[GUIDE] Why Are My Backlinks Not Working?

[Frederik Michiel]

BTW, not trying to offend anybody. Most backlinksellers really belief that backlinks are the real thing. So in that sense its not a scam, but ignorance.

 

[tiiberius]

Real answer is that backlinks only work when clicked on by interested visitors. Never seen any proof of backlinks influencing SERP.
Backlink selling is a scam:

"A pillar that is considered very important among (self-proclaimed) SEO specialists is the so-called link building. The idea is that a domain has a certain value and this value then leaks through to the pages/domain that is linked to. This domain value (also called domain authority) would then be an important factor with which Google draws up the SERP. But according to this idea, it is therefore unfavorable to place backlinks because then the own domain value goes down. It is favorable to get backlinks, but negative to give them away. That is why links are usually bought and therefore say nothing about whether that link is really a recommendation and that was precisely the alleged original intention. The selling party must boost the lowered domain value again with juice from yet other parties with fake backlinks and so the game continues.
What is also very special about this entire backlink scam is that it's unknown what the original source of the 'juice' is.
The entire mechanism is therefore completely incomprehensible.
But the biggest indication that it doesn't work like that, is that there is no way to see what Google has to gain from this. The idea that a Chinese restauarant from Paris would appear for the search term "Pizzeria London" because that Chinese restaurant has bought more fake backlinks for this searchterm, is really ridiculous. Why would Google do this? The only thing they achieve with this, is that they are rapidly destroying the quality of their search engine!"

Very clear story.
Please shoot the messenger!

BTW, not trying to offend anybody. Most backlinksellers really belief that backlinks are the real thing. So in that sense its not a scam, but ignorance.

PageRank is the most complex algorithm G uses.

Its purpose is to determine value of a webpage based on references it gets from other webpages.

It uses mostly backlinks to do this.

Backlink is seen as a “vote” or recommendation that one page gives to another.

Similar to real life scenario where people recommend a store, service or website to their friends. Backlink serves the same purpose.

Backlink services link-building became relevant when PageRank got popularized.

It became obvious for website owners very quickly that they could easily manipulate this formula for higher ranking and sales.

It is much more complex and complicated today but the core remains.

Claims that backlinks don’t influence SERPs, source loses value if it links out or backlinks don’t work if they are not clicked are entirely false.

You can easily test and disprove all your claims by setting up your own PBN, which provides you with very controlled environment.

I suggest you get out there and start testing, instead of spreading misinformation and calling people scammers and ignorants.

 

[Frederik Michiel]

PageRank is the most complex algorithm G uses.

Its purpose is to determine value of a webpage based on references it gets from other webpages.

It uses mostly backlinks to do this.

Backlink is seen as a “vote” or recommendation that one page gives to another.

Similar to real life scenario where people recommend a store, service or website to their friends. Backlink serves the same purpose.

Backlink services link-building became relevant when PageRank got popularized.

It became obvious for website owners very quickly that they could easily manipulate this formula for higher ranking and sales.

It is much more complex and complicated today but the core remains.

Claims that backlinks don’t influence SERPs, source loses value if it links out or backlinks don’t work if they are not clicked are entirely false.

You can easily test and disprove all your claims by setting up your own PBN, which provides you with very controlled environment.

I suggest you get out there and start testing, instead of spreading misinformation and calling people scammers and ignorants.

Of course i tested. Did you? Give me your proof.
Didn't you read my post. Whats not clear about the explaination that its not making sense. It would if it were real recommandations, but in reality backlinks are 90%fake.
Pagerank was outphased by Hummingbird in 2012. Been asleep a while?

 

[tiiberius]

Of course i tested. Did you? Give me your proof.
Didn't you read my post. Whats not clear about the explaination that its not making sense. It would if it were real recommandations, but in reality backlinks are 90%fake.
Pagerank was outphased by Hummingbird in 2012. Been asleep a while?

It’s not clear whether you are talking about just fake backlinks or all backlinks in general.

If only fake backlinks I would agree for the most part.

Yes, backlink must appear to be genuine in order to work.

I agree that most backlinks are recognized as fake and don’t work. They are ignored basically or can even have negative effect (G even stated this themselves).

But this is mainly issue with low quality backlink services, backlink sources and link-building strategies.

It is possible to make paid link look genuine and positively influence rankings.

As long as it’s not recognized as fake, it will work.

And that’s where the proof lies.

In using quality link sources and link-building methods that don’t appear fake.

And no, it does not need to get clicked on to work. Clicks (referral traffic) gives further boost but hefty amount of juice is passes even without it.

As for PageRank and other algorithms... true, search has become semantic and engines can understand content and context much better. They don’t have to rely on backlinks as much as before.

But PageRank is very much in place and a heavy influence still.

 

[Frederik Michiel]

It’s not clear whether you are talking about just fake backlinks or all backlinks in general.

Im talking about backlinks in general. There is no influence on SERP. How they do work is when you manufacture televisions and Sony is memtioning yours on their website as a superior product, you get a lot of clicks and probably a lot of sales. Thats what the system of backlinks were designed for and thats the way it works.

As long as it’s not recognized as fake, it will work.

And that’s where the proof lies.

Thats just a statement and no proof at all.

When you or someone else have tested your statement (as you suggested) why dont you simple sent me the results of the testing? Same for all other readers of this thread. Please give any proof! There must be someone who has done some good reliable testing, Or just believers because everybody beliefs?

Do you think Google is stupid and they dont know almost all links are fake? And still they use Pagerank? Whats in it for them? Worse websites with a good backlinking profile above better ones with bad backlink profile? Why should they do this?

And dont you think there is a very strong bias (correlation and no causal relationship) through the fact that people who buy backlinks are also otherwise improving their websites?

And please tell me what is the source of the 'juice'?

What i think is going on is that people have build a business model around backlinks when Google had nothing better than Pagerank. Now all these sellers will do everything to keep the scam alive because thats their living. I dont blame them. I have to feed my children too.
But there are other ways to make money online.....

 

[tiiberius]

How they do work is when you manufacture televisions and Sony is memtioning yours on their website as a superior product, you get a lot of clicks and probably a lot of sales. Thats what the system of backlinks were designed for and thats the way it works.

OK, this backlink will result in referral traffic and sales.

What will search engine do with this backlink? How will search engine see it?

When you or someone else have tested your statement (as you suggested) why dont you simple sent me the results of the testing? Same for all other readers of this thread. Please give any proof! There must be someone who has done some good reliable testing, Or just believers because everybody beliefs?

Im talking about backlinks in general. There is no influence on SERP.

So you're saying backlinks or PageRank are not a ranking factor anymore.

OK, let's take a look at this.

When we point contextual backlink at a healthy target, rankings go up sooner or later.

I have seen this thousands of times. And I'm not the only one.

It is especially clear on stagnating websites that have been stuck in the same SERP range for months and have done no other changes (on-page, technical etc.).

But you claim it's not because of those backlinks.

Why is it then?

-

 

[SEO Heatlab]

Order will be received send reviews ?

 

[tiiberius]

Order will be received send reviews ?

What order?

 

[Frederik Michiel]

OK, let's take a look at this.

When we point contextual backlink at a healthy target, rankings go up sooner or later.

I have seen this thousands of times. And I'm not the only one.

It is especially clear on stagnating websites that have been stuck in the same SERP range for months and have done no other changes (on-page, technical etc.).

This is still only a claim without proof.
Besides this its unbelievable that you have seen thousends of websites buying links and didnt do anything else to improve their websites. People who buy backlinks usualy are doing other things as well and thats what makes it difficult to measure.

But you claim it's not because of those backlinks.

Why is it then?

I dont understand this question

I have seen no reaction on my point that it doesnt make sense. Maybe i did not make it clear. I will:

1. People using search engines want their search intention satisfied.
2. Google wants to satisfy this need by presenting websites to them which satisfy the search intention. If not, people go to other search engines
Clear so far?
3. There are many factors playing a role in satisfying search intention. For example; a speedy website, clear naviagation structure, high quality content and we all can give dozens of examples.
4. So Google had lots of other markers to use for making the SERP.
Still clear?
5. Google knows backlinks are 95% fake and not a real recommandation for satisfying sarch intention.
6. SO WHY WOULD GOOGLE RUIN THEIR BUSINESS BY MAKING A SERP (partly) BASED ON BACKLINK PROFILE????????????.

Your statement backlinks are important for making the SERP implie Google wants to ruin their business, doesn't know there are other ways to make the SERP or they dont know backlinks are fake most of the time. All higly unlikely.

BTW, I really appreciate to way you discuss as a person. No personal attack on me at all. I wish i had class in this way!
I wanted to discuss my statement in another thread and a well respected admin started calling me names there.

 

[tiiberius]

buying links

You keep coming back to link buying but you said no backlink in general works. Let's stick to that.

I'm referring to all backlinks as well.

I have seen this with paid ones, manually built ones (no money involved) and passive, organic ones that came it naturally.

This is still only a claim without proof.
Besides this its unbelievable that you have seen thousends of websites buying links and didnt do anything else to improve their websites. People who buy backlinks usualy are doing other things as well and thats what makes it difficult to measure.

Ah yes. It all comes down to isolation.

True, it is tricky to test a a single variable properly. We need to isolate it as much as possible and in SEO I would say that is impossible.

However, there are "close enough" scenarios.

I personally deal a lot with private and public blog networks. PBN is great for testing because it gives you quite a controlled environment.

Before we add the PBN unit to live network we test if it pushes rankings and is a worthy addition.

This test is very isolated:

We are targeting one or more poorly performing, orphaned pages with no other backlinks pointing to it.

Keywords we go after never ranked higher than 5th page (usually much lower). We sometimes even pick never ranked keywords. For example random part of a sentence or an H4, H5 heading.

Target keyword is used as an exact match anchor text of the backlink.

Backlink itself is off topic from the target too. It is a contextual homepage link, tailored around these nonsensical or random anchor texts, not thee target page's primary topic. For example, in the example below, our PBN content would talk about apples and air fresheners, not car tires (primary topic of the target page).

Backlink is also cloaked and not clickable, it not visible to anyone except search engines.

For example, there was a page of a car tire business website. This page ranked for keyword similar to "fresh yankee candle air freshener apple". No mention of this phrase on the page except there was an image with alt attribute "apple freshener". They are not selling those and there were no other pages mentioning this term or similar. It had been bouncing up and down between pages 7-9 for this keyword for several years.

We repeat this 3-4 times for each PBN unit.

In 90% of the these tests the ranking go up.

When they don't, it is usually because the unit is not actually healthy as we thought and we missed something when buying the domain (for example it could have been a link farm in the past).

1. People using search engines want their search intention satisfied.
2. Google wants to satisfy this need by presenting websites to them which satisfy the search intention. If not, people go to other search engines
Clear so far?
3. There are many factors playing a role in satisfying search intention. For example; a speedy website, clear naviagation structure, high quality content and we all can give dozens of examples.
4. So Google had lots of other markers to use for making the SERP.
Still clear?
5. Google knows backlinks are 95% fake and not a real recommandation for satisfying sarch intention.
6. SO WHY WOULD GOOGLE RUIN THEIR BUSINESS BY MAKING A SERP (partly) BASED ON BACKLINK PROFILE????????????.

Your statement backlinks are important for making the SERP implie Google wants to ruin their business, doesn't know there are other ways to make the SERP or they dont know backlinks are fake most of the time. All higly unlikely.

I don't appreciate the tone but I agree with all your points. Except #6. Yes, there are many factors in place. And backlinks are one of them.

There is an assumption on your part. Backlinks as a factor = ruined business.

It's actually the other way around.

Why did they implement this in the first place? Indeed, why not just rely on other factors? (I suggest this read)

They can't. They need external validation.

When they first introduced PageRank and people realized power of backlinks, it was a disaster.

But still they kept it in place. Instead of simply turning it off and reverting, they refined it.

Reason is that backlinks are the hardest factor to game.

Despite the fact that it's relatively easy to buy a backlink package or build your own blog network, it is still the hardest one to fool.

Everything else is in full control of the webmaster. On-page factors, content, server speed etc. They can't allow that.

Now they are on top of their game.

PageRank + other link related algorithms are very hard to fool. I would say they almost hand-pick which link goes and which does not on case by case basis.

Like you said, 90% of the links are recognized as fake and don't influence SEPRs.

But there are still these 10% that do have influence. I prefer to focus on those.

BTW, I really appreciate to way you discuss as a person. No personal attack on me at all. I wish i had class in this way!
I wanted to discuss my statement in another thread and a well respected admin started calling me names there.

Yes! I appreciate your civility as well.
Usually there would have been a name or two called at this point for sure. : )

-

PS: You have my thanks and respcet if you read all that above.

-

 

[Frederik Michiel]

There is an assumption on your part. Backlinks as a factor = ruined business.

This is not an assumption, its a logical conclusion after the first 5 points.

But anyway, i will quit this thread and open my own. Now it seems unfair i chose yours instead of ine of the thousends other ones about selling backlinks. My apoligies for this. Wish you the best.
Grtz,

 

[linksforYOU]

You post this guide, which is nice, but then you are advertising PBN services? Not really aligned with this post

 

[tiiberius]

You post this guide, which is nice, but then you are advertising PBN services? Not really aligned with this post

How is it not aligned exactly?

It shows how people can improve their link-building, whatever they are. Which includes my services.

 

[Zubaria]

Your backlinks may not be working due to:

1. Low-Quality Links – Spammy or low-authority sites won’t help.
2. No Indexing – Google hasn’t crawled them yet. Use indexing tools.
3. Irrelevant Links – Links from unrelated sites have less impact.
4. Slow Link Building – It takes time for backlinks to show results.
5. No Anchor Text Optimization – Use relevant keywords naturally.
6. Google Penalties – If using black hat tactics, links may be ignored.

 

[linksforYOU]

How is it not aligned exactly?

It shows how people can improve their link-building, whatever they are. Which includes my services.

PBNs are a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines

 

[tiiberius]

PBNs are a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines

My post is not about following Webmaster Guidelines.

It is about discovering why the links don't have desired effect.

It applies to all link types. You can make any link type work.

PBN links can be toxic but they can also be high quality.

Whether the guidelines are honored or not is irrelevant.

-