Quality SEO Services engage in a solid linking strategy that appeases search engine spiders and avoids the threat of a client’s site being blacklisted or banned for impropriety. Not just black hat tactics, but amateurish mistakes also, can result in less than desirable penalties. Google has a very time consuming reconsideration process. Here are seven link building techniques that should be avoided like the plague.
1. Rapid backlink generation
Generating links at a breakneck pace rouses Googlebot’s suspicions because it looks unnatural. Build links at a slower, more natural pace to satisfy Googlebot and other spiders. If using a paid service to generate backlinks, keep tabs on the progress and make sure link count doesn’t leap from a hundred per week or month to a couple thousand in the same time frame. A slow and steady pace wins the race.
2. Using IBLNs
This is considered a black hat tactic. Independent Backlink Networks are not only costly, but Google staff are constantly on the lookout for IBLN users. When Google discovers sites that are part of an Independent Backlink Network, the entire network using it tends to gets blacklisted or banned. Matt Cutts or another influential person may also write a post about that network’s members. IBLNs are expensive, and the network members could be publicly exposed.
3. Redundantly using keywords in anchor text
Do not use your keywords for each instance of anchor text on a page; spiders pick up on that. It is far safer to use other words for the majority of links. A site about horses, for instance, should have anchor text containing equestrian-related words and keyword synonyms, instead of the keywords themselves.
4. Low quality links
This is one of those phrases that seems to mean little, but can make a noticeable difference. Sites with a thousand links that Google considers low quality do not rank as favorably as sites with 500 links Google deems high quality. The total number of links is important, without question, but some low quality links that are here today will be gone tomorrow. Higher quality links have a better chance of remaining accessible for longer stretches of time.
5. Using site wide linking
Site wide links are promoted as a viable option and readily available, even though as early as late 2010 Google rendered them basically worthless. Google ranks site wide links, no matter how many there are, as one link. Because of this, they aren’t really useful anymore.
6. Site scraping and content repackaging
Scraping sites for their content and using software to slightly alter that content via synonyms and sentence restructuring is another futile attempt at tricking search engine spiders. It no longer passes the smell test and produces a bad result. Googlebot is coded to understand when it encounters slightly rehashed content. Steven Baker, a software developer at Google, states that Google’s web search ranking team spent over five years building a “synonyms system.”
7. Phishing
Making a page look identical to a well-known page for the purposes of stealing personal information? The FBI agrees, there are better ways to generate revenue than “electronic social engineering” to get someone’s information. Offer a product, service, or provide an experience people want, and they will be more likely to give up some of their information.
Google tells webmasters it is a bad idea to pay for links. Sites that build links over time are doing so naturally, and by the book, regardless of whether those links were gained freely or paid for. IBLNs are expensive and risky to consider, unless one has cash to spare on an endeavor that ends badly if Google catches on. Avoiding the use of the other five link building techniques above will keep Googlebot happy. Keeping spiders happy makes life a little easier for hardworking webmasters.
I am guilty of point 1,3, and 4 due to credit links on a free theme I have made. I use the credit most for relevant traffic reasons. Do you think the links can hurt my rankings? I wish to keep the links for traffic, and I think giving my own links nofollow attributes is a bit strange…
I don’t think that you are in any trouble. Honestly, it is rare that a backlink would actually hurt your site, otherwise it would be very simple to spam a lot of low quality links at your competitor and simply drop their site’s rank. I think that distributing a free WP theme with a link to your site is fine. Leave them as do follow links.
I agree with Mitchell on this. I think the problem arises for those who purchase site-wide links and get thousands of a keyword specific link pointing to their domain all at once from that particular domain! This may raise Google’s spam radar.
Otherwise I think you are in good order and as long as you stay away from any black hat SEO you are good to go.
People must be consistence with article marketing and forums to build natural links if you don’t want to visit the spam box.
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
I understand that this post is focused on SEO, Jordan; however, I still think there’s a great deal of benefit that can be gained by lower quality links (like comments) and site-wide linking.
For those non-spider readers, aka humans, these low quality links guide readers to relevant places on your site. It’s why they were once prized by the search engine algorithms, but were removed because of how easy they are to manipulate. Why they may not be great for SEO anymore, they’re still great for generating traffic.
I agree with you on the rest of your points. Not only do they have the potential to do great damage to your SEO reputations among the spiders, but they don’t help you with the human readers either. Thanks for sharing your tips with us.
Hi Brad.
I didnt take Jordan’s point as an absolute never-do type of deal. I love following low-quality links (in comments section for example) to discover new bloggers and interesting content. Besides, sometimes its just there so why not take it.
Michele’s site has comment-luv enabled…I would have to go out of my way to remove it…but that doesnt make any sense and I dindt think Jordan was suggesting that.
Here s to low quality links
I didn’t mean to imply that he did, Dino. I just wanted to point out that there’s still traffic benefits to these two types of low quality links even if there’s not much SEO benefit.
Right on Brad…I think we’re all in agreement
Jordan, can you — or someone — clarify “site wide linking”?
I understand everything in the other tips, and I have never done them.
Hey John,
Jordan may have to confirm this, but my understanding of site-wide linking is a link that links to all pages on a website. Usually you see them in the footer for example. Many people would buy site-wide links from another site with their targeted keyword to get hundreds, sometimes thousands of backlinks to their site.
Hope that clarifies things.
Jordan, I was going to ask the same question as John. What do you mean by “site wide linking”?
Thanks for a succinct recap of tips on link building.
Hi Sherryl,
I just answered John on this in case if you want to take a look.
Ciao my dear.
Sidewise linking is when a link appears on every post on a page. In a blog sidebar and footer links are usually sidewide
Haha, just saw you answered this. I just did the same. Maybe I should read through all comments first.
Thanks Bjorn!!
Thanks Michele and everyone. I have a few backlinks in Google to my freelance writing blog and my hiking blog that come solely from being in another site’s blogroll, as near as I can tell. They are quality sites.
Great piece Michele. I totally agree with all 7 of these and their negativeness (is that a word, ha). I hate when people write and produce for the search engines. It makes things a whole lot less personal.
Good stuff per usual
Quite an interesting article especially for people, who are searching for website promotion services. Link building is a very important part of search engine optimization process and it should be performed properly. I fully agree with all tips provided here. First of all, links should be built manually. So, my advice is to avoid automatical services promissing to build 1000 incoming links per $5 only. It is waste of time and money.
Hey Jordan!
Great stuff glad to see you here at NBB!
I was told awhile back that there is no speed that’s too fast for building backlinks. The key is being able to maintain that speed then you will have great results. If you build backlinks really fast for a week, then the next month next to none won’t work. Google will recgonize that something isn’t right with that picture.
My focus is on getting the best backlinks I can get, but I want them to come naturally. That way they will more than likely best of really high quality!
God bless,
William Veasley
I did rapid backlink generation in the early days. Didn’t help at all. How do you find low quality links on your blog?
Re: site wide links. So it doesn’t help me doing more than one guest post on a particular blog?
I have a case of you. I have 37 high quality links coming in and an Aleaxca rank of 200k+ and my Pr rank is still 0. How can I fix it as a low rating hurt my business.
Hi Ivin,
Can’t seem to track down Jordan. Maybe he’s away. Anyway, doing more than one guest post is really about creating familiarity and trust with the readers on that blog. They would be more likely to visit your site, if they’ve seen you numerous times. You still will get the link juice from the page, but site wide links are more about links put in areas where the link is accessible from ANY page on that site, i.e. the footer.
PR, I wouldn’t worry so much unless you are looking to acquire sponsors. You will see that there are many sites out there with low Alexa rankings yet low or no PR. They are not directly related. As for Alexa, your numbers are often a variable of visitors who also have Alexa toolbar installed. To improve Alexa rankings you can try several things:
1. Install toolbar if you haven’t done so already.
2. Ask people to leave reviews of your site on Alexa
3. Try to get onto DMOZ.org
Good luck!
If with toolbar you mean in my browser. Got that. Don’t know how else. The other two points I have covered.
Yes, I want the pr for sponsorship.
Thanks for your help. Let me know if you know of some professional that could help me get my pr up.
I will definitely keep an eye out for you Ivin. Just keep doing what you doing. Guest posting and using your keywords hyperlinked to your site will be effective tactic in helping your ranking.
Ciao!
Hi guys,
Sorry for not dropping by earlier
I see that Michele has already done a great job answering all your questions, but I thought I’d chip in as well 
RE site wide links: as mentioned above, these are links that appear on every (or almost every) page of your website. A site wide link can be placed anywhere; the footer, a menu, a “favorite links” section, etc. As long as it appears on the vast majority of pages, it is considered a site wide link.
Those links were once very valuable indeed, but that was long ago. Ever since the 2003 Google Florida Update (read more about it here: http://www.webworkshop.net/florida-update.html) they have been losing value rapidly. This doesn’t mean that a site wide link is useless; it just means that a site wide link is no more valuable (from a strictly SEO perspective, not a direct traffic generating one) than a single link from a visible section of that website.
The reason I mention this is that a lot of webmasters will want to charge you a considerably higher fee for a site wide link, than for a regular single visible link. I figured people should be aware that this will not benefit them from an SEO point of view.
Hope this helps! In case of more questions please shoot – I’ll drop by to answer
Jordan
Hi Jordan,
Thanks for the clarification and thorough explanation on site wide links. Most of all thanks for contributing this wonderful article. Look forward to the next.
Thanks for the list! I did not know that creating plenty of back links too fast could back fired. I guess I have to be more patient to Googlebot
.
.Any link that sends you traffic could be seen as a good link but what are quality links what are good links and what are crap links when it comes to improving the actual ranking of your own pages in Google SERPS?.First you need to be aware that the quality of a link that effects a ranking improvement for your own site in Google is dependant on the page and site it is on. Is the site trusted is the page trusted is the page in Googles index at all how many links point to the actual page your link is on are people actually going to click this link that in itself is a good measure of the quality of a link! ?.Most importantly its all about the page the link is on. Its the page you need to be interested in…You should have a mixture of focused anchor text links unfocused anchor text links and URL citations http://www.hobo-web.co.uk etc in your link profile to ensure long standing rankings ie a natural link profile ..What follows is my general rule of thumb ..
Although I agree with most of what you said, I don’t quite agree with #1. In my personal experience, it doesn’t matter how many or how fast you build links.
Yes, you might get sand boxed or somehow penalized for building too many links too quick, but if you keep building links the same way, SEs will think that it is natural process since its always the same.
I mean, think about it, if building too many links too fast was actually harmful, then posts that go viral online, would bring lots of trouble to their site since they will be linked by thousands of people in a day or so!…
Plus, if that was true, you could push your competitor out of the way, by building lots of backlinks for them quickly using automated tools.
Hi Satrap,
I see (and agree) with your argument with about pages going viral. It wouldn’t make sense that why these pages wouldn’t penalized for hundreds or sometimes thousands of sites connecting to them in a relatively short period of time. However, it’s to my understanding (and I may have to double check with Jordan or another SEO expert) when a page (post, video, etc.) goes viral, it’s mostly about a piece of content being shared in various means such as email, social networking, tweeting, etc. as oppose to getting backlinks. Although I think that may be part of it as well, but not the sole source for that piece of content being shared. Also often times that link shared may or may not be on a dofollow system, which may not necessary provide you the relevant backlink.
It’s an interesting debate for sure because we already know that Google does not penalize a site for receiving backlinks from other sites (spammy or not); I mean we can blame a site for other people choosing to link to it right? Yet we also know that many of these paid links are given a bad wrap. They are often associated with link farms and junk links; therefore you are very likely throwing money at something that is not providing you with solid, relevant backlinks or from sites with no or low PR.
So I think the jury is still out and unfortunately I think many “experts” tend to disagree on this matter. I feel at the end of the day going the organic root, that is writing an exceptional piece of content that people want to link to is probably the best way to go. I do think there are exceptions; some people may have had success with paid links. But more often than not I think it shows little return.
What are your thoughts on this? You obviously know a thing or two about this topic.
Hi Michele,
I personally don’t think paid links are any good and I do not use them. For one, its against Google’s webmaster guidelines, secondly, why would you pay to build backlinks when there are so many free ways to build them.
I just think there are just so many myths about link building and SEO in general, all because no one really knows how Google or other SEs exactly work.
I just go with what I have learned from my own experience. I build links in any way I can, except black-hat methods (paid links and etc).
Although I know dofollow links are the only one that really matter, I dont just build dofollow links.
Same way with the kind of backlinks I build. I dont just focus on one kind, I get it from artcile submission, blog commenting, directory submission, link exchange, social bookmarking and so on.
I think the biggest thing I have learned in my 2 years of doing this, is diversifying. Dofollow, nofollow, blogs, artcile directories, social bookmarking,…it doesn’t matter. If you can build backlinks and if its not black-hat, then build it!
I mean think about it, natural link building means getting links from different sources and not just dofollow or one way backlinks or what have you.
So, build backlinks using different sources!
I am no expert, I am just stating things that have been working for me so far.
I am sure, there are many people who might disagree because they have experienced it in different ways. And that is what makes SEO so interesting too me.
Like you said, at the end of the day, we don’t really know!
All we can do is to speculate and go with what worked for us and what didn’t.
And you are absolutely right, if you want people to link to you, the best way is to write content that people can’t resist linking too.
Hi Satrap,
“I have learned in my 2 years of doing this, is diversifying.” I couldn’t have said it better!
Here’s the funny thing Satrap, in the “real” world you hear this all the time. It just makes good business sense. And for some reason, many people once they get online, forget the basics.
Thanks for taking the time to going into more details on your point of view on this. It’s very much appreciated.
Much continued success!
I definitely agree with your points more specifically on the first one by which links needed to be built slowly and not in an instant. It holds true especially to all those new sites out there. Google could easily detect such sites which builds thousands of links within just a short period of time, and would definitely penalize them.
Unless its natural, all link building is Blackhat!
According to Google’s TOS, natural links are links others point back to your site without the need to pay for it, ask for it, comment for it or insert a link in your article to gain it.
So, if all link building strategies are in effect manipulating search engine results, doesn’t it stand to reason that all link building is Blackhat and the majority of off-page SEO practiced by SEO firms is in effect, Blackhat?
You’re so cool! I don’t think I’ve read anything like this before. So good to find somebody with some original thoughts on this subject. Thanks for starting this up. tava tea
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