Myth:You must have “relevant” links in the same niche as your website

You must have “relevant” links in the same niche as
your website or they don't count or you will get penalized in some way
by Google.

That is another myth that gets passed around a lot. Sure, it's good to have
relevant links and Google recommends it, but links that are not "relevant"
also count.

The Drudge Report was put on the "map" the day he broke the news that
President Clinton was having an...er, indiscretion with a young intern named
Monica Lewinsky. THOUSANDS (maybe even HUNDREDS of thousands)
of sites linked to him that day. Many of them were not in his "niche".
A couple of months ago, I challenged my Physical Therapist (I have an old
ankle injury) that I could get him on Page One of Google for his keywords.
He was at the bottom of Page 6. I did his links one night and then went to
bed. The next day I got up and checked and he was NUMBER ONE in
Google for ALL his keywords. Not one of the sites I added his link to was
"relevant" for Physical Therapy or even Health and Wellness. Yet they still
worked that well that fast.

If you leave out great sites because they are not "relevant" to your niche,
you are leaving a lot of money on the table. I'd use them all.

So, you can't just have niche related links as backlinks. You need all of them.

 

I am with you. I totally believe that, and always have.

 

yes, agree. Search engines aren't much good at detecting 'intent' yet... although they are very good at determining 'unique'...

 

Good to hear back from you guyzzz..Last time I posted this myth I was taken bu surprise by a handful of guyz here on forum.

Cheers

 

Totally agree wuith you

 

My say is any link can help and when i can get a link i get it ...

 

I'd say it's partly true: It's not about relevancy only, but if two sites have the same number of links with similar strength and one has all of them on it's topic and the other one has random ones "only", the one with the relevant ones will always outrank the other.

Basically, the more relevant your links are, the less links are needed for the same effect. This doesn't mean that someone throwing a huge ammount of irrelevant links on a site can't outrank you, but it makes things easier and link building more effective.

 

Irrelevant l;inks also help you rank higher ................

 

I agree with you too. I've done some link building with some keywords as well and it pops up on main page within few days time. All it matters is that the page's PR and the number of outgoing links that particular page is having and for google, it must be dofollow. The higher PR pages with less number of outgoing links are better.

 

I do believe "relevant" links help.
But all links are counted.


so I totally agree with you

 

Now for instance Check this regional site of mine: http://www.bollykings.com/

If you search google with the following keywords:

Latest hindi movies - 22,300,000
latest hindi movie reviews - 17,200,000
lastest hindi music - 15,400,000

The site comes on first page for both yahoo and google!

And the biggest factor is that I have done link building on mostly non-niche blogs and sites.

So, here's an example that links from each blog count and link building on non-niche sites are very useful.

 

Why would Matt Cutts from Google spend half his life saying relevant links carry more weight if it is not true? Not difficult for Google to look at a sites content then follow a link and see if the same keywords/terms are evident is it?

 

Yes, I wouldn't mind a link off the BBC or CNN to any of my sites, and none of them are news related!!

 

I'd have to reluctantly agree.

My comments at several blogs (unrelated to my niche), are just as powerful as those "Relevant links" that I've gotten.

(Although -- I was really jazzed to see the word "Wedding" three times in a recent Atniz.com posting, it was one of those rare moments when I was posting my link into "relevant content")

 

It is always best to have backlinks related to your niche... but creating backlinks not related to your niche does not hurt either.

 

Has anyone ever specified what "relevant" means? What is relevant for my wife's Cupcakes Delivered site www.buycake.co.uk? Cupcakes, yes, how about cakes? Recipes? The band Cake? Has anyone done any tests?

 

From my 3 years of experience, I can safely vouch that the concept of related links is highly overestimated. Related links are so very vital for a new domain/web property as G puts you in it's sites immediately and rankings are much quicker. For all my affiliate products on Goarticles and Associated Content,I make it a point to hit up related links all the while. However, as soon as you establish your site i.e gain PR or have over 100 indexed pages, what really counts is where you get your next link from. Instead of getting related links, what so be atop your agenda is the age of the linking domain, authority power and the number of outgoing links and the quality of sites where those outgoing links link up to. Another extremly critical point is the positioning of your link in these sites.

 

I agree as well. Although I think the more intelligent the google algo gets, the better it will be able to determine relevance of links. Moreso, you don't just build links for SEO, you do so for relevant traffic, so relevant links always win out in the end if you have a choice.

 

Thank you for the great insight!

 

Thanks for this information, this is really very helpful....