Link Building Strategies: Link Building Value
Now that we’ve covered the importance of link building, we move on to the next question that most people and webmasters alike have in mind. Are all links treated equally?
If it was, then link spamming would be the best way to get a higher rank, right?
Link spamming won’t get you anywhere. It is frowned upon by the SEO community at large and it will most probably get your site penalized by Google – especially now that they have Caffeine around.
Value is based on the source
The value of links depends on the authority of the website that gives them to you. Is the website authoritative? Is it trusted by a lot of people? Do they have lots of visitors? Do they have high page rank/MozRank?
When you’re looking for a link which will pass on good juice to your website, you have to study where you want your links to come from. You don’t want links from sites with no relevant content to yours.
For example, if your website is about dog training, you don’t want a link coming from a website talking about how to fix your toilet plumbing. That’s just not gonna work! There are things you have to avoid when linkbuilding.
Link type
Next thing you want to study up is the type of link you’re getting. Is it a nofollow link? Is the anchor text related to your website? Is where the link placed somewhere visible? Is it going to be placed with a lot of other links (on a links page)?
You have to study up the type of links you’re getting because it affects the magnitude of link juice that it passes on to your site. Even if it’s an authoritative site, if they’re giving you a nofollow link without a proper anchor text, you’re getting a minimal amount of juice from that – which is a waste.
The value of links are not the same. The values differ. The exact value is unknown. The only thing we know is that we better make the best of the links we’re getting in order for it to have optimum effect as it passes on authority to our website.
So when you’re building links, do your research. Study up on the website’s authority and then make sure that the links you’ll be getting from them are the types you want.
This entry is part of the SEO Hacker School series: Link Building Strategies
You can also check our comprehensive all-in-one guide about Effective link building strategies