Stop trying to rank pages with links. This doesn't work.

I've seen the algorithm punish me for this many times. I build links to a commercial page and it moves up, then it gets stuck, usually on pages 2 to 5 depending on the competition level. No amount of links built moves it any further, and if I persist and keep building links to that page, it starts to go down.

Penguin and Panda have been implemented into the core algorithm and sites get penalised/links get discounted for manipulative content and link practices, and this happens in real time. For example, when I fix a low quality page on my site, its rankings improve as soon as Google recrawls it.

So, since Penguin is constantly watching, building links to pages that naturally attract links like info pages is the way to go. I see a lot of affiliate sites getting penalised these days and they always have most of their links going to commercial pages.

Also, spreading out your links alone won't help because it appears Google looks at the site as a whole. For example, you could still get a penalty for building 5 links to 5 different commercial pages with commercial anchor texts. In my experience, you have to spread out your links among the right pages (majority info and some commercial pages as you said).

I mostly build small sites so I see these penalties happen faster. In other words, when you do something that Google doesn't like, you get penalised faster if you have a small site. I've learnt a lot of lessons over the years through these small sites.

Jerk55 said:

I've seen the algorithm punish me for this many times. I build links to a commercial page and it moves up, then it gets stuck, usually on pages 2 to 5 depending on the competition level. No amount of links built moves it any further, and if I persist and keep building links to that page, it starts to go down.

Penguin and Panda have been implemented into the core algorithm and sites get penalised/links get discounted for manipulative content and link practices, and this happens in real time. For example, when I fix a low quality page on my site, its rankings improve as soon as Google recrawls it.

So, since Penguin is constantly watching, building links to pages that naturally attract links like info pages is the way to go. I see a lot of affiliate sites getting penalised these days and they always have most of their links going to commercial pages.

Also, spreading out your links alone won't help because it appears Google looks at the site as a whole. For example, you could still get a penalty for building 5 links to 5 different commercial pages with commercial anchor texts. In my experience, you have to spread out your links among the right pages (majority info and some commercial pages as you said).

I mostly build small sites so I see these penalties happen faster. In other words, when you do something that Google doesn't like, you get penalised faster if you have a small site. I've learnt a lot of lessons over the years through these small sites.

Click to expand...

I almost never use exacts now. For anchors you generally want them longer and not to repeat. You just have to look around the web to see what normal anchors look like. Most real sites don't really link to each other with exacts

Oh, or brands for that matter. The whole brand anchor thing was a way to try to pad out anchors so you could use exacts, but it's best not to use that many brands. It's not hugely natural. Who is linking to a small plumbing site by brand? or your info site by brand? It's rare. People are linking with phrase style anchors, or some url from non-contextual. A few brand is fine from non-contextuals, but for contextuals I exclusively go for long phrase, like "I used this plumber in the past" etc.

Jerk55 said:

You missed the point. Read again.

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Ummm, no. Reading comprehension is not something I struggle with.

The title of his post is: "Stop trying to rank pages with links. This doesn't work".

I explained why this is not true. He does explain more in-depth what he meant, so the title is misleading. In the end, we ended up agreeing for the most part. Where do you think I missed the point?

jstover77 said:

Ummm, no. Reading comprehension is not something I struggle with.

The title of his post is: "Stop trying to rank pages with links. This doesn't work".

I explained why this is not true. He does explain more in-depth what he meant, so the title is misleading. In the end, we ended up agreeing for the most part. Where do you think I missed the point?

Click to expand...

Spread out your links to multiple pages and focus mainly on informational pages so it looks natural. That's the point you missed. Your response made it seem like he was telling members not to build links to the pages they want to rank. He was just explaining how to do it naturally and make the most of the link juice.

Like he said, you could be blasting one page with links and probably rank, but you won't be getting the full benefits of those links. Why? If the algorithm spots unusual activity, some of the links you built will be discounted.

Backlink ≠ Link juice
Backlink + No sign of Manipulation = Link Juice

splishsplash said:

If you want a specific page to rank, focus more on having enough site authority

Click to expand...

how to focus on site authority? Simple......build links PBN is the key

Jerk55 said:

Spread out your links to multiple pages and focus mainly on informational pages so it looks natural. That's the point you missed. Your response made it seem like he was telling members not to build links to the pages they want to rank. He was just explaining how to do it naturally and make the most of the link juice.

Like he said, you could be blasting one page with links and probably rank, but you won't be getting the full benefits of those links. Why? If the algorithm spots unusual activity, some of the links you built will be discounted.

Backlink ≠ Link juice
Backlink + No sign of Manipulation = Link Juice

Click to expand...

Yes, I understood what he was saying when I read his post, but again, his title is extremely misleading. If the title were different, I probably wouldn't have responded at all.

When you say "unusual activity", what do you mean? Again, you guys are giving Google way too much credit.

jstover77 said:

When you say "unusual activity", what do you mean? Again, you guys are giving Google way too much credit.

Click to expand...

You fight the monster of your own making.

jstover77 said:

Yes, I understood what he was saying when I read his post, but again, his title is extremely misleading. If the title were different, I probably wouldn't have responded at all.

When you say "unusual activity", what do you mean? Again, you guys are giving Google way too much credit.

Click to expand...

Unusual activity means means unnatural link building. Not giving Google too much credit. I've seen it happen.

Sunya said:

You fight the monster of your own making.

Click to expand...

No one's creating any monsters here. I speak based on stuff I've seen happen, not out of fear or uncertainty.

AmberJones said:

how to focus on site authority? Simple......build links PBN is the key

Click to expand...

Definitely not. Homepage links/PBNs should only be used as a boost to give you a bit of extra "Oomph".

To build site authority properly over the long term you want lots of regular guest posts sprinkled with some niche edits and a little PBN on top for extra flavor.

About 70% guest posts, 20% niche edits and 10% pbns is a good safe balance.

If you want to be more aggressive you can go for 50% guest posts, 30% niche edits and 20% PBNs.

And there are many many great providers of PBNs on bhw. I recommend t-ranks - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/1...pdate-8-years-homepage-tested-network.907735/

splishsplash said:

.About 70% guest posts, 20% niche edits and 10% pbns is a good safe balance.

Click to expand...

When you say guest posts, do you mean the cheap kind sold for less than $80 that look like guest post farms or the more expensive $150+ guest posts?

Have you tried both? If yes, what kind of result did you achieve with both types?

I'd like to know if the expensive ones are worth the extra money in terms of SERP impact or if the only benefit is having a higher quality link profile.

Jerk55 said:

When you say guest posts, do you mean the cheap kind sold for less than $80 that look like guest post farms or the more expensive $150+ guest posts?

Have you tried both? If yes, what kind of result did you achieve with both types?

I'd like to know if the expensive ones are worth the extra money in terms of SERP impact or if the only benefit is having a higher quality link profile.

Click to expand...

I've never dealt with the cheapies.

When I do outreach I generally don't look at price though. I just look at whether I think the site is going to make a good link or not.

Ie, it's not about DR, or RDs. I look for ones that are not just guest post farms. They have history, they have real posts. Ie they're real sites. Sometimes you get those for $50. Sometimes $200.

But the guest post farm ones.. I wouldn't think they do much. They certainly do something, but the problem is you need so many of them to make a dent in a medium or harder niche and your link profile will start to become fishy.

So in summary, it's not about price. It's just about your gut feeling on the site. Avoid any sites that go from 0 to 100's of RDs in a month.

If a site has only 500 traffic, but it's been around for 6-7 years and has a DR of 25, a bunch of real posts and it's niche related then IMO it's a good link.

Niche relatedness is more important for guest posts. It's just not for homepage links since the overwhelming power comes from the homepage and you can always make the article connect the 2 niches ok. But I wouldn't sway too far out my niche for those DR 25's. I'm looking for just a nice, regular looking blog in my niche. If it's stronger, with more RDs and DR, then I'll go a little more outside the niche, into the broader encompassing niche. If it's a really strong one, I'll sway sideways into any other niche.

splishsplash said:

I've never dealt with the cheapies.

When I do outreach I generally don't look at price though. I just look at whether I think the site is going to make a good link or not.

Ie, it's not about DR, or RDs. I look for ones that are not just guest post farms. They have history, they have real posts. Ie they're real sites. Sometimes you get those for $50. Sometimes $200.

But the guest post farm ones.. I wouldn't think they do much. They certainly do something, but the problem is you need so many of them to make a dent in a medium or harder niche and your link profile will start to become fishy.

So in summary, it's not about price. It's just about your gut feeling on the site. Avoid any sites that go from 0 to 100's of RDs in a month.

If a site has only 500 traffic, but it's been around for 6-7 years and has a DR of 25, a bunch of real posts and it's niche related then IMO it's a good link.

Niche relatedness is more important for guest posts. It's just not for homepage links since the overwhelming power comes from the homepage and you can always make the article connect the 2 niches ok. But I wouldn't sway too far out my niche for those DR 25's. I'm looking for just a nice, regular looking blog in my niche. If it's stronger, with more RDs and DR, then I'll go a little more outside the niche, into the broader encompassing niche. If it's a really strong one, I'll sway sideways into any other niche.

Click to expand...

Thanks a ton.

splishsplash said:

Yes, you can send links direct.

Remember the key message here is not "don't build links to pages".

It's about removing the idea that you rank pages with links, and start to think more about using links to increase site authority.

If you're sending 5 links a month, do 2 to your important page and 3 to topically related pages. Just don't send all 5 to that page every month.

Click to expand...

Hi splishsplash

Thanks for sharing. I have a doubt.
I don’t understand this section “If you're sending 5 links a month, do 2 to your important page and 3 to topically related pages. Just don't send all 5 to that page every month.”

What’s the difference between “send 5 links to page1” and “send 2 links to page1, send 3 links to page2” ?

From link juice theory, each backlink will transfer some juice to our website. Suppose one link transfer 1 juice, then 5 backlinks will transfer 5 juice to our site, even we send these 5 links to page1, but the site authority will increase 5 juice.

If we send 2 links to page1, 3 links to page2 , totally still 5 juice for whole site. So what’s the difference?

ensky said:

Hi splishsplash

Thanks for sharing. I have a doubt.
I don’t understand this section “If you're sending 5 links a month, do 2 to your important page and 3 to topically related pages. Just don't send all 5 to that page every month.”

What’s the difference between “send 5 links to page1” and “send 2 links to page1, send 3 links to page2” ?

From link juice theory, each backlink will transfer some juice to our website. Suppose one link transfer 1 juice, then 5 backlinks will transfer 5 juice to our site, even we send these 5 links to page1, but the site authority will increase 5 juice.

If we send 2 links to page1, 3 links to page2 , totally still 5 juice for whole site. So what’s the difference?

Click to expand...

The difference is google doesn't want you to send any juice to your site so you can't just do simple math

splishsplash said:

The difference is google doesn't want you to send any juice to your site so you can't just do simple math

Click to expand...

thanks

This is not new. I did it for years. Build aff web site with say 1:10 commercial to info content and link to the top of the funnel info pages and then interlink the website with some juice to the review articles. Worked all the time. It is getting harder when dicks blast com paged with tons of links.

Hi @splishsplash

I really like your comment and even i read all your comments related to seo and learn a lot from you.

Can you help me to clear my doubts?

I'm confused in choosing which site I prefer to get guest posts first.

There's site A, B and C:

Site A




Doesn't appear in Google News


Site B:




Appearing in google news.

Site C:



Appearing in google news



based on my understanding after reading most of your comments i should take a full look at the site. Is the site real? Is the content is always updated. Then look at the backlink profile itself.

The three sites above are real sites because all three are news model sites that are always updated every day.

I usually choose sites based on their backlink profile, which has the most good referring domains. Most of 3 sites have backlink from the same news site too, ex: wikipedia, or like cnn or bbc. That's what I chose, but because I'm using a free tool so I can only see a small part of the link profile that each site has.

So I can only guess, and use traffic as another reference.

But sometimes I'm confused, do I have to choose a site with a lot of traffic even though the RDs are small and few?

I want to pick a site that gives a lot of linkjuice and a lot of boost first. Because I have a limited budget so I can only choose one by one first. So which one?

In terms of price all three sites have the same price when there is a discount, example: $50.

When there is no discount sites a and b cost $100 and site c only $50.


Thank you

llarasati said:

Hi @splishsplash

I really like your comment and even i read all your comments related to seo and learn a lot from you.

Can you help me to clear my doubts?

I'm confused in choosing which site I prefer to get guest posts first.

There's site A, B and C:

Site A

Doesn't appear in Google News


Site B:

Appearing in google news.

Site C:

Appearing in google news



based on my understanding after reading most of your comments i should take a full look at the site. Is the site real? Is the content is always updated. Then look at the backlink profile itself.

The three sites above are real sites because all three are news model sites that are always updated every day.

I usually choose sites based on their backlink profile, which has the most good referring domains. Most of 3 sites have backlink from the same news site too, ex: wikipedia, or like cnn or bbc. That's what I chose, but because I'm using a free tool so I can only see a small part of the link profile that each site has.

So I can only guess, and use traffic as another reference.

But sometimes I'm confused, do I have to choose a site with a lot of traffic even though the RDs are small and few?

I want to pick a site that gives a lot of linkjuice and a lot of boost first. Because I have a limited budget so I can only choose one by one first. So which one?

In terms of price all three sites have the same price when there is a discount, example: $50.

When there is no discount sites a and b cost $100 and site c only $50.


Thank you

Click to expand...

Impossible to say which would be better. SEO doesn't work like that. It's not a simple linear relationship between sites.

They all look real based on the traffic value and they have lower DR so they're not DR pumped.

You aren't going to rank with 1 link. It's not like you're going to just pick a magic link and boom you're on easy street.

You should be building links every week of the year.

splishsplash said:

Impossible to say which would be better. SEO doesn't work like that. It's not a simple linear relationship between sites.

They all look real based on the traffic value and they have lower DR so they're not DR pumped.

You aren't going to rank with 1 link. It's not like you're going to just pick a magic link and boom you're on easy street.

You should be building links every week of the year.

Click to expand...

Okay, thank you. Sorry if its seems stupid question.

As long as if its real sites and have good backlink profile is still valuable right?

Not really expecting easy road, just expecting that link will move my specific keyword somewhere.

I'm following what you said, and seeing good result.

llarasati said:

Okay, thank you. Sorry if its seems stupid question.

As long as if its real sites and have good backlink profile is still valuable right?

Not really expecting easy road, just expecting that link will move my specific keyword somewhere.

I'm following what you said, and seeing good result.

Click to expand...

yep. Doesnt have to be amazing backlinks. Just a good natural looking site is enough.