SEO Myth: Linking from unrelated sites = worthless?

[webmasterlabor.com]

One of the biggest assumptions out there is that if you link to an unrelated site (example: shoe site linking to midget forum), you are just wasting your time. Here's a representative example of this opinion http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=11881667&postcount=25

I used to believe this until I just started building links (comments, articles, in content blog posts, forum links, profile links, donor links, you name it) for a friend's blog network. I've noticed a nice 30% jump in SE traffic.

Given how hard it is to find DO FOLLOW link sources that have Page Rank on their main page, do we really need to make it harder for ourselves by adding another burden by looking for similar category/similar content backlink sources? Also, doesn't this assumption assume that Google has the capability to detect and store page themes/link source themes and categories?

[joliber]

This might be a highly debatable issue, but certainly you have the upper hand since you have tested it on your own.. ALthough I've read somewhere else that unrelated link backs still counts, not just as heavy as the links from related sites..

[AskTheTrainer]

One of the biggest assumptions out there is that if you link to an unrelated site (example: shoe site linking to midget forum), you are just wasting your time. Here's a representative example of this opinion

I used to believe this until I just started building links (comments, articles, in content blog posts, forum links, profile links, donor links, you name it) for a friend's blog network. I've noticed a nice 30% jump in SE traffic.

Given how hard it is to find DO FOLLOW link sources that have Page Rank on their main page, do we really need to make it harder for ourselves by adding another burden by looking for similar category/similar content backlink sources? Also, doesn't this assumption assume that Google has the capability to detect and store page themes/link source themes and categories?

I agree with you. To me, there's good links and bad links.

Whether it is related to your topic is far too complex for a search engine to determine 100%

Good links for your site are links coming from any good site, meaning sites that are established and determined to be valuable for google searchers.

Bad links are from spam sites, and other garbage that doesn't have a past, present or future.

[ChrisAplin]

This argument is not black and white however.

To say that a non relevant link is worthless is completely incorrect.

However, to say that a relevant link is not far more times worthwhile would be ridiculous.

Backlinks are important, if a site has any kind of pagerank, a backlink will be worthwhile. However, to build effective backlinks the backlink must be related to the content on the page which it is linking from.

It seems most are worried about building backlinks to quickly, meaning, if you suddenly grow a backlink list from a ton of non related sites, it could be marked as spam, or at least blacklisted.

The simple fact is that it is worth your time to build backlinks from sites related to your content. It's not that much harder to find related content websites with a decent pagerank. If you aren't able to find any, than your niche is probably worthless.

There are bad links, good links, and great links. It only takes a little bit more time to create great links than good links.

[mousee]

I believe that it's a trade-off between quality and quantity. You can get the same effect from many irrelevant backlinks and few relevant. As for me a prefer to do both.

[vstar]

I have been building backlinks for over 6 years now and I can say with 100% certainty that a relevant backlink will do much more for your rankings than non relevant links, and you need far fewer of them!

So if you are starting a link building campaign it makes sense to concentrate your efforts on building relevant links

[nikomaster]

Related site will help to increase traffic, because visitors may want to click your link however unrelated sites may give you traffic only if visitor is interested. Search engines try to determine what a visitor would do with a link so by common sense a related web site will help you get more targeted traffic so a search engine may determine if a website is relevant to a keyword by finding links on related websites.

[w3bmaster]

Any link counts that's my philosophy ...

[sachin410]

Any link counts that's my philosophy ...

mine too.

links from similar sites are better, but that doesn't mean other links are useless.

IMO, the anchor text is more important than whether the site is relevant or not.

[nikomaster]

I have been building backlinks for over 6 years now and I can say with 100% certainty that a relevant backlink will do much more for your rankings than non relevant links, and you need far fewer of them!

So if you are starting a link building campaign it makes sense to concentrate your efforts on building relevant links

Couldn't be more agree with you.

[martinez4]

I guess that sometimes is easy to get links from site with a related topic, but I agree with you, I link is a link, no matter where it come from

[webmasterlabor.com]

This might be a highly debatable issue, but certainly you have the upper hand since you have tested it on your own.. ALthough I've read somewhere else that unrelated link backs still counts, not just as heavy as the links from related sites..

Quick update: Google is extremely finicky. Expect dips as you go. It also helps to link BOTH to main page (domain.com) and DEEP LINKS (domain.com/article1.html)

[webmasterlabor.com]

I have been building backlinks for over 6 years now and I can say with 100% certainty that a relevant backlink will do much more for your rankings than non relevant links, and you need far fewer of them!

So if you are starting a link building campaign it makes sense to concentrate your efforts on building relevant links

Sure you need less of them but more often than not, you either have to pay or spend a lot more time. In an ideal world, every link would be relevant. Every link counts.

However, I do agree with you on one key point--stability. Using related links will probably result in more stable rankings.

[emofree]

it's true that every link counts but what if the links that you have been connected from the other site has an
irrelevant links.

[rseekery]

Yap. I couldn't be more agree with that statement.

[CelebGateway]

I'm pretty sure that linking in general will help in every single way.
Even if it's located at an unrelated site.

[Rituja]

I can't take risk with website......

[bobjones121806]

as i've always believed SEO is not a white or black world. There is no definitely correct measure or standard which would apply in all situations. It happens a lot when some people found some method works well for them but others regards as crap or completely a waste of money and effort. It’s all about degree -which means do what and to what degree it should has been done, and have control of what you are doing-which means you know clearly what results you could expect and ratio of the cost and return is acceptable.

[Natheen2000]

Well, I don't think this will be an issue, I used to get 10% of links from the sources which are related to my niche and 90% of the links are from the sources which are not related to my niche PER MONTH. However, I don't feel any difference(May be I am using a kind of combination here). But, I have noticed that most of the links from IRRLEVANT niche are displated in Links:www.yourdomain.com on goolge. So, it is MYTH

[barak4410]

Linking from unrelated websites do help in good ranking.

[eXe]

It is not a myth. Obviously, a less relevant link is worth lesser than a relevant link, but not entirely worthless.

[webmasterlabor.com]

Another myth: a link using a url only instead of anchor text is worthless.

[Narrator]

I usually try to find links in my niches up to PR4 anything higher than that, I don't care what the niche is.

[nikomaster]

It's just a matter of common sense

[liza9963]

Linking from irrelevant sites do have enough SEO value.

[designknick]

Regardless of whether your backlinks are coming from a related source or not, what should concern you is the quality of those sites. Google will discount any links that appear to be spam or coming from spam sites. So, instead of worrying about a site's relation to your own, you should be concerned about it's quality.

[royalegadgets]

it is useful but not powerful as compared to related site's backlinks

[brainpulsetech]

well...i am in favor of relevant links....