Which is the better link? - Important questions for off page SEO

[Alucard348]

Hey everybody,

I've been reading a lot of posts and really opening my eyes to the real world of SEO and have learned a fuck-ton from you folks here.

I do have this one big question(and a couple of smaller ones) though that feels almost like an unscratched itch...

When should you use relevant contextuals and when should you use high authority Giga-juice contextual links?

And from my understanding(correct me if I'm wrong):

Relevant contextuals= links in the body from a post that is relevant to BOTH your site and the linking site. Ie. If you want to link to a video game news site from a health website, then your post should be a Health and Video game post(like the dangers of gaming on your health)

High authority giga-juice contextual links: The best example I can think of, is a coffee shop getting a link from the body of a Forbes article. The site has a lot juice, but not relevant. Let's assume it's ********, and we're not counting the value of the link traffic.

From what I know right now, I would say the giga-juice links are purely for building authority and it's something I would want to link to my homepage with a brand name url.

The relevent contextual is for linking to my inner money pages and I would put a partial or full anchor text depending on the authority of the linking website.

Do you agree with this, is this how you would use these links?


Side-questions:

Let's say you have 4 different domains you can get a fresh contextual guest post link to your video game website from.

Site 1: A general website with DA 70, although little to no traffic. The pages are indexed and the cache is about 2 weeks old. The backlinks look fishy, and it has outbound links to random sites like cbd and gambling. Likely a pbn site.

Site 2: A health website with DA 65, although little to no traffic. The pages are indexed and the cache is about 2 weeks old. The backlinks look fishy, and it has outbound links to random sites like cbd and gambling. Likely a pbn site.

Site 3: A health website with DA 45, relevant traffic. The pages are indexed and the cache is about 2 days old. The backlinks come from high-authority health websites(and randoms). It links out mainly to high authority sources and some relevant websites.

Site 4: A video game news website with DA 60, although little to no traffic. The pages are indexed and the cache is about 2 weeks old. The backlinks look fishy. and it has outbound links to random sites like cbd and gambling. Likely a pbn site.

Site 5: A video game news website with DA 30, relevant traffic. The pages are indexed and the cache is about 2 days old. The backlinks come from high-authority video game websites. A legit site.

Now for the questions(keep in mind you made the article relevant)
1) Which of these would you be willing to pay the most for? Ie.. which links are the most valuable in your opinion to your video game website? Rank them from the most valuable to the least.

2) Which of these would improve your rankings the most(ignoring any risk for penalty). Rank them from the biggest needle-mover to the least. Bonus: how many times more effective is the best link to the worst link?

3) Would any of your rankings change if these were homepage links?


4) Bonus(optional): How much would you normally pay for a link from each of these sites?


I have a lot more questions but these are the biggest ones I would like answered. You don't need to answer them all, any advice helps here.

Thanks,
Alucard

 

[praetserge]

"Do you agree with this, is this how you would use these links?"
Overall, your thinking is correct. You need to have a healthy mix of brand and other links.
It would be unnatural to have links only to your homepage or have NO links to your homepage. As you mentioned a coffee shop, that link would/should have brand anchor text.

As for the anchor text - here's one of my favourite threads:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/w...build-their-anchor-text-in-backlinks.1118984/

 

[borson]

When should you get contextual backlinks or high DA backlinks?

My answer: always.

To me, These are the only type of links that make any sense to invest in.

Do u want a pro SEO tip?

Well, more than a tip this is something unproven, and it's just a theory I have.

Some time ago I read a google's paper/patent (im not sure what it was) in which it was stated that what counts is not authority per se anymore (at least not to the high degree it did before), instead, what counts is how far (measured in backlinks) your site is from the main ' hub of sites' (those with the most backlinks and ranking on top////those that are the most authoritative in your nichr) of your niche.

This is just an opinion of mine, but I think it makes sense and you won't lose anything from trying it.

The point here is, instead of going for 'authoritative sites' (just for the sake of that, that they re authoritative), you should go for sites that are the least possible amount of backlinks away from the main hubs of your niche.
Indeed, in your link-building paid articles, try to link to both your site + the big brands of your niche.
If you have tons of paid articles linking to the main sites of the 'hub' + to yours, that means now yours is part of that hub (of that conglomerate of sites that have the highest amounts of backlinks)

 

[Alucard348]

So I reviewed some of my bookmarks and I got this quote from splishsplash:

A high quality niche site, DR5 to 50 with 5k to 30k traffic per month is FAR more valuable than a DR70 spam site. REGARDLESS of the traffic the spam site. Many of these made for guest post sites get 5k, 10k, 30k traffic per month because they have so much content, or they create content that targets high volume, useless low comp keywords that inflate traffic figures. A genuine topical site that is ranking for a few thousand keywords and getting a few thousand visitors a month will do much more for your rankings.

This makes sense, the high quality site:
1) Doesn't dilute link equity by selling a bunch of links
2) Is relevant to your niche so you get big relevance points, improving your rankings
3) Will only become more powerful over time as the site grows.

With that said, I was wondering if the trash link spam site still has value?
Would a link from 10 spam sites beat a high quality one?
Do spam sites give a lot of link juice? And will that link juice be able to pass down your other pages? Or are spam link sites(public pns, "guest posting sites" just useless)

I ask this because legit sites often times cost 20 times more than shitty link sites. So the real question here, is if a high quality link would provide more value than 20 shitty pbn links

 

[Nargil]

With that said, I was wondering if the trash link spam site still has value?
Would a link from 10 spam sites beat a high quality one?
Do spam sites give a lot of link juice? And will that link juice be able to pass down your other pages? Or are spam link sites(public pns, "guest posting sites" just useless)

I ask this because legit sites often times cost 20 times more than shitty link sites. So the real question here, is if a high quality link would provide more value than 20 shitty pbn links

You haven't even started and you are already cutting corners. I am completely okay with betting my house on whether your site will be successful or not.

As the main rule of life goes "You get what you pay for.". Links are too expensive? Tough luck I am afraid. If you do not have a budget to compete, then do not compete.

These are basic rules of any business venture, regardless whether it's online or offline.

So to sum it up, no, your spam sites do not provide value. And if they will provide some small benefit, it will be temporary or until your site gets hit by a penalty for having shit links.

 

[Alucard348]

You haven't even started and you are already cutting corners. I am completely okay with betting my house on whether your site will be successful or not.

As the main rule of life goes "You get what you pay for.". Links are too expensive? Tough luck I am afraid. If you do not have a budget to compete, then do not compete.

These are basic rules of any business venture, regardless whether it's online or offline.

So to sum it up, no, your spam sites do not provide value. And if they will provide some small benefit, it will be temporary or until your site gets hit by a penalty for having shit links.

thanks for the advice, although you've made flagrant assumptions about me and why I ask these questions.

What I want is an understanding of link value. Links that actually move the needle. There's no point in buying shitty links if they don't move the needle.

By my definition, a good link is a link that actually improves my ranking(i'm going to assume that's yours too).

So, what you're saying is, that shitty links most likely do not provide ranking value. And if they do, they wouldn't be worth it in your opinion as they leave to open to risks you wouldn't have with high quality links?

 

[Nargil]

thanks for the advice, although you've made flagrant assumptions about me and why I ask these questions.

What I want is an understanding of link value. Links that actually move the needle. There's no point in buying shitty links if they don't move the needle.

By my definition, a good link is a link that actually improves my ranking(i'm going to assume that's yours too).

So, what you're saying is, that shitty links most likely do not provide ranking value. And if they do, they wouldn't be worth it in your opinion as they leave to open to risks you wouldn't have with high quality links?

I made an educated assumption based on how 95% of people asking these questions operate. Also, I don't sell links.

But to the topic, yes, shit links do not provide value. Generic "guest post" (which are just slightly better looking bad PBNs) sites without any traffic have catastrophic risk:reward ratio.

Your needle will most likely not move and if it will, the risk is massive. These networks are built terribly and eventually, they will get deindexed and your money site is in risk of getting deindexed/penalised as well, depending on how heavy was your use of these "guest posts".

In comparison, getting a regular guest post, niche edit, etc., from a site which is legit and has regular traffic is significantly more valuable. Especially if you can get one from a site which doesn't provide guest posting opportunities too often.

For such links you need a well connected provider and those links cost a lot, because they do move a needle and they are almost risk free. And those properties do cost a lot.

 

[Alucard348]

I made an educated assumption based on how 95% of people asking these questions operate. Also, I don't sell links.

But to the topic, yes, shit links do not provide value. Generic "guest post" (which are just slightly better looking bad PBNs) sites without any traffic have catastrophic risk:reward ratio.

Your needle will most likely not move and if it will, the risk is massive. These networks are built terribly and eventually, they will get deindexed and your money site is in risk of getting deindexed/penalised as well, depending on how heavy was your use of these "guest posts".

In comparison, getting a regular guest post, niche edit, etc., from a site which is legit and has regular traffic is significantly more valuable. Especially if you can get one from a site which doesn't provide guest posting opportunities too often.

For such links you need a well connected provider and those links cost a lot, because they do move a needle and they are almost risk free. And those properties do cost a lot.

thank you, i'll keep this in mind, this has clarified a lot for me.

I've noticed most "link opportunities" I see, tend to be these shitty link functions, but as I get better at analyzing the websites for their traffic as well as their backlinks, the real needle-moving opportunities tend to come out.

Recently, I realized a good way to find these sites is to look at the top competitor for the keyword on the serp, and look to find the good sites they have. I notice most usually have junk links that don't provide needle-moving power, but the few that are niche relevant, have traffic and are legit businesses shine loudly.

This does take time and sifting through, though I bet it's worth the effort.

Splishsplash said this about 1 year and a half ago

Sites rank because of just a few good links. 5-10% of their link profile is usually doing 90-95% of the work.

You could build 100's upon 100's of these trash links and barely see any movement, but 4-5 strong contextuals from relevant sites will give you an enormous boost. Google ignores most of the links out there. They are looking for a small subset of what they deem as valuable and natural signals of trust and authority.

do you agree with this statement? It makes sense to me, however, I haven't been able to test it or experience it myself and there isn't a case study or anything on that post.

Also, do you have any good strategies for finding these needle-moving links?

 

[MisterF]

Also, do you have any good strategies for finding these needle-moving links?

Hire an agency.

Your comment about Forbes and the coffee shop analogy is flawed.
Forbes will publish success stories. So a guy/gal creates a business and it flourishes massively, then they are interested in these scenarios.

What Forbes are not interested in are shiity thin content / affiliate sites for example.

 

[4440]

Testing....test and try different sorts of links, methods, tricks is the only way

 

[Nargil]

thank you, i'll keep this in mind, this has clarified a lot for me.

I've noticed most "link opportunities" I see, tend to be these shitty link functions, but as I get better at analyzing the websites for their traffic as well as their backlinks, the real needle-moving opportunities tend to come out.

Recently, I realized a good way to find these sites is to look at the top competitor for the keyword on the serp, and look to find the good sites they have. I notice most usually have junk links that don't provide needle-moving power, but the few that are niche relevant, have traffic and are legit businesses shine loudly.

This does take time and sifting through, though I bet it's worth the effort.

Splishsplash said this about 1 year and a half ago


do you agree with this statement? It makes sense to me, however, I haven't been able to test it or experience it myself and there isn't a case study or anything on that post.

Also, do you have any good strategies for finding these needle-moving links?

@splishsplash is one of the few people here who really know what they are talking about, so you can take his words for granted.

Regarding the opportunities, it's basically what @MisterF said. Keep in mind, as I mentioned above, you get what you pay for.

 

[Alucard348]

Regarding the opportunities, it's basically what @MisterF said. Keep in mind, as I mentioned above, you get what you pay for.

I see, thanks again for the advice.

I checked misterF's service and noticed that a lot of the link services seemed to be Niche Edits as opposed to guest posts.

I am curious as to what your thoughts are on the matter between the two. From what I've read here on this forum, niche edits are multiple times more valuable than guest posts because:
* they are a live page,
* perhaps with some traffic on them,
* and links pointing to them.

In that case, should fresh guest posts even be considered when compared to niche edits(are these the same as curated links?) given that they are put on pages without much internal linking, low authority, no traffic etc...

 

[Nargil]

I see, thanks again for the advice.

I checked misterF's service and noticed that a lot of the link services seemed to be Niche Edits as opposed to guest posts.

I am curious as to what your thoughts are on the matter between the two. From what I've read here on this forum, niche edits are multiple times more valuable than guest posts because:
* they are a live page,
* perhaps with some traffic on them,
* and links pointing to them.

In that case, should fresh guest posts even be considered when compared to niche edits(are these the same as curated links?) given that they are put on pages without much internal linking, low authority, no traffic etc...

It doesn't matter which you get tbh. Both are quality links. Mix it up if your budget allows that and you will be just fine.