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Google Shares Its Viewpoint on Earning Quality Links

Quality Link Building is About the Long-Term

By · June 23, 2010 · 49 Comments
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SEO changes all the time as search engines make adjustments to their algorithms and user interfaces, users adopt new technologies, etc. Still some things never change, like Google’s view on spammy links.

Do you agree with Google’s philosophy on link-building? Share your thoughts here.

In a new post to the Google Webmaster Central blog, the company has expressed its most recent viewpoint on earning quality links.

The first piece of advice Google gives is to get involved with the community around your topic. If you were still not convinced that social media plays a very big role in search, consider this is coming straight from Google. Now the networks your community hangs out in may vary, but engaging with the community is simply a good way to get links and build credibility, which also will most likely lead to more links. Engaging is good for increasingly visibility outside of search anyway. Nothing new. Just reiterated by Google.

Sidenote: Listen to what Arnel Leyva of Covario has to say about search and social media from this recent interview WebProNews did with him at SMX Advanced:

Another tip Google suggests is to create content that solves problems for your users – things like tutorials, videos, and tools, surveys, research results, etc. Users who find helpful content are likely to pass it on.

Google's Kaspar Szymanski Talks Building Quality Links Google notes that humor and other link-bait tactics can work for the short term, but does not recommend counting such tactics. "It’s important to clarify that any legitimate link building strategy is a long-term effort," says Google Search Quality Strategist Kaspar Szymanski. "There are those who advocate for short-lived, often spammy methods, but these are not advisable if you care for your site’s reputation. Buying PageRank-passing links or randomly exchanging links are the worst ways of attempting to gather links and they’re likely to have no positive impact on your site’s performance over time. If your site’s visibility in the Google index is important to you it’s best to avoid them." (emphasis added)

"Directory entries are often mentioned as another way to promote young sites in the Google index," says Szymanski. "There are great, topical directories that add value to the Internet. But there are not many of them in proportion to those of lower quality. If you decide to submit your site to a directory, make sure it’s on topic, moderated, and well structured. Mass submissions, which are sometimes offered as a quick work-around SEO method, are mostly useless and not likely to serve your purposes."

Szymanski also suggests looking to similar sites in other markets for inspiration – not to copy them, but to see the things that they have done to be successful and see if there is a way to apply that to your own site.

Finally, probably the most obvious tip offered here is to make it easy for people to share your content. Things like Facebook "likes" and Twitter retweets can go a long way in creating new links to your content. Granted these won’t necessarily boost you "pagerank" but they will boost your visibility, which can lead to more quality links, and simply traffic, which is ultimately the goal anyway right?

Have more link-building tips? Share them with WebProNews readers in the comments.

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There are 49 Comments. Add Yours.
  1. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    andrea

    i think web is made of links.
    maybe directory entries could have another value in the future, but if “content is the king”, “link is the queen” in the other hand!

    Reply

  2. Google rules and change the world every 2 years in terms of linking and pagerank.

    Reply
  3. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Phil

    Links from theme based sites and if so, it does not matter about any other factors and SM plays important part in rankings

    Reply
  4. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    James

    Yeah this is a great topic. Directories do play value when its on topic well structured and if the concept is good then directories can be a winner. Twitter and other social networks play a great role as its like promoting of links and getting visibility which is growing and i hope more such networks would be coming. I have found out a niche directory which is to the topic which i admire its eemes.com

    Directories such like this play a great role and many of them are there on the net to provide great value and on topic subjects.

    Reply
  5. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    ndolem

    I am still confused SEO and pagerank problem

    Reply
  6. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Michele

    Google is correct, link building is a long term effort. We are working hard at it, and have managed to add over 200 links in the past three months. A few a day. We use directory listing, article submission, facebook and twitter. It is working. Forums are great too.

    Reply
    • Like (0) Dislike (0)
      Pablo

      Most of you have heard it before, but besides forums, directories, Facebook, et al, content is still king for being found.

      Reply
  7. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Guest

    quality links is the way

    Reply

  8. Google shrinks the head of the pin it expects all our sites to stand on. I feel Goog’s short list of Authority sites and Trust like an ever-tightening noose around our necks — and livelihoods.

    I wonder what Goog thinks of IEntry’s farm of what – 400-500+ directories now, hmmm? Do you really think if I spend 5 hours slogging thru SubmitterBot directory submissions and end up in XYZ… Categories that I’ll ever eveen get crawled – let alone gain more authority? Hah!

    Reply
  9. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Anonymous-J

    Google ads contain text links.
    Are these links considered back links?
    Do they bring up the page rank of the site?
    Is advertising on Google a way to build back links?

    Reply

  10. I have had some success with article submissions. It can be hard to sift through the sea of companies that promise to get you 50,000 hits a day.
    To me it is still a mystery why my site does better on some days than others.

    Reply

  11. Sounds like the basics is quality links from relevant sites that pertain to your industry! Websites in the legal systems that handles wills shouldn’t be getting links from a massage website.

    Reply
  12. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Josep

    it seems that Google likes quality links, not quantity
    Commenting on reputated blogs related with your topic is another way to get quality links

    Reply

  13. I have found that for a new site getting listings in reasonably well targeted (country and topic) directories makes a pretty good start for building page rank and is one of the most cost effective and easily put into action strategies to bring in traffic to a web site in the short to medium term.

    Reply

  14. From my experience articles and quality content are the best – A good article with some excellent keyword linking works wonders!

    Reply
    • Like (0) Dislike (0)
      elvin

      I agree with you. Best articles are still the best.

      If Google can find ways in highlighting the best articles written could somehow provide relief to readers/searchers. But I’m wondering how will Google do that? Get the number of times the article are retweeted, liked, dug? :D

      Reply

  15. I am intrigued by the advice given that a webmaster should “get involved with the community around your topic” in order to help build links to their site.

    However, was Google referring to using social media sites (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to get involved or other other ways to accomplish this?

    Reply
    • Like (0) Dislike (0)
      Chris Crum

      I would say that you’ll probably want to focus on wherever it is that the people you consider to be your community are participating. There’s a very good chance that will be places like Twitter and Facebook. There is also a very good chance it will be in forums as well.

      Reply

  16. A good start is using twitter and face book submitting to dmoz and the yahoo directory helps to.

    Reply
  17. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Hampers

    I found the article relevant and helpful – although in my field of Hampers and Gift baskets, there is limited professional networks and communitities – most are sole small scale operations. My Links are mainly off topic with some relevance like geography, or gifts, or flowers.

    Reply

  18. Great article. Directories play a great role as do Twitter and Friend feed. Forums are great too.

    Reply
  19. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    catherine

    I am looking at a SEO company that offers quality link building and has a 90%+ success rate at getting you on the first page of google within 3 months. Are these legitimate?

    Reply

  20. i think i must learn much about link. is that webmaster help us anyway?
    i just new in this web.

    Reply
  21. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Eric

    i think google’s article is very informative and useful.

    and it eliminates a speculation previously that directory submission is totally worthless. it turns out that google actually appreciates well edited and organized directories. however, mass submission is not advisable, as google states.

    Reply

  22. There is a lot of talk about using directories for link building, but no talk about articles submission. I am not talking about mass submission to a bunch of useless article directories, but about sending quality content to quality article directories like Ezine and Buzzle. Articles have been very powerful in the past and you are actually contributing to the community.

    Reply

  23. Hi All,
    yes “sure Quality Link Building is About the Long-Term ” I am agree with this point of view that about quality link submission,
    you Know first of all “quality” it has some meaning , that means if your website rank in good position having good back link , reciprocal link, with lots of seo off page submission work and if you submit your link in low category of link as per as not match with your relevant service work , or product , then how much its help you for your website ,
    so as per as SEO point of View ” Quality link submission is very much helpful”

    Thanking you ,
    If you need more information about or contact me
    Visit our website : http://www.braahmam.net
    or write : sales@braahmam.net/

    Reply
  24. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Parvesh Sareen

    In SEO its all links game, if you are establishing quality and reputed links whether it should be through SMO or Links Building. Only that counts is the value they are providing to our website. So go for good links in any of the ways to keep your site’s presence forever.

    Reply
  25. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Beric

    We use Twitter, Facebook, Frienfeed with the yoono tool and we are quite happy with the results!

    Reply
  26. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Actionlab

    very informative, it seems like it’s getting harder and harder to build links. i have almost given up on blog commenting due to nofollow.

    Reply
  27. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Patrick

    I really wonder if all this will help. People who have money will always have a way to get around it. This link building exercise is really tedious – you need good backlinks to have good rankings, and then again life is difficult building backlinks.
    Big guys can splash out all the moolah and have some firm keep adding their banklinks!

    Who suffers? The common mr. joe

    Reply
  28. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Rajeesh

    Yes, I do believe building links is more than just increasing the numbers. Its also important build some reputation via communicating on forums or blogs which will result in to more recommendations in the form of inbound links..

    Google always cares about its dearly webmasters..

    Reply
    • Like (0) Dislike (0)
      Free UK Ads

      :/ I am more than sure – big G cares only about $ – have to remember that every employer can be replaced (and there is a line of talanted specialists)

      Reply
  29. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    ANAwebs

    I must say that I come accross condusing messages from Google in the past period. With Caffeine update they want to put more value into social media links, and above is stated that “these won’t necessarily boost you “pagerank”".

    If links are so great, one thing i don’t understand in today’s rankings: websites with 1 page only, around 200 words text, built on free subdomain and with 2 baklinks only found on the web tend to rank better than other more established sites (and I am talking about personal situation)..

    Either way, social media is a good tool to keep traffic at high levels and don’t rely entirely on visitors sent by Google.

    Reply
  30. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    John

    I did a comparative search of my site and competitors and found out that the ones in the tops rankings have thousands of links. Actually over 5-10 thousand. And these are not even the highest ranking. Some ranking higher then mine have less links! It makes seo even more confusing.

    I am sill doing my links, articles, social sites, blog and forum commenting, seo; but it doesn’t seem to be changing anything. My site: http://www.homedesignsense.com has been around for several years and is still ranked 2. Can’t seem to get the ranking to go up; but I’ll keep trying.

    Maybe I am missing something?

    Reply
  31. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Bill Covert

    There certainly is no fast way to create backlinks to your site. It is easy… yet time consuming. Every time you (or me) create a post like this takes time, yet it allows you to add your link. So all you need do is take an hour a day (or how ever long) and go add VALUE in your niche market by posting useful tips. Are you ready? GO!

    Reply

  32. Love the article and video! Thank you for posting this. =)

    As an SEO Consultant and Website Designer myself–I am a firm believer that one can INCREASE their page rank on Google, Yahoo, and on Bing search engines by having good quality content that has several links on the web page that are relevant to the page’s content. =)

    Tonya

    Reply
  33. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    megallodon

    And why my site is not visible in Dmoz, already half a year as a registered

    Reply
  34. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    jacky

    A good start is using twitter and face book submitting to dmoz and the yahoo directory helps to.

    Reply
  35. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Debbie

    I still feel that Google is really having a problem finding a good method of combating the link buying and link spam tactics so many SEO companies use. I am just waiting for the day that all these spammy tactics are punished but I don’t think that Google, or anyone else, really has a way to solve this problem.

    Reply

  36. have to admit, that still black hat search engine optimisation is too powerful if used in correct way as still you can get a decent PR during only 1 month, and we know that is impossible with manual white-hat techiques…

    still, I consider myself white gardener ;)

    Reply
  37. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Jeff

    It seems to me that Google’s method of ranking based on link building is pointless. Is this why when I do a search for something, so much “junk” comes up? By junk I just mean stuff I am not looking for.

    If I have to spend so much time trying to get good links, what difference does that make to my customers? I don’t think a searcher is trying to find information based on quality back links, are they? If people are like me, they just want to find information that is relevant, accurate and true regardless of anyone’s (any site’s) popularity.

    Reply
    • Like (0) Dislike (0)
      Guest

      So Jeff, how do you think Google should rank content?

      Reply

      • The same how it used to do back in the 90′s before pageramk was a factor..Content genune, and aged domains.

        Reply

  38. I remember back in the day when the Yahoo and DMOZ links were worth so much more than they are today. Now it is about having good links from relevant pages with good anchor text.

    Link building takes more time and effort, because there is a lot more competition and also there are not as many trustworthy sites to build links from.

    Reply

  39. Google in my own option cannot enforce backlinking if sites all over the internet are linking together regardless of page rank (which is pretty stupid in my professional option because i have a website with 400 pages of infomation and google sees it as a pr2 site yet my competition has only 5 webpages between them and have pr 3-4 or more)

    Google effected everything from their search engine code on long tail keywords to complience yet as internet webhosts we have to just bow down to demands when the big g barks them,

    so annoying. wish one of the other search engines dominate soon enough.

    Reply
  40. Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Guest

    All of the things you’ve written about and said weren’t of much value are the exact same things I have been taught to do! So, if submitting to directories is not worth much, then would someone please write an article on What is a Good Link Building Strategy? I’ve spent lots of hours pouring through directories and portals. I thought that was a good way to build links. But a strategy? What is that, and how do you go about it?

    Reply

  42. Keep updating good content and thanks for sharing it.

    Reply

  43. I think this is among the most vital information for me. And i am glad reading your article. But should remark on some general things, The website style is great, the articles is really great : D. Good job, cheers

    Reply

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