, Google has always given a very simple solution. Content has always been the only legitimate, long-term way to build links to your site. By keeping your site up to date with lots of fresh, unique content, other people will start to take notice and, over time, will choose to link to your site… naturally.