version 2.0
version 2.0
External backlinks are the path to the page of one site, placed in the text or screen form of another. Their purpose is known: it makes it much easier to find the information you need. However, with the advent of search engines, everything has changed: now each link is an advice to the user to read another page. It turns out that the more resources advise their users to read your content, the more trust it deserves. This is how the search engine "reasons" and awards sites to which there are many links a higher rating. This is the basic principle, which is adjusted by the quality and concentration of links.
As a result of comparing the number and quality of links to a page, the indicator of "statistical weight" (SW) is calculated according to it: there was a PR (Page Rank) in Google until 2013.
PageRank was calculated as a result of the fact that Google interpreted the link from page A to page B as a vote in favor of And, of course, not only the number of votes was taken into account, but also the quality of the voting pages. The indicator was abandoned, as the promotion masters began to use various manipulation strategies to bring the site to the top of the search results.
Rather, my goal is to share information about several SEO tools that seriously facilitate the process of providing your site with decent positions and traffic.
With the help of an external link, one site shares with another a certain share of its static weight. The more static weight there is on a page, the greater the share it can transmit. Accordingly, your task from the point of view of promotion is to get as many links as possible from pages with a good static weight.
The main goals of increasing the link mass are to increase the rating of the site for the search engine and move it to a higher position. However, this is not the only scope of references.
When the balance of power in the struggle between search engines and site owners became clear, each of the parties began to search for a universal solution. A way to get links to get into the top of the output. A way to filter violators to leave only honest content workers in it. But neither one nor the other has been found so far. Therefore, the combination of black and white techniques in working with links continues. Let's discuss the most common judgments of supporters of black and white promotion.
"The basis of legal promotion is high—quality content and natural links. If the user has read an interesting article for him, he will put a link to it himself."
In this sense, the ideal SEO option is its (visible) absence. Native advertising is closest to this option as part of the overall brand promotion strategy.
If you still choose to create links to your resource, then you need to find where the target audience is going. In addition to direct and not the most effective ways to promote through catalogs or aggregator sites, the next group of methods is SEO content and guest posts.
Promotion by any other means, in addition to their own, relevant content for users, both major search engines are not welcome. So in February of this year, John Mueller (Google) repeated that he does not recommend using guest posts to get external links.
An important point is the design of links. As an official position, you can read the recommendations from Google.
The words that are contained inside the link are called its anchor. Most often these are words or phrases that match your key queries plus "here", "here" and their synonyms. There are also non-anchor links.
"Non-anchor links look more natural, so it's worth switching to them completely."
In an effort to mask links inside the content as much as possible, some optimizers choose only non-anchor links. However, not everything is so obvious. One of the studies of unencumbered promotion showed the following:
It turns out that it is better to combine anchor and non-anchor options, based primarily on the naturalness of the text and user convenience.
"The link can be placed anywhere, the more noticeable the better — for example, in the footer of the site. The result depends directly on the place of the link on the page."
If the links on each page of the site are really justified (which is rare), then you can leave it in the footer. This may be a link to the studio that promotes your website, or to the website of the parent company, if yours is a subsidiary. However, it is worth analyzing whether this will cause the opposite effect. For example, if you put a link to an article-review of the manufacturer's new products in the footer of an online store, this may be justified, whereas a link to the main page of the partner's site is not. Do not forget to check that the links are not closed from indexing.
"The link should not be placed on the main page of the site, but on the internal pages corresponding to the key query."
So, for example, if you tell in the content about discounts for a specific part of the assortment, then you do not need to put a link to the main page for a quick transition to contacts — specify a link to the page with promotions, leaving the user the opportunity to familiarize themselves with their conditions, and from there go to the description of places of sale.
"Promotion in social networks is not taken into account along with links on the Internet, so it's not worth wasting time on them."
The need for promotion in social networks is still relevant - most of your users have one or more profiles in social networks and spend a significant part of their time there. This means that external links in thematic pages or groups can lead potential users to your site. At the same time, this channel of communication with the audience has its own characteristics, which are manifested at all levels, including in the placement of links. Most often, the news feed of social networks is scrolled through in a few seconds and your content (with a carefully disguised link) should quickly attract attention. This can be done using:
The main principle that should be used when choosing the form of a post: am I ready to devote the last 10 seconds of my free time to this?
Do not forget that the purpose of promotion in social networks is not so much external links in themselves, as attracting a huge potential audience that can later go to the main site.
There are, however, "artificial" ways to redirect the audience to the site. These can be various contests with a request to share a banner of the promotion, which contains a link to the main site, or a photo quest or quiz, which are placed in a special section of the site.
"The number of links on a page may vary depending on its purpose. The recommended option is no more than two."
Search engines do not welcome all paid links and ask you to mark them honestly. So Matt Cutts called back in 2013 to close them with an attribute and mark them as advertising. Otherwise, the number of links on the page should correspond to the purpose of the text surrounding them.
"A large number of links obtained through exchange and purchase is a universal way to gain positions in the search results, especially for a young site."
At the start, there is always a problem of getting links in front of the site - the return on high-quality content will not come immediately, but you need to win a place under the sun. However, it is worth remembering that buying a large number of links in a short period of time can cause a "link explosion" (or "boom"), which will lead to penalties from both search engines. In general, in order not to cause complaints on their part, the increase in the reference mass should be natural, that is, gradual.
"Choosing between rental and perpetual links, it's worth betting on their combination."
According to the time of the link's existence, it is customary to divide it into "eternal" — it is paid 1 time and placed on the site until the end of its life, and temporary, "rental" — it is paid daily and placed for the payment period.
"When choosing ways to get links, start from two things: their value for promotion and algorithms of search engine filters."
When choosing channels for getting links, you should pay attention to the following criteria:
The types of content that attracts users include:
When choosing where to get links, consider the algorithms of search engine filters.
Google uses the Penguin filter, launched in April 2012. The main principle is the deterioration of the position of the resource if a lot of sites link to it. The focus is still on content, its quality and relevance to users. Here's what the algorithm will take into account:
There are more than a hundred factors in the classifier of search engine links, for each of which one of the binary values is put down (SEO link / natural link). After analyzing all zeros and ones, the final indicator is calculated. In addition, the topic of words and the page as a whole is analyzed and compared, both on the donor site and on the acceptor site.
As a result, it can be traced that the key factors for search engines are high-quality content and natural links. Everything that helps to use them will increase your position, and everything else will negate your efforts. In more detail, we will consider ways to get links that will incur the wrath of search engines on you in the second part of the article. In addition, there will be examples of services that allow you to evaluate the links used.
Everything is very simple here. You need to analyze the reference mass of your competitors, for example, using the Ahrefs service. Now we look at the number of backlinks for each of them and determine the arithmetic mean.
For example, if the first competitor gets 2,200 backlinks, the second — 1,700, and the third — 800, then we sum it up and divide by 3:
2200+1700+800 = 4700
4700 : 3 = 1570 backlinks in the end.
Why do many users continue to argue that the number of backlinks is much more important than their quality. Are they right? And if so, why?
First you need to understand what is meant by a large number of backlinks. Adherents of this theory, of course, do not mean obviously useless links from spam sites, they are more interested in links from resources with a low level of domain ownership and similar more reliable sources. The methods of measuring the reliability of links are quite relative, and there is no single criterion for today. But we can single out the main criteria for the "reliability" of the site: availability in the TOP by thematic keys, site attendance.
Consider only this point of view. Quantity is more important than quality.
There is no denying the effectiveness of using links to rank a resource. In fact, the number of reference domains is directly related to the ranking of sites in search engines.
In most cases, when focusing on quantity, promotion is faster than when focusing on the quality of links.
It is also important to understand that the ranking does not take into account the number of links, but the number of domains. That is, out of 50 links from one domain, only one is counted. So instead of links, you actually get URLs with links to your domain.
Therefore, we reformulate the thesis. A large number of domains is important.
In other words, focusing on quantity is far from a waste of time for a link system building strategy. Those who prioritize only the quality of backlinks and do not care about their quantity are also wrong.
With proper implementation, this approach can be extremely effective.
This means that you must learn to take advantage of a large number of links and at the same time neutralize their disadvantages.
Excessive concentration on the number of links will inevitably lead to a decrease in their quality, this also needs to be constantly remembered.
With a large volume, you risk accidentally creating backlinks from spam sites, which, in turn, will damage your own SEO.
If you suddenly see that your site's visibility has sharply collapsed for no apparent reason, there is a high probability that your site has fallen under a link filter.
Search engines claim that the use of low-quality links can lead to a decrease in the position of your site. To do this, search engines already have automatic algorithms for detecting "link spammers". The graph shows the typical effect of reducing positions by the "Penguin" filter (Google Penguin).
From the point of view of search engines, an external link is a criterion for the quality, informativeness and usefulness of your resource. Natural links that link your site to pages in your niche or topic will be ideal.
Google can index the backlink for a long time and until it does, it will not take it into account. To speed up indexing, post somewhere a link to a donor page with a link to you, for example, in an indexed Facebook page.
There is another way - you create an html page with a list of links to pages that link to your site, publish it on your site and use Google Search Console to add it to the index. After indexing, you can delete this page from your site, while Google will leave links to donor pages in its database.
In addition, we have a free tool for indexing links in Google and Bing, which will click on each page in the list of links and send a signal about their existence to search engines.
Date of publication: 30.06.2022
Update: 23.03.2024