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The more of your competitors believe that link building is dead, the better for your own Brighton Business. The truth is that links are still the most important factor for Google’s ranking algorithm and should remain a part od any effective SEO strategy. However, the type of link that points to your website makes a huge difference.

Don’t be fooled by Google’s smoke and mirrors game

When it comes to backlinks, Google is giving advice that confuses a lot of people. In addition, Google’s Penguin updates have created the impression that Google doesn’t like backlinks. Actually, Google only dislikes artificial backlinks.

The problem is that many people do not understand the difference between ‘link scheming’ and ‘link building’. Link scheming leads to penalties. Link building can greatly improve the rankings of your website.

The difference between link building and link scheming

Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Google penalises websites that have link scheming links.

The following link types are a red flag for Google and it’s likely that your website will be penalised and are not recommended for SEO:

  • Paid links that do not use the rel=nofollow attribute, including advertorials, paid blog posts and paid footer links.
  • Links from article sites or press releases with over-optimised anchor texts.
  • Backlinks that have been created by tools that create backlinks in bulk.
  • Links from low-quality directory or bookmark sites that only exist to create links.
  • Keyword-rich or hidden links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites.
  • Links from forum comments with optimised anchor texts in the post or signature.

How to decide where to get links

So which type of backlinks are okay with Google and good for SEO? Just ask yourself: would that link make sense if there were no search engines? If the answer is yes, then the link is a good link that will have a positive influence on the rankings of your website on search engines.

You do not need special metrics to judge the quality of a web page. When you find a web page that could link to your site, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Does the linking page look good to the average web visitor?
  • Does the page have interesting content?
  • Is the content closely related to my area of business?
  • Does it make sense if the web page links to your site?
  • Would you be happy to give them a link i.e. recommend the site to your site visitors?

If you can answer all questions with “yes” then you should try to get a backlink from that page. It doesn’t matter if that page has a low PageRank as long as it has good content and is relevant to your area of business.

Google uses a technology called Latent Semantic Indexing to try to imitate common sense with its algorithm. If you use common sense in your link building efforts and follow the tips above, you make sure that the backlinks to your website will help you in your search rankings and you are unlikely to have to worry about any future updates of Google’s algorithm.

If you would like to know more about our search engine optimisation services in Brighton please leave a comment below or call us on 01273 328877