Welcome to MMOZ! Today we are asking the question: Do backlinks still work in the world of internet marketing and search engine optimization?
As usual if you have an opinion and would like to join in the conversation, I highly encourage you to read this article and contact us in the comments section at the bottom of this post.
Lets get started…
If you are new to the world of internet marketing, making money online, website building and SEO, then things can get a bit confusing when it comes down to the art of ranking our content on Google.
If you are not familiar with the term SEO, it stands for “search engine optimization”. SEO is an essential component for any online venture. No matter if you are trying to build a website from scratch, creating a YouTube video or writing on a free blogging platform, the general aim is to get your content seen by the general public.
The confusion for many people starts when they begin researching ways of getting their content seen by the masses and ranked in the search engines.
Google currently dominates the majority of online searches and uses an algorithm designed to provide the most relevant and valuable content to its viewers.
Can You Ever Beat Google?
It’s this search algorithm that many people believe they can manipulate in order to gain faster, higher search rankings, usually by adopting a technique known as “backlinking” or external link building.
Backlinking methods have been the basis for many sneaky SEO techniques over the years.
But do backlinks still work? Can they help us climb the ranks of Google?
Should we ever buy Backlinks?
And what about using backlinks as part of our ongoing marketing efforts?
So What Are Backlinks? How Do They Help?
A backlink or inbound link is just a link that comes from one website to another. A link looks like this: Click here to learn more about backlinks
Links are what create the internet as we know it. They are the roads that connect us all together. And by having lots of roads driving by our website, it shows that we are popular. But not all links are equal…
Imagine the internet as a huge spider web, connecting millions of websites. The connections are known as links or hyperlinks.
When one site creates a link to another site, this is known as a backlink.
What Do The Search Engines Look For?
For many years search engines have monitored backlinks along with a host of other criteria in order to determine how popular and valuable a website is to its audience.
Search engines use something called “spiders” that crawl the internet looking for new websites and new information that they can index within their search results.
The search spiders follow the links to your site and make an assessment of how valuable they deem it to be. For as long as search engines have excited there are those people that believe that the search results can be manipulated to their own gain.
Who Can You Trust?
In order to gain a better understanding of what to trust online and more importantly what not to trust. We must first understand a little about the history of SEO. We must also understand how Search engine technology is evolving.
The algorithm that Google uses to produce its search results is changing all the time. Its becoming smarter at delivering results by the day.
But even the smallest of changes within the search algorithm can have a huge impact on your website. Especially if you happen to be using black hat techniques.
Google as clever as it is, still isn’t perfect. And it’s those slight imperfections that some people hope to manipulate.
Do Backlinks Still Work – Outdated Information
SEO techniques that were used a few years ago can now have a severe negative effect on your website. This is especially true if you try sneaky techniques on a brand new website.
Backlinking – The old way
The technique was very simple… You simply build a website, not too big, just two or three pages would do, the content of the website isn’t important, you can write any old rubbish on there so long as it contains a way to get paid (usually an affiliate link).
You would then blast your website with as many backlinks as possible, using as many different methods as possible!
Back in 2010 the No.1 spot on Google could be accomplished regardless of what was on the site so long as it had more backlinks pointing to it than its competitors!
Affiliate marketing quickly became very popular as the trend caught on and lots of people started cashing in on this simple Google loophole! Unfortunately, as out dated as this technique sounds to today’s online marketing community, this basic method in many forms is still rehashed and sold as a working technique today, when in actual fact it couldn’t be further from the truth.
So Do Backlinks Still Work? Or Should I Avoid Backlinking Completely?
Today backlinks still have a place in the world of search engine optimization, after all as we have already said, links are the very fabric of the internet. They are what connect us to others and allow us to find new and relevant information. But in truth, Google never wanted you to go out and build hundreds of links from various other sites just to get your site ranked higher.
The search algorithm was designed to be just one of the things used to measure how popular your site was, the link served as a vote from one site to another. Google states clearly how it feels about non organic link building within its webmaster guidelines and as a result of this has toughened up on those that still attempt to manipulate their search results.
The Panda, Penguin And Hummingbird Updates That Changed Everything
Famously the Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird search engine algorithm changes completely altered the way that we build quality websites today. Google Panda hit the internet in 2011 and effected a massive 12% of websites within the search index, taking out the bulk of those sites that attempted to manipulate search results for profit.
Panda
The Panda update concentrated on removing sites with poorly written, thin content and websites that had more adverts than valuable content for its readers! Google Panda didn’t stop there and was updated on a regular basis, in order to fine tune its effectiveness. In April 2012 Google then launched another update, this time named “The Penguin Update”.
Penguin
Penguin targeted people trying to manipulate the search engines in the form of over optimizing their website by use of “keyword stuffing” for gaining higher search results. The keyword stuffing technique was one used by black hat SEO’s, used to rank for multiple keywords at the same time. Penguin effected around 3% of its indexed sites.
Hummingbird
The Google Hummingbird update launched August 2013, designed to create a better user experience whilst searching online. Being “fast and precise” is the reason according to Google that this update was named ‘Hummingbird’ and served to deliver quick, relevant search results from its index of millions of sites.
Black-Hat Techniques That Could Damage Your Website
Today, despite what we now know about the way that Google and many of the other search engines look at our content, the internet is still full of people who claim that they can manipulate the search results safely. The internet is still full of eBooks, online training and software claiming that they have the latest and greatest methods of fooling Google into giving them the top spots.
The sad truth of the matter is that sometimes these people are right, and sometimes there is a quick way to get fast rankings, even today. However, a piece of software or link building method that works now and produces immediate results, more than likely won’t produce results in the long term.
Googles search algorithm is evolving all the time, looking for anything that isn’t natural or organic. The penalties for trying to manipulate the search results could see your website drop dramatically in rank or even removed altogether from the listings.
Link Building Software
As Google becomes more and more advanced, new ways to stay ahead in the search engines are created on a regular basis with software creators cashing in on the latest trends. These link building software applications, no matter how you look at it completely go against Google webmaster guidelines.
The software creators will often provide a method of very quickly creating hundreds of websites and articles using what is called “spun content”. The resulting pages created by the software are often poor and often unreadable to a human viewer, there purpose simply being to provide rehashed content for the search spiders with backlinks pointing to your site.
Do Backlinks Still Work In 2019?
So the question still remains, do backlinks still work in 2019 and should we be building links as part of our effort to reach the higher search engine rankings?
Well, the simple answer is yes, backlinks still work today and they still contribute to the way that all websites are ranked within the search engines.
However, things are very different to the way they were back in 2010 and they will continue to change and evolve as time goes on.
In 2019, Google looks at so many factors when ranking your webpages, its an amazing piece of technology that you shouldn’t attempt to manipulate if you want long term results.
What’s The Best Way To Build Links For SEO?
Despite what you may see online, link building is extremely time consuming and it can take just as long to build links to your content as it does to actually create the content in the first place. Link building software providers, eBook writers and “online guru’s” will claim to offer a fast fix to help you in your link building strategies but I believe Googles method is best.
Google doesn’t want to see fake backlinks that you have created yourself, so there is a simple solution, don’t do it!
Instead of spending time searching for the latest method or strategy for increasing your rankings and then spending hours putting those methods into practice, perhaps you should consider creating more quality content that Google actually rewards you for!
There are a few things that will help you rank higher in the search engines, good quality content being just one aspect of many.
Whist there is no real clear cut way to build a website that will get guaranteed high rankings and there is no A-Z guide for top rankings on Google, that is part of what Google is looking for.
Google want us to express ourselves in whatever way we feel necessary to communicate our content, they want us to be original, they want us to be individuals.
You have two choices, build a site to be proud of with quality content that will be read and enjoyed by the masses or build what the guru’s say will make you money.
Who knows what updates Google will unleash in 2019, but I do know that I for one won’t be wasting my time building backlinks!
Please post comments and ask questions in the comments section below!
you know i’ve been thinking about getting some backlinks and how to go about it…but it just seems so tedious and not worth the effort.
i rather focus on quality content and hopefully someone will pick it up and link it back to me.
i believe one good way of building backlinks is to get guest writers and be a guest writer across a few more established blogs and that would then lead to more organic backlinkin.
You are quite right. Getting links back from other related blogs can be a good idea, but this can also take a lot of work. If you are just starting out, then I wouldn’t consider it right row. Just concentrate on building great content that people like to read. Eventually, you will get links pointing towards your site. Building them manually is not a good idea in my opinion.
This is awesome. Simply great. Though I just joined the community but your blog posts that I’ve read are simply top notch. The information’s are in depth, explicit and very insightful. But I would want to inquire from you that is it possible that Backlinks can come to an end any time soon?
because ive been hearing about them since even before I delved into affiliate marketing.
Backlinks will always be needed in order to connect the world wide web. I think the bigger question is, will black-hat, spammy backlinks ever become worthless? Links from one site to another will always be needed and it will always be an indicator to Google that your content is good or bad.
Do Backlinks still work? Yes, but you need the right kind pointing to your website. Will they ever end? No, I don’t think so! Its too much a part of what the internet is constructed from.
Thanks for the question.
Andrew
This article is absolute gold,
This really is the best guide on google backlinks that I have come across with zero fluff, actionable steps and all backed up by proof and case studies. I’m super impressed. Although i am not into blogging but I learn on daily basis and i can tell you what you shared here is an eye opener for me and I will surely implement this whenever I start my online business. Thanks for sharing
Hi there Tracy. Great to hear that you found my article beneficial to you. So, you’re looking to start an online business? I wish you the very best of success wit that.
Thanks for dropping by!
Andrew
Very Nice Article is about Do Follow backlinks. But One Problem How to check Do Follow backlinks?
There are several sites online that allow you to check how many backlinks you have. SEM Rush is a premium tool used to find out how many backlinks are pointing to you, but there are lots of free ones too. Just do a Google search and you will see tons of options. But please be aware, none of these tools are completely accurate. Its a fact that only Google knows how their search engine algorithm really works and how they detect and log backlinks. Most of the tools available online will product differing results and these should only be used as a guide at best. Personally, I don’t worry about backlinks any more. You are far better on producing content for your website, rather than looking for the best ways to build more backlinks.
I Found your article very interesting and helpful.. Well explained.. Thanks for sharing this amazing information.
Hi there! Thanks for posting your comment, compliments are always very welcome!!
Glad to hear that this article helped you.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on backlinks with all of us through your post. I really got a lot out of this.
No problem. I’m pleased that you enjoyed the article.
Thanks for sharing that great information.
Thank you, I’m pleased that this article helped you.
Hi Andrew.. first of all thanks for sharing such a great piece of work. You have explained everything I needed to know about backlinks very well. Your article cleared up much doubt that I had earlier. My name is seshnath gond and have recently launched my own website. My questions is how could I promote my website without spending money? I am learning about seo and backlinks. Please suggest me some tips and tricks which helps me in seo..
Hello Seshnath. Well, first of all congratulations on launching your website. I’m pleased that you found my article useful on backlinks. The key to creating a successful online business is to create lots of good quality content and then to promote that content. Your main focus should be on the people that are visiting your website. Learn what those people want to read about and provide valuable information. Social media is your best friend for promoting your website at zero cost. My advice would be to start with two or three social media websites in order to start promoting your website. I would suggest Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook. Don’t post anything offensive, be professional concentrate on building a following on these websites. The more people that follow you on social media the better. As your audience grows on social sites you can use it as a way of getting almost instant traffic.
Whatever you do, don’t waste your time with backlinks. Creating lots of backlinks to your website is an old and outdated strategy for getting ranked highly in the search engines. These days backlinks don’t work in the same way that they used to and could cause your website more harm than good. Also, don’t fall into the trap of buying backlinks! Some online marketers will push services stating that you can get tons of traffic and instant rankings if you buy certain types of links. This is not a long term strategy for success. My advice would be to not even think about building links. Spend your time building more and more content for your site and you will see far better results.
Hope that helps!
Andrew
Awesome piece of information, let me tell you, your blog gives the best and the most interesting information. I have been reading all sorts of things about backlinks and I was starting to wonder if some of the information was out of date. You answered my questions here! once again hats off to you. Thanks a ton once again.
Hi there Derek. Thank you for taking the time to post this comment, I really appreciate your very kind words and its a pleasure to help. You are right to wonder if some of the information you see online is out of date. Backlinks are something that you don’t really need to worry about any more! Going back a few years building backlinks was absolutely essential if you wanted to compete with other online marketers. Today this really isn’t the case and there are many other factors that Google and the other search engines use to determine your search engine placement. Social links and some other links do play a part still in your overall rankings, but there is no need to spend hours building links like many people did a few years ago.
Of course there are still many people out there that swear by link building! Those people are usually the ones that are selling links and making a profit from telling you out dated facts. SEO is important for online success but backlinking isn’t any more.
Thanks again for the comment!
Andrew
Awesome piece of information about backlinks. Let me tell you, your blog gives the best and the most interesting information. I have learned a lot since reading your blog and just had to post a comment on this article. Do you think that backlinks will be a thing of the past completely one day? Once again hats off to you! Thanks a ton once again.
Thank you for taking the time to post a comment! I never get tired of reading compliments. In answer to your question, yes I do think that backlinks will one day be a thing of the past. The thing is, Google is becoming more and more advance every day. The ways that we used to get ranked online are already a thing of the past, so yes, eventually we will no doubt see very new ranking factors. Things have already got more geared towards social media signals and although these are still classed as backlinks, Google is still looking closely at other factors to determine the popularity of your website. Who knows what Google is working on right now? But one thing is for sure, whatever Google decides, the other top search engines will follow.
The clearest way to look at it for me is that backlinks work fine if they resulted from other people liking your content enough to refer their own visitors to it.
But links you create yourself or have some software app generate for you don’t represent any value to the visitor and Google will rightfully want to punish people that focus on finding these type loopholes instead of providing useful content.
I run across offers often to create a network of links to drive traffic to my site. I was never really tempted because my expectation was that I would probably get nothing at all for my money.
Based on what you say here, getting nothing might actually be better than having them live up to their promises.
Thanks for the comment Chazz! Its clear that Google still take backlinks into consideration but these days they are getting less and less powerful. Its true as you say that there are still lots of websites that offer lots of cheap backlinks that once upon a time would have led to good rankings. These days its a different story altogether! Buy into cheap backlinking processes and you will eventually see your rankings drop. It would seem that the search engines would much prefer to see links coming from social networks now, rather that low quality website networks that offer no value.
Thank you for this informative article, I found it really interesting.
You are so right, why spend time building backlinks that you don’t even know will work, instead of using the time to write good content that we know for a fact Google loves.
There are still loads of vendors online that sell backlinks, but I wonder if they even know what a waste of time it is?
Hi there, thanks for your comments and question. The problem with backlinks at the moment is that there are still loads of online training articles, videos and courses from years ago that explain how to do things the wrong way. As I explained in this article right at the beginning, things used to be very different in the world of online marketing, you could get ranked very easily for highly competitive search terms if you could generate enough backlinks. Unfortunately, people are still stumbling upon this information and following it, not realizing that it could actually cause more damage than good.
On the other hand, there are those people that still believe that backlinks do still work and to some extent they are right, in a very small way. The internet is still built on sites interlinking, so Google are still going to take notice of who is linking to who. Getting relevant sites to link to yours is a good sign to Google, especially if the content is relevant and the site linking to yours is of high authority.
You are quite right, building good content will attract natural backlinks anyway and to be honest, in my opinion building more content on your own site is far more powerful than building tons of links with some outdated software application.
Do vendors know that backlinking is a waste of time? I don’t think the vendors that do this sort of thing could care less either way. Backlinking is a dying trend that only continues because of misinformation that won’t go away. I think whilst there is a market for a backlinking service then people will use it, if only to experiment.
Hope that helps! Now go and create some amazing content!
Hi Andrew,
This is really a very educational piece of information about backlinking, Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird search engine which I had heard so many times but not really getting the concept on how it affected the SEO and ranking systems nowadays. Thanks for the enlightenment!
Hi there Vic. Thank you, I’m really pleased that you found this article educational.
This article is a great explanation of how backlinks and google works.
I remember buying products in the past who taught to backlink up a one paged site for quick profits and earnings.
Like you have pointed out there are similar products still doing the rounds today. I learned the hard way that the training provided by those products don’t work.
Thanks for the info, I wasn’t that well educated on the panda, hummingbird, and penguin update. I’ve heard of them but never really delved into what the mean for an online marketer.
Hello, I’m very pleased that you found this helpful. There are more than a few systems on the market still that promote the use of baclinks for quick and easy profits. Links are still sold in hundreds of locations around the internet. I have just written a review for a product call article marketing robot that was around years ago, when I first started internet marketing. That product is designed to build backlinks and is still being promoted and sold today. There is so much misinformation out there on building a real online buisness, its not surprising that people get tired of trying to make it work. Like you said, you learned the hard way and you are no different to lots of people out there.
Hey, Andrew! The article is sooooo helpful and opened my eyes for many things regarding my website ranking. It reconfirms one more time that nowadays you need to go for quality and not for quantity. Once you have really quality content and give real value than you will get automatically good rankings and traffic.
Really appreciate sharing with us the history of the SEO ranking, it gives a good motivation to spend more time on writing quality content.
Hi there! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my article. Back-linking is slowly becoming a thing of the past and for those people that are still trying to rank their site via backlinks, they will quickly learn that it is no longer the way forward. Writing good quality articles and producing high quality content is the way to build a good site and gain high search engine positions. I wish you all the best for your future rankings!
Hi there! Very interesting post, I finally found an updated and thorough explanation of how backlinks work (or used to work). I am building a website right now and what I have learnt is that backlinks can harm your website nowadays, although I know people that still teach backlinks. Thanks for sharing this information with us. It is very important that sites like yours exist and show people the truth and the changes that have been made in the online world.
in 2016, backlinks are still taught as a method of increasing the search engine rank of your website, however you are more likely to do damage to your site using these techniques. Backlinks are still essential for the search engines to find their way from one website to another, its how they discover new content. But as a way of improving the rank of your site, especially when your site is new, I would stay well away from this old SEO method.
I’m pleased that you have found the information here useful and I wish you luck with your website! Just don’t get tempted to the dark side of SEO! Building a site takes time these days and you cant expect to rank highly within a few days or even a few weeks. Creating quality content on a regular basis and proving to the search engines that you are an authority on your subject will do you far more good that dabbling in the art of link building.
All the best,
Andrew
Great article!
I knew a little about SEO manipulation and backlinks, but not this much. I didn’t even know what a backlink meant to be honest.
Also your article really helped me to understand what Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird do. I didn’t have much information about them.
Your site is really cool. Keep up the good work!
Glad to hear that this helped you Tyler. Information like this will help you in the long run, if you are building a website or a blog. Let me know if you need any further assistance.
I really enjoyed your article here.
Every website has to have some backlinks or it will never go anywhere but it’s great you’ve highlighted what to do and what not to do. If you have great content about something, it’s so much easier for the reader to add a link to what you are talking about – if they choose to use it.
I love the fact you’ve added the history so if anyone looks up an article or site on the net, they can refer back to you to see if it was done before the guidelines changed.
Great article, I look forward to reading more.
Sammi
Thanks Sammi. That’s right, all websites need to be linked in some way. These days search engines will use any kind of link to find new content. A link might be followed from a blog, a social network or even a video. The search engines are on the lookout for new content all the time so its helpful if we can provide some means of getting them to our pages.
Glad you liked my article. I look forward to speaking with you again soon.
Andrew
Hello there, really nice site bro. I myself am a totally newbie to SEO. By the way thanks to you now I know the meaning of SEO. I find your site really educating and very informative.
I have heard about backlinks before but until now had zero idea on how they work. Thanks to your site again now I am much more knowledgeable in this industry.
Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your articles! 🙂
Hello Norstad. Its one of the main aims of this website to be able to provide you with good information, so I’m really pleased that you can take something positive away.
I hope that you will stop by again soon.
This is a good article on SEO and Backlinks. I have been searching for the answers to my questions for a long time and finally I am able to find them here. In my opinion backlink may be a good approach to getting a decent amount of traffic to our website but it may also have the opposite effect if we go on create many backlinks with a hope of getting more traffic. I think its always better to limit the backlinks and concentrate on other SEO techniques for increasing traffic.
Firstly I think the idea of building links to your site is really old and quite out of date in some ways. Yes, links do play a part in getting you ranked but you should not be going out there and building them. The best links come from those sources that you know nothing about. By that I mean that its best to let the links build themselves, let others link to you. If you are creating quality content then people will link to you. If you are creating poor content then people wont, its as simple as that.
If you create rubbish content and manage to get links to it and then get it ranked highly in the search engines, people still wont stay on your page because its rubbish content! Poor content always ends in poor rankings because people simply don’t want to read it.
In my opinion, don’t build backlinks. It will do you more harm than good!
Hi, I do not understand the part where you write ‘blast with as many backlinks as possible’. How did they do this in the past?
You nicely describe those ‘3 animals’. I did not really know how they worked and how they affected the ranking. So OK, I see what you mean, there is no point of just trying to build backlinks. Sounds reasonable.
I have never tried to do this myself, but I have more than 600 backlinks in one of my site and far over 200 in the other. Have no idea if this sounds good/enough or not. Thank you, it was a great pleasure to read your text.
Hi Jovo! Just to explain, a few years ago your rankings would have gone through the roof if you suddenly got a lot of backlinks. It didn’t really matter where the backlinks came from. If you had more backlinks than anyone else then you would be at the top of the search engines, getting all of the traffic! Because everyone caught on to this, software creators began releasing pieces of software that would create thousands of backlinks very quickly. Some people referred to these pieces of software as backlink blasters.
It doesn’t matter if you have 6 or 600 links pointing to your sites. The best way to build links is to let others do it for you, which you obviously are. The only time you should ever worry about it is when your ranks suddenly drop and you notice you have thousands of links pointing to your site, as this could be negative SEO.
Negative SEO is where someone uses one of the old backlink blasters on your site. Since these pieces of software no longer have the effect of driving your ranks up, they now actually work against you. Its now possible for someone to negatively effect your search rankings by using this type of software. I know its harsh, but its true.
Hope that helps!
This is some good information. I’m currently trying to figure out this google algorythm and seo stuff and it’s hard because there are so many opposing views out there.
It’s tough when there isn’t any sure fire answer but just techniques that have or have not worked for some people.
Personally I’ve had the best luck just by targeting low competition keywords but the problem with this method is that it requires a lot of writing and a lot of work.
I guess backlinks still do work as long as they are from a reliable source or website. Thanks a lot for the info and I’ll keep it in mind when working on my website.
Robert
Good article. You gave a lot of information. SEO can be scary, especially if you don’t know how to do it properly. I must admit, I haven’t really dealt with backlink building much. Probably because I haven’t studied it much. I concentrate on my content more. I think that is more beneficial.
Yes, exactly right. Keep doing the same thing and you won’t go far wrong. Thanks for your comment, hope you will join us again.
Thank you Andrew for your text!
I want to ask to be sure that I understood right: 1.Do the backlinks mean any kind of links? 2.Does it give my website more traffic if I put there a lot of links?
This is a new aspect for me. Thank you for the information about history and how the things have changed in SEO!
Hello Roope, in answer to your questions… There are lots of different kinds of links, but all links that point to your website are classed as backlinks. Building backlinks from other websites just to get a link is not recommended as it is against Googles guidelines and you will be penalized if you are discovered to be building links in this way. Building backlinks will NOT necessarily give you more traffic! You are far better and far safer building a site with good content and then connecting social networks and getting some social links from the likes of G+, YouTube and twitter. Social links will give you more traffic safely.
Thanks for your comment.
Hi Andrew,
really good article on backlinking. You mentioned everything important and put it in the way that is very easy to understand. I’m not doing backlinking as yet, because I’m new to this, but I’m going to soon and I’m sure that your article will help me a lot!!
Thank you very much for sharing this!
Lukas
Hi Lukas, thank you for your comments, I really appreciate your support. My advice to you would be to not start building backlinks with the sole intention of just getting a link. As we have said in the article, its way better to concentrate on building quality content for your site. Google in particular has so many factors that determine how you rank in the search engines, backlinks is just a tiny fraction. But whilst only a tiny fraction of the contributing factors to get you ranked, link building can have a massive effect if you get it wrong. If you really want to build links, my advice is to stay away from software and to build manual links in small amounts day by day. To be honest, your very best approach is to get some real SEO training for ranking purposes (see our top recommendation on the top of our homepage). Thanks again for your input!
Hi Andrew, wow this is such an informative piece of writing, about 6 years ago, so around 2008/9 I built a site with afillorama and that was all about writing content, spinning your content etc. I never made sale!! I felt that it was a total waste of time for me, now I have a new site that I haven’t really looked into building back links because I was unsure about whether it would benefit my new site or not and now I am making sales…I love your post I got so much out of it, thank you so much Justine 🙂
Hi, I know its amazing isn’t it! I was there too, I think lots of people got started at Affilorama and as you rightly say I think a lot of people failed to make money online. I remember sitting for hours and hours spinning content for software like Article Marketing Robot and others that at the time we all thought was absolutely fine. I for one didn’t even consider the fact that what we were producing was in fact a load of rubbish! Everyone was doing it because at the time that was what we were taught to do!
Hi Andrew
When I first started out with my online business; targeted backlinks actually helped with rankings. But the only ones I use now are natural ones from social networking sites because I heard that Google had dropped the use of backlinks from it’s Algorithms.
But people still have different opinions on this!
Some of my articles have landed on page 1 of Google without having to focus on building backlinks. The only links I am concerned with are the ones from social media and the internal ones within my website 🙂
Thanks for a great article though, and have learned a lot on this strategy…
Neil
Yes, its one of those debates at the moment as to whether or not Google has completely dropped the use of backlinks or not. What is quite certain is the fact that they are definately taking more notice of social backlinks and signals. Internal links was something I didn’t really touch on in this article, I may do an additional article in the future on internal linking. Thank you for your comment!
hi andrew!! wow lot of information in this article, thank you so much for it. i understand better now backlinks and their functions and how and when to use them ! again thanks for this great article
This was a really informative article, I was reading about backlinks yesterday, but after reading this article I don’t think I would apply any of those methods on my sites. You’ve made me realise that the article is from 2011 & I think it would scupper my chances of ranking in google. I’ll be more careful future. Thank you for the post !
Hi Skai, I’m really pleased that my article has made a difference to to. There’s tons of outdated advice out there, you have to be really careful.
Great thorough article. Backlinks is always one of those subjects that people either love or hate lol. I found that creating share worthy content can and will create its own backlinks which is by far the most powerful way I have found to obtaining relevant, quality links.
Thanks for this post!
Exactly Beau! That’s the way to do it every time.
I liked this article and I definitely learned something I didn’t know before. I think Google would consider this to be quality content.
I hope so Ian, only time will tell if the big G like this article or not!
Wow, this is great information! Thanks for writing such a thorough article. I’m going to bookmark it and refer to it when I need it again!
Thank you Dara! I really appreciate that, keep watching this space, there is even more to come!
This is a very interesting and helpful article.
I think far too any people are obsessing over backlinks a bit too much. If that put that amount of focus into creating quality content (like this article here) there is a much higher chance of ranking high in Google. Patience is a virtue.
Thanks for educating us about all the latest info on backlinks, I have never really been one to worry too much about getting back links as there are mixed opinions on it. I now hav a bit more of an understanding. I think the best way to get backlinks is to just made good content and let it happen naturally.
Nice one.
Hannah.
Hi Hannah! Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate your input. Yes, keep building and writing quality content and people will link naturally. It keeps everyone happy!
I have never explored the back linking process before and think that it is better to concentrate on quality valuable content that your visitors will really like and keep coming back for more. Google is getting smarter with each step and they are not to be fooled.
I see that you mentioned black hat techniques, what do you really mean by this? I am not so clear on what it is. Thank you for sharing this information, I really did learn a lot by reading this.
~Jason.
Hi Jason, thank you for joining the discussion. The term “Black Hat” SEO and link building strategies basically means anything that is not seen as organic or natural in the eyes of Google. For example, you might naturally gain ten backlinks per week to your website and Google would see this as normal. If you suddenly gained an extra 500 links to your site or even 5000 in just a few days, then Google is going to take notice. A “black hat” technique would be to build a few thousand backlinks in a few days or even in a few hours by using software designed to manipulate your search results. Hope that helps!
Thanks for sharing this informative post on backlinks and whether they work.
I didn’t know the history of backlinks and how people took advantage of them before Google implemented changes with Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird.
I agree with you that quality content is the utmost importance in getting ranking and that people should not only concentrate on building backlinks.
Thanks for your comment. Yes, going back a few years there were a lot of people that made a lot of money in this way. Things have changed quite a lot!
Thank you for clarifying about the Panda and Penguin updates! I have heard those names thrown around so much, and I have never really figure out exactly what it is they did. I wonder what the next animal themed update will be. Do you feel like guest articles are an appropriate way to get backlinks? Would that be considered positive?
Hi Dallin, Yes guest articles, guest blogging, commenting on websites (like many have done on this post) all creates backlinks. The key thing to understand is that you can do absolutely anything online, so long as its natural in the eyes of the search engines. Posting an article anywhere online with a link back to your site is fine, but posting a hundred articles all over the internet in the space of a few hours will be seen as unnatural. An Unnatural link profile will only lead to penalties within your search ranks.
hi there
you make very good points in this post about backlinks. I think that it is a method that was used to obtain quick results in the past by those who did not spend much time actually building their site content. And yes results could be had but it is not for me. I think time is better spent on building quality content. Because, first off, Google is on to you. And second, yes you might be able to drive traffic to your site but once readers are on your site then what will they looking at? If you have no quality content then they won’t stay on your site and thus they will not make you money. So basically a waste of time if you do not also invest time in your content.
Hi Emily, yes you are quite right. The technique that you are referring to was used and is still used to some extent to try and gain fast results. People using these methods don’t really consider the reader of the site, they just place an affiliate link in sight of the viewer and hope for clicks. Thanks for your comments!
Thanks for such a great article, think I read everything twice! Figuring out all this SEO stuff is time consuming and be a bit overwhelming sometimes. I haven’t been entirely sure what to do about back links, a nor did I fully understand them either. I think for the first time I actually get it for a change! AND know its not something I should really be worry about, I will let it happen on its own naturally. THANKS AGAIN!
You are very welcome! Thank you so much for your kind comments, they really are appreciated.