Where to start with a new web?
- Thread starter Prehisto
- Start date
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,626
the latest update came out 5 days ago, you probably mean the March update...
And the March update - according to @SeoBacklinkGenie 's discoveries - was about anchor text relevancy, so you might want to look into that first:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/g...what-you-did-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it.1486129/
If you really, absolutely must / want to build links then start with the good ones first (quality PBNs, quality guest posts, quality niche edits). But beware that good links cost money, so if you're looking for free alternatives I'm not going to mention them because they're either useless or - if they're not useless then you probably don't need links in the 1st place if you're just ranking with useless backlinks
So anyway, what does quality links mean? Well...
Quality PBNs:
- placed on the homepages of the sites giving you the links;
- the homepages of the sites giving you the links have low OBL count (less than 20, but preferably less than 10)
- the links are d0-follow (obviously)
- (not required, but recommended) the links are still contextual (ie. wrapped in text)
- the sites giving you the PBNs are not seen as link farms by google (link farm = site that links out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry from every content page)
- the authority of the homepages of the sites giving you the links should be decent (at least 10 I would say, but obviously the higher the better, but the higher the authority is so will the cost of these backlinks, so know your budget and match it with your possibilities)
- the sites giving you PBN links should be at least slightly related to the topic of your site (it really makes no sense to link out to your weight loss site from pet sites, video game sites, car insurance sites, web hosting sites, etc)
- whenever possible, the sites giving you these links should rank in google and also get traffic (preferably from search engines, but social media / UGC / paid ads traffic could work, too)
Quality guest posts:
a) they're d0follow (nofollow guest posts are only acceptable if they come from big sites like CNN, Entrepreneur, Cosmopolitan, JP Morgan, etc... otherwise you need the link juice, so make sure that the links are d0follow)
b) they're the only links on that page that point to non-affiliate sites (if the owner of the site giving you the guest posting backlink also links out to wikipedia or to other big sites in your niche that's fine, but linking out to other affiliate sites / blogs, or to your competition is obviously bad... although, most guest posting providers don't do such scumbag tricks, so you're pretty safe... but it's something to keep in mind)
c) whenever possible (although, this is becoming more and more important nowadays), your guest post should be 2 clicks maximum away from the homepage. It might be possible to get guest posts 5-6 levels deep but if the site structure is so good that the link juice flows through into your guest post then that's fine I guess... but generally speaking, you want your article as close to the homepage as possible (in URL structure I mean).
For example, if your guest post resides on a page like... site.com/category/sub-category-1/sub-category-2/your-guest-post/ ... that's 5 levels deep (root + category + 2 sub categories + your guest post) and if the donor site is poorly structured or has many ways to leak link juice out you're going to get very little value out of those links, no matter how good the authority of the homepage is.
Sure, you might be happy with the traffic (if you'll even get any), but pages that have no traffic and no links, and still don't provide you with good link juice (over time that is, in the beginning there'll be no, or very little link juice since the guest post is fresh and has no authority) then you'll get very little value out of that guest post.
This is particularly important if you get guest posts from small sites (small = few pages indexed in google, little or no traffic from google, few or no rankings in google), I would not pay more than $10 for such a guest post to be honest. But if the guest post comes from high authority sites like the ones I mentioned above then you can close an eye to the fact that your links are placed 5-6 levels deep, just make sure that they're the only links in that guest post and - if possible - that they're dof0llow
d) just like in the case of PBNs, you also want your guest posts to come from non-link farms. If every page of the website links out to sites like yours (assuming that your site is small and unknown, obviously), or to affiliate sites or to your competitors' blogs with every single content page then that's bad. I would say 1 OBL to affiliate / small sites for every 10-20 pages of content is a good practice, even every 5-10 pages might be OK if the site is good and popular.
Just have a look at the overall design and SEO of the site and you'll be able to tell whether it's worth getting a guest post on that site, or not...
Quality niche edits (also called link insertions, or editorial links):
a) the most important thing about niche edits IMO is the SEO value. You want niche edits PRECISELY because of the high authority of the PAGES (so, not the site itself, but the page where your niche edit link comes from) where your links are placed. If the page does not have good PA / UR it's pretty useless (in terms of SEO value) as a niche edit, especially if that page also gets no traffic at all. If it does get traffic, though... well, the terms of the discussion might change
b) traffic... you want to see at least a few visitors every now and then, coming into that page. If no traffic comes in (and especially if the PA or UR metrics are bad, under 10 I would say) then that niche edit is pretty weak. It's not necessarily a bad niche edit, or a niche edit that can't boost your rankings, but it's a weak one (and should probably not cost more than $50 if I'm being honest)
And the March update - according to @SeoBacklinkGenie 's discoveries - was about anchor text relevancy, so you might want to look into that first:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/g...what-you-did-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it.1486129/
Start with creating content for long tail keywords and if you manage to rank those keywords you'll acquire links naturally over time.
If you really, absolutely must / want to build links then start with the good ones first (quality PBNs, quality guest posts, quality niche edits). But beware that good links cost money, so if you're looking for free alternatives I'm not going to mention them because they're either useless or - if they're not useless then you probably don't need links in the 1st place if you're just ranking with useless backlinks
So anyway, what does quality links mean? Well...
Quality PBNs:
- placed on the homepages of the sites giving you the links;
- the homepages of the sites giving you the links have low OBL count (less than 20, but preferably less than 10)
- the links are d0-follow (obviously)
- (not required, but recommended) the links are still contextual (ie. wrapped in text)
- the sites giving you the PBNs are not seen as link farms by google (link farm = site that links out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry from every content page)
- the authority of the homepages of the sites giving you the links should be decent (at least 10 I would say, but obviously the higher the better, but the higher the authority is so will the cost of these backlinks, so know your budget and match it with your possibilities)
- the sites giving you PBN links should be at least slightly related to the topic of your site (it really makes no sense to link out to your weight loss site from pet sites, video game sites, car insurance sites, web hosting sites, etc)
- whenever possible, the sites giving you these links should rank in google and also get traffic (preferably from search engines, but social media / UGC / paid ads traffic could work, too)
Quality guest posts:
a) they're d0follow (nofollow guest posts are only acceptable if they come from big sites like CNN, Entrepreneur, Cosmopolitan, JP Morgan, etc... otherwise you need the link juice, so make sure that the links are d0follow)
b) they're the only links on that page that point to non-affiliate sites (if the owner of the site giving you the guest posting backlink also links out to wikipedia or to other big sites in your niche that's fine, but linking out to other affiliate sites / blogs, or to your competition is obviously bad... although, most guest posting providers don't do such scumbag tricks, so you're pretty safe... but it's something to keep in mind)
c) whenever possible (although, this is becoming more and more important nowadays), your guest post should be 2 clicks maximum away from the homepage. It might be possible to get guest posts 5-6 levels deep but if the site structure is so good that the link juice flows through into your guest post then that's fine I guess... but generally speaking, you want your article as close to the homepage as possible (in URL structure I mean).
For example, if your guest post resides on a page like... site.com/category/sub-category-1/sub-category-2/your-guest-post/ ... that's 5 levels deep (root + category + 2 sub categories + your guest post) and if the donor site is poorly structured or has many ways to leak link juice out you're going to get very little value out of those links, no matter how good the authority of the homepage is.
Sure, you might be happy with the traffic (if you'll even get any), but pages that have no traffic and no links, and still don't provide you with good link juice (over time that is, in the beginning there'll be no, or very little link juice since the guest post is fresh and has no authority) then you'll get very little value out of that guest post.
This is particularly important if you get guest posts from small sites (small = few pages indexed in google, little or no traffic from google, few or no rankings in google), I would not pay more than $10 for such a guest post to be honest. But if the guest post comes from high authority sites like the ones I mentioned above then you can close an eye to the fact that your links are placed 5-6 levels deep, just make sure that they're the only links in that guest post and - if possible - that they're dof0llow
d) just like in the case of PBNs, you also want your guest posts to come from non-link farms. If every page of the website links out to sites like yours (assuming that your site is small and unknown, obviously), or to affiliate sites or to your competitors' blogs with every single content page then that's bad. I would say 1 OBL to affiliate / small sites for every 10-20 pages of content is a good practice, even every 5-10 pages might be OK if the site is good and popular.
Just have a look at the overall design and SEO of the site and you'll be able to tell whether it's worth getting a guest post on that site, or not...
Quality niche edits (also called link insertions, or editorial links):
a) the most important thing about niche edits IMO is the SEO value. You want niche edits PRECISELY because of the high authority of the PAGES (so, not the site itself, but the page where your niche edit link comes from) where your links are placed. If the page does not have good PA / UR it's pretty useless (in terms of SEO value) as a niche edit, especially if that page also gets no traffic at all. If it does get traffic, though... well, the terms of the discussion might change
b) traffic... you want to see at least a few visitors every now and then, coming into that page. If no traffic comes in (and especially if the PA or UR metrics are bad, under 10 I would say) then that niche edit is pretty weak. It's not necessarily a bad niche edit, or a niche edit that can't boost your rankings, but it's a weak one (and should probably not cost more than $50 if I'm being honest)
Daniel from Linxact
Senior Member
- Nov 3, 2016
- 852
- 363
Totally depends on the niche. I like to build authority websites over years instead of thin content websites. For such: Slow and steady web 2.0 link building, social signals and after a few months also high quality PBN backlinks do the trick. Mix some guest post links in that you can boost using PBN links, and you should be good to go.
Sincerely,
The Data Scientist