Hey guys, i have just read a useful post Let's face it. Link building isn't sexy. Link building isn't fun. And in 2014, if done correctly, it certainly isn't cheap or easy. Most importantly, and contrary to what you may have heard, link building is far from dead. Many of the "link building is dead" theories are rooted in wishful thinking and/or fear. The fear is real and understandable as the Penguin update finally delivered on Google's long running promise to severely penalize websites engaged in manipulative link schemes. (Don't Fear) the Google Reaper Some have concluded that the best and safest response to Penguin is to stop link building altogether. That's a bad idea. Here's a reality check: the best way to improve visibility in the SERPs, in 2014, is still link building. Links are still believed to be the most important part of the algorithm, according to the most recent Moz search engine ranking factors survey. Google's own Matt Cutts confirmed the same in an interview with Eric Enge, stating: "Links are still the best way that we've found to discover (how relevant or important somebody is) and maybe, over time, social or authorship or other types of markup will give us a lot more information about that." That statement has some pretty important implications, when it comes to planning and budgeting for a digital marketing campaign. The main takeaway is this: Link building is still the key to more visibility in organic search. If your objective is to improve visibility in organic search, then invest in resources accordingly. Social media and authorship may (and probably will) impact the SERPs at some point in the future, but not today and probably not significantly in 2014. Relevance is the New PageRank The evolution of the original 1 link = 1 vote algorithm took a quantum leap forward in May 2012 with the introduction of the Knowledge Graph, which is used by Google to deliver search results with semantic-search information. This information is gathered from a wide variety of sources, using more than 500 million objects and 3.5 billion facts. In Googlespeak, the Knowledge Graph is about "things, not strings." It's quite probable that Knowledge Graph is baked into Hummingbird, the latest Google algorithm. Assuming that's the case, then a correlation between "context, not anchor text" and "things not strings" is applicable. Relevance is the new PageRank when searching for linking opportunities. A real life example could look something like this: Pre-Hummingbird, a search for car covers might yield results split among auto accessories to protect your car, tribute bands that cover the classic rock group "The Cars" and songs covered by Ric Ocasek and the cars. The "old" algo couldn't distinguish one car cover from another. Hummingbird, on the other hand knows the difference. Now, all of those auto parts links coming from high PR band sites, are now exposed for what they really are: unnatural. At best the link is devalued. At worst it triggers a manual review. Link Schemes vs. Link Building Understanding the difference between link scheming and link building is critically important in 2014. For webmasters who were doing SEO before Panda, this can be particularly difficult to navigate. Many have been directly impacted by the Google paradox. Unlike the Einstein theory of insanity, in the Google Paradox, SERPs actually do yield different results after doing the same thing (spammy link building) over and over again. A link scheme that scored number one rankings in 2010 can and will draw a manual or algorithmic penalty, today. That paradox has driven many a webmaster nuts! According to Google, the following activities are link scheming – not link building: Buying or selling links that pass PageRank Using automated programs or services to create links to your site Linking to a site for the sole purpose of getting a link back Building a link networking for the purpose of linking Large-scale article marketing or guest posting using keyword-rich anchor text Buying advertorials or articles that include links that pass PageRank Creating & Distributing Press releases with optimized anchor text Recently removed from the guidelines, but still likely to trigger a penalty: Linking to web spammers or unrelated sites with the intent to manipulate PageRank Links that are inserted into articles with little coherence 3 Safe Ways to Build Links in 2014 So what's left? Focus external link building efforts on the acquisition of editorially given links. These are links requiring human intervention and approval. Build links that are relevant – on pages where the readers would have a genuine interest in your website. Quality trumps quantity. A few links from high trust/authority websites will have more impact than hundreds of links from "Made for Guest Posting" blogs. Conclusion There are no more short cuts to link building. The process is hard and time consuming. In 2014, it's time to spend the time and the money to do it right so you can stop fearing the Google reaper.
Let's agree to disagree about the relevancy topic. This is the biggest myth and misconception about linkbuilding. Links do NOT need to be relevant. Google does not have the resources to analyze the relevancy of trillions of links and their destination URLs. If relevancy was necessary why would sape and other paid link sources be targeted by Google?
ideally link building is supposed to be natural, great content attracts great links! If you are putting an effort on link building , make it look as natural as possible.
Yep agreed. Make those content relevant and Google will definitely give you a boost. PR is still a great assets in linking building if you know how to do it the right way.
Always content is king. Content marketing plays important role in link building. For example article submission, press release submission, blog posting and so on requires fresh and quality content. And Google awards for the viral content.
Google's latest Webmaster Guidelines list "low-quality social bookmarking" sites as link schemes. Not good!
That is all sorts of wrong. The best links have always been relevant and merit based. That has been the case for years. I have repeatedly shown time and time again that you can do in 10 links what the numpties around here do with 5000 of them. I do not kid. I also stopped trying to convince people of this obvious fact. Less folks to have to compete with That is accurate. Though, for the sake of argument, MOZ has very clear metrics demonstrating a correlation between rankings and G+ another awesome white board Friday http://moz.com/blog/using-google-plus-to-appear-in-the-top-results-every-time-whiteboard-friday The math... http://moz.com/blog/google-plus-correlations It is if you are generating relevant, merit based links. Nigel
Not sure what quality content has to do with "link building" (not aimed at the OP, but a reply). Plenty of great content never gets discovered and plenty of trash rises to the top. I am not one of the "build it and they will come" repeaters though, so maybe that's why I think this way.
And keep in Mind Video content is the best way to get the visitors to stay for long in your website, and people love to watch video, they don't love to read.
Google's Matt Cutts: We've Penalized A Guest Blogging Network What you exactly want? Why do you think its network? This is a platform where people come and take only relevant posts. Is this also spam? Or do you completely want to close guest blogging? And want to divert peoples mind towards adsense? Why you are not making your stand clear? Myguestblog is platform where site owners and writers who want to publish their posts come together...and that's all run without any money transactions. And at least with 90% relevancy we can see on this platform. Then what's the point to penalized it? If you will penalize things like this way. Then the day is very near when people scare to build any links on web. This is really ridiculous steps taken by Matt cutts since last year or two. People will start hating Google - if this will remain the same. Guest blogging is such a great way to build relevant links. You keep saying each time that to get links from relevant sources. If my topic is health related and I'm getting link from any health blog which is very genuine and real- then why I should scare about it? Do you still say its spam? Only adwords is good option now? Seems like google don't want organic SEO world now. They just want bloody money through their adwords. Really sad Google- days are very near when facebook will cover the Google market. Example - they have started paid sponsored advertisement. I'm watching all videos of Matt cutts from last 1 year. I do agree that spam is reduced by some extent. But his approach towards guest blogging is really not correct. He is just closing all link building techniques. People are finding it very hard - how they build link?? If day by day all looks spam in eye of matts. He should answer this clearly.. Matt cutts: today we took action on a large guest blog network. A reminder about the spam risks of guest blogging. What do you mean by reminder? Myguestblog is not doing any spam activity. What's the point?
Indeed. Every time I upload a new page, I immediately post it to "Fetch As Google" and to my Google+ profile, with a short, relevant blurb about it. Within literally seconds, not minutes, I do a search for that link text on Google, and inevitably my Google+ post is showing on the first page. Every time. Within seconds. Google's frowning is clearly towards "low-quality" social bookmarking sites. They love their own social site.