Advanced link building queries, for the link builders who use them extensively, remain a closely guarded secret. It’s easy to understand why. For one, they want to protect a valued link source from getting flooded with link requests from the general link-seeking public. Secondly, there are some choice opportunities out there that would lose their value if the entire SEO community happened to learn about them.

Another complication with discussing and sharing link building queries is that they’re often tailored towards the linkable and shareable assets of a particular organization. Further, two businesses within the same vertical may have widely different linkable assets, and therefore will need to seek different link targets, which requires different queries.

Despite their link-protecting reticence and the complexity of communication, the 21 link builders I surveyed delivered a highly-valuable array of advanced link building queries. Thank you to all who participated!

Framing the process

In my questions, I asked link builders to respond within this framework:

1. Linkable Asset. Definition: what’s “linkable” varies from vertical to vertical. Cash is almost always a linkable asset, as are available jobs, events, expertise for interviews and many other forms of great content.
2. Link Target. Definition: what types of sites, pages, and people seek this linkable asset?
3. Link Prospecting Query. Definition: what queries uncover great targets for your linkable assets?

This framework couldn’t possibly suit every link builders’ style and expertise. I mention it because you’ll see it in some cases below.

Last notes before digging in – I missed getting queries from some great link builders due to time constraints imposed by my late start (apologies to those I missed!). If you want more sample queries from link builders please say so in the comments (and/or add your own) so I can build the case for a follow-up article. And in closing, I’d like to extend a thank you to the SEO Dojo for their warm welcome and link query suggestions.

Link building queries from 21 link builders

Query #1

Ken McGaffin, Keywords and SEO Blogger for Wordtracker Academy:

Here is a mini case-study on our Firefox plug-in ‘SEO Blogger’ which shows how we create linkable assets, queries and approach people for link building.

The link building project

‘SEO Blogger’ Firefox plug in from Wordtracker

At Wordtracker, we wanted to target anyone who published a blog and we were especially interested in business bloggers. We did a reasonable amount of research on the project and it kicked off with doing queries on Google.

We were interesting in identifying sites that had published articles on ‘business blogging’ or advised people how to blog. We identified our prospects using “intitle” queries on Google.

At the last count, this piece of work netted us over 1,000 links in just a few months.

The queries we used were quite simple but they produced an excellent list of target sites.

Here are the queries I used:

• intitle:”business blogging”
• intitle:”business blogs”
• intitle:”blogging tips”

For each query, I’ll look at the first 100 results and then look to compile a list of what I think are the top 50 or so. I concentrate on the top 50 because it’s cost effective. If I get editorial coverage and links from among the top 50, then I know hundreds will follow their example.

You’ve got to have superb content and publicize it through multiple channels. That’s where we put in the bulk of our efforts. For ‘SEO Blogger’ we had a 7-step process:

1. Created a top notch, free plug-in.
2. We created a section on our Academy specifically to offer free blogging articles as well as a blogging download.
3. We also commissioned an e-book from Chris Garrett, “Blogging for Business” that would generate revenue.
4. About 4 days before launch, we contacted our top 50 researched targets, gave them some copy and invited them to be the first to try our new plugin – we asked them to write about it or tweet it if they found it useful. We gave people a strict embargo.
5. We wrote a series of customized press releases that went to the press list we’ve built up over the years. Note that we suggested how to link to us in all our communications.
6. This is the most important step – we responded to questions and queries almost immediately. That meant assigning people to take on that task. I’m convinced our quick responses helped build trust and relationships.
7. Finally, on release, we tweeted about the launch. Many of the bloggers journalists who we had contacted also tweeted at the same time. The results were fantastic – the synergy we got from these multiple channels is always what I’m after.

In summary,  I think you need to have a commitment to create great, free stuff in order to tap into these link targets.

Query #2

Shaun Anderson, of Hobo SEO Company in Scotland.

One of the simplest ways I use to build links for any business is finding colleges and universities who link degree students and alumni to to job opportunities, and promote their student discount partners online. I consider links from very real sites like these as authority building links.

Obviously the first thing to do is get used to publishing your job vacancies and any offers on your site, and then telling potential linking partners about them. TIP: never take these jobs offline either – just mention “Role Filled” and strike out the text.

• Target Asset = Job Vacancy / Internships For (with your important keywords of course)
• Key Link prospects = Universities and colleges, alumni sites
• Link prospecting queries (in Google) = jobs degree site:.ac.uk, careers opportunities site:.ac.uk, careers advice site:.ac.uk, jobs degree site:.edu, careers degree site:.edu, careers advice site:.edu + variations
• View this example page typical of what you might find.

Another variation of this query occurs with colleges and universities who publish links to sites that offer their alumni special student discounts (so effectively, all you need is a student discount for products or services). This is useful even for small businesses in a very tight catchment area.

• Target Asset = Student Discount For (with your important keywords of course)
• Key Link prospects = Universities and colleges, alumni sites
• Link prospecting queries (in Google) = student discount partners site:.ac.uk, student discount partners site:.edu + variations
• View this example page typical of what you might find.

Of course, in every case you need to dig around the site in question but offering a student discount to all colleges and universities and building a list of marketing communications offers at unis and colleges and contacting them asking for a link in their newsletter (which many have) in return for a student discount is going to be more rewarding than sending out 1000 unsolicited spam link request emails. TIP – don’t be cheap. The better your offer for students, the better chance you’ll get a link.

Ultimately these kinds of educational links are a win win – they are not hurting either site, and students get a good deal too. If you have good content on your site, you can just go right on and ask them to link to it if they already have a habit of linking out to similar sites to yours, or even send them articles about “How to get a job in {keyword} services” for their careers newsletter or resource section.

Query #3

Eric Ward, content link builder since 1994

Understanding how to use what Google will give you via advanced syntax queries is one of those private strategies where I don’t tell my exact approach, I only sort of hint at it. The specific queries I use are typically client/subject specific.

That said, I could share some vertical/marginally useful ones, say, if the content I am building links for is PBS’ content on volcanoes.

Then, an example target site would be this one.

And, I would have found that target site via a Google query string like this: [volcano learn diagram useful demonstration other links].

Now, this is a beautiful example, and it’s a real example, and it resulted in a topical link obtained, but…most folks who are building links are not doing so on behalf of PBS content about a vertical like “volcanoes”. So, while my example may look nice, and it worked for me because my clients are content creators like PBS, most folks will see my example and crucify me/it as being “unrealistic” for their purposes, since their content is not as “linkworthy” as PBS’s.

Query #4

Wiep Knol, newly of Linkbuilding.nl

Here’s a list of a few queries that I often use or have used in the past to find interesting websites. I left the most obvious ones out, because I assume that most people already know and use these.

Content targeted:

• {keyword} “guest blogger” OR “guest post” OR “guest article” OR “guest column”
• {keyword} “become a contributor” OR “contribute to this site”
• {keyword} “write for us” OR “write for me”
• {keyword} inurl:category/guest

You can refine these queries by using {keyword location} in stead of {keyword}, or by switching to just {location}.

Resource/ research targeted:

• {keyword} “top * [tools/ articles/ websites/ etc.]” -> refine search to ~1 year ago. Contact anybody who shows up and ask if you can help with the 2009/ 20** edition of the article
• {keyword} research -> see explanation above
• {keyword} {location} resources OR “useful sites” OR links
• {keyword} {USP} intitle:resources -> Use ‘green’, ‘cheapest’ etc as USP
• .edu targeted: {keyword} site:.edu “planned research” OR “upcoming project” -> might return upcoming research/ project/ whatever that can be useful (both for info and for links)

To find specific types of websites:

• {keyword} “Powered by phpBB” OR “powered by vBulletin”
• {keyword} “Blog powered by TypePad” OR “powered by Wordpress”

Additionally, one thing that always works very well for me is asking the client what the most important industry related websites and blogs are, and which ones his or her favorite are. Then I do some searching in the LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers of the client and some of his colleagues, and look for connections with these websites. If I find a match, explain to my client how he can use that connection and turn it into a link. This not only results in links to the client website on highly relevant websites that he likes (=a happy client), but it also makes sure that he is building connections that will be useful in the future as well (= life time value).

Query #5

Ann Smarty, SEO Consultant, SEOSmarty.com

• target asset = new low-calorie chocolate product
• key link prospects = mommy bloggers
• link prospecting queries = [pr welcome], [submit * review], [pr friendly], [pr contact], [pr info], [get * reviewed], [allintitle:get * reviewed], [reviews inurl:submit]

• target asset = a contest by fitness equipment store
• key link prospects = bloggers who cover web contests with a link back to the host
• link prospecting queries = [intitle:submit intitle:contest], [allintitle:submit * contest], [blog contests], [submit * giveaway]

Also from Ann: Link Building Search Queries Collection How to Use Google Wildcard Operator for Link Building and Baiting

Query #6

Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link, link building services and training

We begin all custom campaigns by sending surveys to the client’s customer base, which cuts our prospecting time in half and pinpoints the sites and/or types of businesses we need to look for. From there, it’s a simple matter of doing basic research to match sites with our client’s demographic. I depend less on queries for this and more on tools like Quantcast and Compete. If I do need to query, I use all four engines (Google, Ask, Yahoo and Bing) plus DMOZ, Hoovers, Lexis Nexis and local directories. My goal is to find businesses with street and algorithmic credibility to pitch my promotions and content to.

Query #7

Melanie Nathan, consultant for Canadian SEO

Footprints: A footprint is simply common text than can be searched for thereby revealing all the places that use the same text.

For example, a Google search for [Allowed HTML tags:] will bring back all the sites and blogs that allow you to use custom anchor text when commenting.

If you happen to come across an authoritative site that allows you to automatically post content with dofollow links (for example, a classified ad), take note of the form they’re using as footprints left by the form software are easily trackable and can allow you to find other sites that are using the same form.

Some examples of common footprints:

Dofollow blog comments:

Corresponding Footprint search: ["Notify me of follow-up comments?"+"Submit the word you see below:"]

Result: Over 60,000 new prospects (ie. sites that use the same dofollow form software)

Dofollow classified ads:

Corresponding Footprint search: ["drupal classified ads courtesy of exodus development, INC"]

Result: Over 40,000 other sites that use the same dofollow classified ad software.

Take it a step further with “drupal classified ads courtesy of exodus development, INC”+health and you’ve narrowed it down to only the sites that mention (for example) health.

Keep in mind that these are just 2 very basic examples. Get creative and you’ll be surprised at what you might uncover.

Disclaimer: I am in NO way suggesting that you spam these types of sites. However, if you’re going to spend the time interacting and engaging with other sites and blogs in your industry (for reals!), I AM suggesting that you maximize your efforts by making sure to interact on sites which will offer the most benefit to your organic goals.

Query #8

Wil Reynolds of the ThinkSeer SEO Agency

• Linkable Asset: A prize (product or service of course ;)
• Link Target: The target is charity web sites where we can give something away and be listed as an in kind donor
• Queries: ["in kind donations" list], ["in kind donors" list]

Query #9

Tom Demers of WordStream, the keyword management software company responsible for The Free Keyword Tool.

A couple of things I’m frequently promoting are videos and free tools or widgets. Here I’ll use some pretty generic queries like:

• target asset = Video Content
• link prospecting queries = intitle:[{target keyword} videos], intitle:[{target keyword} clips]

• target asset = Free tool/widget
• link prospecting queries = intitle:[{target keyword} tools], intitle:[free {target keyword} tools], intitle:[list of free {target keyword} tools], intitle:[list of {target keyword} tools]

Then I’ll use SEO for Firefox to export the data and de-dupe and triage the link prospects based on PageRank.

Beyond just pulling down places linking out, you can also identify a few sites that are on multiple lists. From there, pull down their backlink profiles and sort by page rank (using SEO for Firefox) or find sites that are linking to them multiple times using the Hostname Occurrence Counter. At the end of the process I usually have a nice list of potential link profiles.

Query #10

Gab Goldenberg of SEORoi.com

For queries,  I try to find less commercial sites based on insider jargon, insider topics or thinking about communities. So if you are kindergarten related, I’d look up jargon related to parenting or issues like whether you should carry your kid in a sling or if strollers are better. This works better for B2C than B2B, since I can’t see professionals being up for selling links on their sites, vs the general public. I could be wrong though.

For prospects, I target bloggers, members of the said communities.

Building links to B2C sites that can have a related community. It’s harder when you’re selling stuff like toothpaste or ordinary drugstore items without associated communities.

The upside to this is that if you have the budget, you can saturate the key sites in the community with these paid links and build a brand. In which case, you can thumb your nose at Google because you’ll eventually build direct traffic as a key source as well as referral traffic, reduce their ability to penalize you, etc. I wrote somewhere about my friend Rachel who surfs Wikipedia for entertainment. That’s where you want to get to. Where people bypass Google to get to you directly. It’s ironic, but the best SEO will get you to the point you don’t need search traffic any more.

Check out Gab’s 101-tip guide to buying text links.

Query #11

Arnie Kuenn of Vertical Measures link building service.

Here are a few for you that I have saved in a our database of queries we use for link building:

• “keyword phrase” sponsor charity
• “public library” “useful links” keyword phrase site:.gov
• “useful keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
• “helpful keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
• “favorite keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
• “best keyword phrase” site:.edu OR site:.org
• keyword phrase resources public library site:.us
• keyword phrase site:.edu

Query #12

Members of the Huomah SEO Dojo, SEO Training for Search Warriors.

Many thanks to the fine community at the SEO Dojo for their contributions to this article!

member: fedem of http://www.buyandwalk.com/

• linkdomain:competitor1.com; linkdomain:competitor2.com; -linkdomain:mysite.com

This will give you a landscape of which sites are linking to 2 or 3 of your competitors but not your site. This increase the chances of finding partners willing to link to your site.

Query #13

Ken Lyons of WordStream.

I use search operators to find personal email addresses for link outreach. some of my favorites:

• site:[companywebsite.com] + [name] + email
• site:[companywebsite.com] + [name] + contact
• site:[personalblog.com] + [name] + email
• site:[personalblog.com] + [name] + contact

From 12 Ways to Find Anyone’s Personal Email Address

Query #14

Craig Parker of Soula.com

Social Media Based queries are obviously useful for commenting and scoping out competition so: site:{SN} {keyword}

Where SN (social network) is digg.com, delicious.com or twitter.com etc. and {keyword} is one of your keywords or brands/competitor brands.

The other one I find quite useful is narrowing down themed directories so:

• {keyword} + “add a site”
• {keyword} + “submit url”

Obviously there are literally loads of combinations of these utilizing different words for directory i.e. “suggest url” or “submit listing”

You can also combine it with the intitle or inurl command for extra fun! Again throw in different words for directory like “list” and you can make lots of combinations on this.

• {keyword} + “intitle:directory”
• {keyword} + “inurl:directory”

They are basic ones but can be often overlooked by those not used to this stuff.

Query #15

Jon Santillan of SEO Dubai

I used search operators to find potential links for my link building campaign using footprinted Scripts. This varies from directory, blog commenting, forum, social media directories and competitors.

• Target Asset = Red Widget
• Strategy – A combination of standard text or content that usually can see in a website
• Ex: Directory = inurl:submit.php intext:Powered by “Directory Name” intext: red widget
• Blog Commenting = intext:red widget intext:blog comments powered by “Comment Plugin”
• Social Media = intext:”Submit A New Story” intitle:Register intext: “Name of Social Media Script”
• Forum = inurl:forum intext:red widget

My favorite: Competitors Footprints. Following competitors Backlinks is the most exciting one, you can use link:competitorsdomain.com and check a potential link partner. By following competitors footprints, you can sometimes see the strategy of their link building, for example, if they are using Directory, Blog Commenting, Social Media or Forum. If by any chance you got the name of a Directory Script, Social media script, plug commenting plugin that is not in your list, you can add that in your arsenal.

Once you have figured out the competitors pattern how they are building their backlinks plus your link building strategy I think that will be easier for you.

In my opinion, combining different search operators and website content pattern is one of most effective link building strategy you just need to be more creative to combine and try different combination.

Query #16

Navin Poeran

I’m using advanced queries in combination with Google alerts, to receive mails, whenever there is somewhere i can drop a link.

I just create a new alert with: OR -mysite.com inurl:links

Query #17

Andy Murd of MMMeeja.

I use this query in Google Image Search to find the little “U Comment – I Follow” logo:

• “MY KEYPHRASE” inurl:ifollow*.gif

For deep links to your blog posts, you can add “CommentLuv Enabled” to find the popular Wordpress plugin.

I make RSS feeds from link-building searches so my feed reader nags me to post a few comments per day.

Query #18

David Harry (The Gypsy) of the Huomah SEO Blog

When reverse engineering link profiles, we use stuff like:

• [linkdomain:huomah.com site:.com "SEO Blog"]
• linkdomain: – searches for links to Huomah.com
• Site; – tells it to look for results from ‘.com’ extensions.
• “SEO Blog” searches the KWs on the page (or hopefully in the anchor text)

Or

• [linkdomain:example.com site:.edu "keyword"]
• [linkdomain:example.com site:.gov " keyword"]

Or maybe if we’re looking for relevant pages, we can track the TITLE

• [linkdomain:huomah.com -huomah.com intitle:SEO]

Page URLs are strong also, so we might do something like:

• [linkdomain:huomah.com -huomah.com inurl:"search engine optimization"]

We also can use a variety of low level link trolling with dorks related to:

• [add-links, last-updated 2000 inurl:.edu]

Query #19

Julie Joyce, of the link development firm Link Fish Media

“You can find particularly interesting sites geared towards a very specific interest, by using an organic thought process in which you have no major agenda. This all sounds very New Age but it has led us to some of our best inbound links.

I’ll give you an example for this one, since it’s the only method that isn’t exactly what it sounds like. When working for a site that sells punk rock concert videos, we may search for “punk videos” to start with, then we’ll see a long-tailed search phrase somewhere down in the SERPs on page 3, so we’ll then type that phrase in, then click on the first result, see something on the site’s homepage that triggers an idea, and we’ll end up on a fan site that is devoted to the music of Stiff Little Fingers.

We see that this site seeks to list all online stores that happen to sell Stiff Little Fingers items, and our client has one of these sites. Therefore, it’s a great place to get a link, and it was a somewhat random method of discovery. It’s also relevant but we still go about it in a slightly more haphazard way.”

Excerpted from: 6 Discovery Methods For Finding Ideal Linking Partners

Query #20

Brian Gilley of SocialSEO.com

Drupal Powered Websites (most allow comments links and/or dofollow)

Targeting Drupal sites with the keyword phrase “home mortgages” with comments turned on and that allow HTML links to be added and are almost always followed.

Want to get more specific and search for the keyword in the title. Try the “intitle:” search operator on for size.

Want to get freaky with it and go the broad route and not including Drupal websites or any specific CMS platform? Just search for sites allowing the HTML tag, which usually means a followed link and brings up endless possibilities.

See more tips from Mr. Gilley on how to find backlinks with search queries.

Query #21

Brian Chappell, Search/Social Marketer

Finding people who will want to share your content (…including linking to it…) can be much simpler if you know how to search quickly through the major social networks.

• Linkedin: [site:linkedin.com inurl:in “social media expert”]
• Bebo: [site:.bebo.com inurl:profile inurl:bebo “social media expert”]
• CafeMom: [site:www.cafemom.com inurl:cafemom.com/home/ “stay at home mom”]
• Facebook: [site:facebook.com/people “led zeppelin”]
• Flickr: [site:flickr.com/people “@gmail”]
• Twitter: [site:twitter.com -inurl:statuses -inurl:status “social media expert”]
• MySpace: [site:profile.myspace.com inurl:myspace inurl:fuseaction “go to nc state”]
• YouTube: [site:youtube.com/user “social media expert”]

From: How to Target Users within Social Networks

Additional link query resources:

Two Link Prospecting Query building tools:

• SEOBook Link Suggest Tool
• Link Search Tool by SoloSEO

10 Articles on Advanced Queries for Link Building

1. Long List of Link Searches
2. Five Search Queries to Find Sponsorship Link Opportunities
3. 13 Search Operators for Ultimate Link Building
4. Advanced Link: Operator to Explore Your Competitor’s Backlinks
5. The Power of Search Queries for Link Building: The Basics and Beyond Part 2
6. Link Building Tip: Easily Find DoFollow Blogs Search String
7. Search Engine Query Cheat Sheets
8. Google Hacks for Dorks and SEO prowlers
9. Getting Links From Known, Quality Linkers
10. Eric Ward Queries from Print Search Marketing Standard Interview

Following on from my last column when I gave guidance on how to prepare your site for successful international link building, it’s now time to look at the rules of international link building itself—at least the new rules that differ from a typical single country project. Fundamentally, link building is the same everywhere—which means it’s important to consider the quality of the links, check they’re not no-followed and take a view of the quality of the site from which they come. But there are some new factors to be considered—which I’m calling the “new rules of international link building.”

Rule 1: Location, location, location is everything

The most obvious new parameter to consider is location of the site on which a link originates—or perhaps more appropriately, where the search engines believe the link originates. To succeed in a specific geographic region, you are going to need not only good content targeted at that region and in the correct language, but also links to your site from within that region. So, if your target is to sell tire fitting to Austrians, you need a site in German and you need to acquire links from within Austria.

What does that expression “within Austria” actually mean? When you start to consider this question closely, you begin to realize just why local domains really are so crucial outside of the US. There are really only two factors which make any sense—an IP address from an Austrian server or a ‘.at’ domain for Austria.

If you’re running a hosting company serving a particular market—such as Austria—you’re going to want to be competitive and you’re going to want a good connection to the backbone of the internet. This makes it attractive for smaller hosting companies based in many smaller markets to sell—or rather to re-sell—hosting space which sits on servers which may not be located directly in Austria but might actually be in the US, UK or other country where servers resources are easier and more cost-effective to come by. In other words, not physically hosted in Austria.

What this means is that, when choosing a local link partner, the easiest way to be sure that a link from an Austrian organization is treated by search engines as a fully-fledged genuine 100% Austrian link is for it to be coming from a site with a ‘.at’ domain.

Rule 2: Correct geo-targeting helps

Meanwhile, Google allows you to specify within Webmaster Central which geographic region you would like your “.com” to be targeted at. This is a useful workaround for organizations who have a site hosted in the US and on a “.com.” But it is a workaround and there are certain deficiencies with relying on this technique. One relates to selecting link partners. If your “.com” site is targeted at Turkey, for instance, but it’s not using a “.tr” domain then you may find local Turkish link partners don’t identify with your site or wish to exchange links with you because the link will still appear to be US hosted on a “.com.”

A quick straw poll demonstrated that few people really know how Google will treat the location of the link on a geo-targeted page—but most believe that it will be given the location of the hosting if the domain is a “.com.” In a way, it doesn’t matter what the truth is, as this is a case of “perception is reality.” The solution is to correctly geo-target your site which means either hosting it locally to the market you’re targeting (and check that the hosting really is local!) or better still to run your site on the appropriate local domain.

Rule 3: Not all links are created equal

I hope to be digging into this fascinating topic more in the future with the help of the team at Majestic SEO who provided the sample data to illustrate my point. Many link builders consider the quality of links by looking at factors such as PageRank. They will also have an idea of what makes a good PageRank based on previous experience. With the new international rules of link building, it’s time to forget PageRank. Or at least don’t try and compare PageRank scores between markets because the pool of links sited within a particular country or domain will vary significantly.

The data in the chart below looks at a small sample of Majestic global link data looking at the average number of backlinks per unique domain in the top 75 countries on the database. It produces some interesting findings.

The number of backlinks per unique domain for a sample of data in the database.

The chart illustrates and hopefully proves my point that the value of links in particular countries or regions varies subject to how much link “competition” there is in that country—and the quality of the competing sites. It doesn’t even matter if you agree or disagree with the findings in the chart as it will vary by sector—the key point is, “It’s different!”

Top of the list is the European Union, which is a good example. For the purposes of this dataset, the European Union is sites which carry the ‘.eu’ domain. There are relatively few of these—but the typical quality of sites within that group is good. What this means is that, at least in theory, obtaining links from sites classified as within the European Union will be good for the whole network of sites, but the quality of links within that region will need to be of a particularly good quality to compete. Equally, a Saudi Arabian link will be good for the whole network—but expect standards to be high within that country.

At the bottom of the scale, countries such as the Philippines or Uzbekistan will require fewer higher PageRank sites to be competitive within those countries and will offer less value for the whole network globally. The bottom line is—links within some countries can help the whole site perform better globally whereas other countries may be easier to target locally—but will add less to the global link juice. Might be time to re-think your international link building strategy!

At SMX East today, Linkdex is introducing its new SearchDNA tool — a link analysis tool that the company says goes deeper than the already crowded field that it’s competing against.

While some link tools only show up to 1,000 links (think Yahoo Site Explorer), Linkdex says SearchDNA has a database of about one trillion links. It gets that data via a partnership with Majestic SEO, which also offers its own link analysis tools. So, what makes SearchDNA different if they’re using the same data?

According to Linkdex CEO John Straw, SearchDNA goes beyond compiling a list of links and does an SEO analysis on the pages where links are found. That analysis includes about 25 key ranking factors that it uses to determine the “link authority” of pages with inbound links to a URL. The tool allows users to filter and sort inbound links based on those factors — things such as whether the keyword appears in the page title, in H1 tags, in the URL, and so forth.

SearchDNA will go into a private beta soon. When the finished product is ready for public use, Straw says he expects pricing to be about $50/month for a crawl of between 100,000 and 200,000 pages.

Other Link Analysis Tools

As I mentioned above, SearchDNA is entering an already crowded field of link analysis tools. Here’s a quick look at some of the other well known sites and tools that offer link building and link analysis:

• Majestic SEO – bills itself as the biggest database of backlinks and anchor text on the web. Offers a free account, and paid “credits” that allow users to analyze competitors.
• SEOmoz Linkscape – launched at SMX East in 2008, Linkscape says it has more than 54 billion URLs across 230 million domains in its index. Offers basic reports for free and advanced reports with a paid SEOmoz PRo membership.
• Link Diagnosis – this tool just relaunched a new version in September. It analyzes only the top 101 pages on a domain, on the theory that most inbound links will point to those pages. This tool is free.
• SEO Book Link Tools – a set of tools to help with link analysis and link building. Link Harvester is a free tool that queries the Yahoo database and analyzes backlinks. Back Link Analyzer is free, downloadable Windows software that includes anchor text analysis. And Hub Finder is a competitive link tool available to paid subscribers.
• Google Webmaster Tools – free, and shows both a list of inbound links pointing to a domain as well as the anchor text found in those inbound links.
• Yahoo Site Explorer – free, but the recent Yahoo-Microsoft deal has search marketers wondering if Site Explorer will soon disappear. Shows inbound links to a page or domain, and Yahoo has previously said the first 50 links or so are roughly shown in order of value/authority. The export function is limited to 1,000 results.
• Bing Webmaster Center – Bing’s version of what Google and Yahoo also offer, but with some additional link filtering options. Like Site Explorer, the export is limited to 1,000 results.
• SEO Spyglass – downloadable tool that comes in Free, Professional, or Enterprise versions. It shows backlink counts, anchor text, IP range, and much more info about a site’s inbound links.
• Backlink Watch – a free tool that shows the URLs, anchor text, and other inbound link data.

We’ll try to do a deeper look into SearchDNA when it’s available for beta access.

Link Diagnosis, one of the most well-known link analysis tools around, has new owners, a new look, and some fairly substantial changes under the hood. But are all the changes an improvement? Well, after testing a beta version for a few days, and now using the new site that launched today, my answer is … yes and no. Some of the changes add value to what Link Diagnosis offers, but others may leave you wanting to use the old version again. (And you can; more on that below.)

What’s New

Obviously, the look and feel is the first change you’ll notice. The new Link Diagnosis sports a more modern design, and the tool itself functions in Flash. It’s much easier on the eyes, but some users may prefer the simplicity of the old tool. One of the other things you’ll notice right away is a preponderance of ads promoting link building services and the like. This is presumably how the new owners are going to keep the service free.

Perhaps the biggest change to how Link Diagnosis works is the addition of accounts and the ability to save reports and projects in your account. This gives users quick and convenient access to commonly used link data without having to run the same reports time and time again. Speaking of those reports, there are number of changes worth knowing about. Have a look at this sample report run on my personal blog, mattmcgee.com:

In the upper right are new filtering options: by PageRank and by LinkType. (The old version of Link Diagnosis allowed sorting on these elements, which is slightly different from how the new filtering works.) In the link report itself, each of the data columns — PageRank, Anchor Text, Link Type, Outbound Links, Link Strength, and Link History (all in gray above) — supports sorting.

The yellow menu bar above the report offers charts and export functions like the old Link Diagnosis. Under the Links tab are a couple new options: If you highlight one link from the list, you can see the age of the page and/or you can also run a new report. Not shown in the screenshot above is an important new feature: the ability to run a link report on deep pages of a web site. On the old Link Diagnosis, you could only run reports on domain names.

There are two other big changes that need to be mentioned: First, links are counted differently in the new version. On the old version of Link Diagnosis, my personal blog is credited with 380 total backlinks and 110 unique anchor text phrases. On the new version, those numbers drop to 113 and 48, respectively. Joe Griffin, one of the new owners of Link Diagnosis, says that they’re filtering the backlinks to show only the first link from a domain. The old version would show multiple pages per domain as backlinks to a site, but the new one will show just one page.

In other words, the backlink count isn’t actual backlinks; it’s domains that link to your site (or page). Using the example above, only one backlink from blog.mixx.com appears, while on the old version, Link Diagnosis would show several different Mixx blog posts that include links to mattmcgee.com.

The other big change in the new version is that the tool analyzes only the top 101 indexed pages from a domain — basically, the first 101 pages Yahoo lists for a domain. The old version went deeper. While site owners may not like the 101-page limit, Griffin says that “the vast majority of large and small sites have most of their inbound links pointing to their top 100 pages.”

What It Means

If you used the old version of Link Diagnosis, chances are good that the new version will show lower backlink and anchor text counts. The tool will show you the 101 pages that it’s analyzing, so if you know of a page with meaningful inbound links that’s not on the list, the new “single page” option may help a bit. But I suspect that many webmasters, SEOs, and site owners won’t like the changes in how links are counted and the limit on pages indexed. If that’s you, the good news is that you can still access the old Link Diagnosis at classic.linkdiagnosis.com.

Link Diagnosis remains a Firefox-only web tool. You’ll need to download the new Firefox add-on if you’re using the new version of Link Diagnosis, or use the old one if you plan to stay with the classic version. For a complete look at what’s different in the new tool, see the Link Diagnosis blog announcement.

One of the most common recommendations people make about link building is to find out who links to your competitors (aka backlinking your competitors). This is a great idea, but many people who do this miss the most important point of why you do it. Let’s explore the good things you can do while backlinking, and then dig into where the most value lies.

Contacting people who link to your competitors

A common strategy is to develop a list of sites who link to your competitor, and then contact those sites and ask them to link to you. There are many programs that will help you develop such a list. Some of the most interesting ones are Linkscape, Majestic SEO, and Link Diagnosis.

Link Diagnosis is free, and the other two cost a modest amount of money. Link Diagnosis extracts link data using the Yahoo! API, and Linkscape and Majestic SEO assemble their data based on independent crawls of the web. As a result, in return for the fees they charge, Linkscape and Majestic SEO can offer more functionality and depth of data.

Once this data is assembled, the next step is to prioritize the sites. Using metrics such as PageRank (SEOmoz also offers mozRank and mozTrust), you can get an approximation of which sites are providing the most important links to the competitor. However, you do want to get a bit deeper into the analysis, because relevance is an important factor as well. In fact, even if a linking page has relatively low PageRank, but it is relevant to your site, you really don’t want to overlook it.

Once you have settled on a prioritization you now need to figure out who to contact to request the link. Do not use scraper software to do this for you. Scraping contact information off the web is a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, and the punishment is not a fine (it is time in jail). Equally bad is the fact that scrapers will frequently come up with the wrong contacts.

Use inexpensive human resources to do this work for you. They can be trained to recognize the right contact information, and they can also assess the relevance of the link for you as well. This relevance data is a key to the refining your prioritization of your link targets, because relevance is a big factor in a link’s value.

Once you have this data you can begin mailing people and asking for links. An important part of this is crafting a message that will be well received by the recipient. The key is to remember that they probably did not wake up this morning thinking about what links they were going to add to the page you are interested in, and they certainly were not expecting to hear from you. In essence, you are interrupting them. Be respectful, and you will be far better off.

The problem

Contacting sites that link to your competitor, as we noted above, is a great idea. You should do it. However, it is an expensive manual process that takes a long time to produce benefits. And what is your success rate likely to be? If you run a really successful campaign: about ten percent. So the real problem with making this your link building strategy is that it is not enough to help you achieve your goal (unless your goal is to have a site that is worth 10% of your competitor’s site).

This is a common link building mistake: not putting in a place a plan that will have enough impact to achieve the goals of the business. For example, if your competitor has 20,000 links, and you have 10,000 links of similar quality, putting in place a plan to obtain 500 new links of similar quality is not enough. Of course, if 100 of those links are of much higher quality, that is a different matter altogether.

The biggest value of backlinking

When you analyze your competitor’s backlinks there is a tremendous amount of information made available to you. Dig into the nature of the sites linking to them. In the process we outlined above, understanding the relevance of the sites that link to your competitors is really valuable. But you should look to expand upon that. Have your researcher take the time to define the relevance in detail. Have them answer the question: why did this site link to your competitor?

Is it because of a particular piece of content on the competitor’s site? A special promotional program? Are a lot of links coming from one market sector? Are there related market sectors linking to them that you would not have suspected? What areas of the market do you think might be a good target that are not strongly featured in your competitors’ backlink profiles?

Like any other form of marketing, successful link building requires an ongoing process of brainstorming ideas for improving existing campaigns and coming up with new ones. Your (successful) competitors’ backlinks can be a treasure trove of ideas for link building strategies. I have done this many times and am continually surprised at the novel ideas that leading competitors come up with. But, they are smart. That is how they became a leading competitor. So why not put their brains to work for you?

Facebook allows you to embed fan pages on your own site, which might result in Facebook outranking you for your own brand name. For example, the Search Engine Land fan page has a link for me to “add a fan box to your site.” If you look at the code of that widget, you might notice Facebook is using your brand name as the anchor text to the Facebook URL. Since the URL is search engine friendly and since Facebook has a lot of link popularity and trust, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Facebook pages outranking the official brand web site, due to this new gadget code.

Here is a screen capture of the code:

I want you to notice this part of the code:

<a href=”http://www.facebook.com/searchengineland”>Search Engine Land</a> on Facebook

As you can see, that is rich anchor text pointing to Facebook. Potentially, Facebook can outrank this site for our own name. So, if you are concerned about that, beware on how you use this gadget and where you use it. Of course, you can always slap on the nofollow attribute to the link, so Google won’t pass along any juice to that page.

Hat tip to Sam from OhNuts for sending this my way.

Recently, I was at an internet marketing convention where the question was posed to a panel: “As a search engine optimizer (SEO), what would you advise your clients to do if an extra million dollars fell into their lap?” The response from the SEOs on the panel was essentially “invest it all in creating great content.”

When questioned, the panel agreed that links were important (since Google’s algorithm prioritizes their analysis of links so highly), but the general implication was that if you create great content the links will come.

It would be fair to say that sometimes good content gets linked to, but it’s rare. According to Google, as of late 2008 they’d indexed one trillion pages. So the probability that one new page of content would be found by a surfer randomly clicking from one link to the next on the internet would be one in a trillion. Man, those are not good odds.

There are many ways to help good content get linked to, but the practical reality is that these same techniques are more often used to help all content get linked to, regardless of the content’s quality. So SEO is just as much about creating “great” content as it is about being great at getting content linked to. I am not suggesting that the quality of the content doesn’t matter, but that the purist approach of simply putting great content into the world and waiting for unnamed altruists to link to it on merit alone relies too much on luck.

Five steps for creating & distributing content

When trying to improve organic SEO, creating great content is just as important as doing a great job of distributing it. These tactics, however, should not be pursued in a vacuum. Instead, you should approach SEO using a holistic strategy. Here is a sample five-step plan that you can customize to fit your company’s objectives.

Step 1: Search Google Trends for keywords that relate to your business that have received heightened attention recently (either because of seasonality or other special events). On a search for “outdoor chairs,” for example, you will see that the number of people searching on this keyword spikes every summer. If you sell outdoor chairs, now would be a good time to target that phrase aggressively.

Once you’ve chosen a topic area you are ready to move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Use the Google keyword tool to find terms related to the concept of “outdoor chairs” to write about. Through appropriate analysis you may find that the terms outdoor chairs, lounge chairs, wood chairs, and folding chairs are relevant to the products you sell, and that they get a lot of search volume.

Refine your target keyword list and move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Search Twitter for the keywords you selected in Step 2 to see what your target customers are talking about in order to get content ideas. @Macktacular is talking about painting children’s Adirondack chairs. @endlessrant seems to need outdoor chairs in a hurry. @jherskowitz is looking for comfy chairs to fit a rooftop bar. Try to pick content ideas that correspond to the keywords you decided to target in Step 2 because you know there is substantial search demand for those keywords.

Once you have your topic, target keywords and specific ideas you are ready for Step 4.

Step 4: Create your content and be sure to include the keywords you identified in Step 2, while also being conscious of what you’ve learned from browsing Twitter in Step 3. Popular content and articles are highlighted on Digg.com, so you may spend some time there browsing popular content that relates to your topics to learn how to structure your article’s title and body copy.

Your article is now written and you’re ready to focus on distribution.

Step 5: Determine a concrete “distribution” goal for each piece of content you’ve created, whether it’s an article, a how-to guide, etc.

Here’s an example:

Now it’s time to get to work. You are ready to distribute your content in accordance with your plan and enjoy the benefits of creating great content and leveraging it to increase traffic, search engine rankings, sales and brand awareness.

Imagine that you fired up your computer and found that a bunch of your programs no longer worked, because behind the scenes, the operating system had been upgraded without any backwards compatibility. That’s what happened this week with Google. Some things that were working just fine now are broken, because Google isn’t being backwards compatible. And that’s fairly unprecedented.

Don’t panic. One of the changes really shouldn’t hurt many sites, impacting only a “power SEO” technique commonly called PageRank sculpting that I’d say fairly few use. The other has a bigger impact and potentially means thousands of sites may now be violating Google’s rules on paid link without knowing it. But that’s not likely to have an immediate impact. I’ll explain both changes in more depth below.

The most important thing is that in both cases, the changes may require site owners to alter their web sites not because they were “chasing the algorithm” but instead because they were following Google’s own rules and instructions. They were doing what was advised, and now they may have to undo that work.

That’s the unprecedented part. Google has constantly upgraded how it deals with site content, from early advances like indexing PDF documents to later changes like showing “sitelinks” for web sites. These upgrades have been generally good and involved little to no work on the part of the site owner, until now.

PageRank Sculpting: Spending A Page’s Authority Money

Let’s take PageRank sculpting. In general, every individual web page that Google finds has some degree of importance that the page can pass on to other pages — PageRank. Links from that page to other pages are how it passes that importance along. And in its most basic, earliest form, each link on the page equally shared some of the importance.

Consider it like this. Imagine authority is money, and a particular page has $10 in “authority” to spend. It links out to 10 pages, so each of those pages gets $1 ($10 divided by 10). If it links to 20 pages, each gets 50 cents ($10 divided by 20). If it links to 5 pages, each page gets $2 (you get the math by now).

With PageRank sculpting, the idea is to effectively block some of the links on your web page (using the nofollow attribute or some other means) from getting any authority. Perhaps you have a lot of navigational links to other pages inside your web site. Rather than spend authority money on these pages, you might prefer to spend it on a smaller number of important pages that could use a boost.

PageRank Sculpting Gets Popular

This technique has been around for ages and had various names until the middle of 2007. That’s when it went more mainstream in the advanced SEO space. And in particular, it went that way I feel because Google spam fighting czar Matt Cutts talked about how Google’s YouTube was using PageRank sculpting during an open discussion at Google with a variety of advanced SEO people about techniques and issues.

I recall it being described as a means to ensure your best pages got the most PageRank. I also recall being kind of annoyed about it (and think I said so during the meeting). For years, we’d been told that site owners shouldn’t have to do extraordinary things to help search engines. Good page titles, good ability to be crawled, sure. But having to think about things on a link-by-link basis? That’s something I assumed Google was already up to snuff about. My assumption had been that Google long decided to discount how much credit it assigned to things like navigational links, when it could see the same links appearing on multiple pages within the same web site.

Now to be clear, it’s not like Matt told everyone in the room to immediately do PageRank sculpting. Many topics were discussed, and this was just one of many things covered. But it was advice that came from Google — and it turned into a genie that wouldn’t go into the bottle.

Soon after, Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz did an article about the topic, and more soon followed on the web. It was a topic at conferences. It was a hot new fashion in SEO. And while plenty in the SEO space will chase after the latest (and often useless) algorithm fad — this was a chase sparked by Google itself. Why wouldn’t advanced people do it?

PageRank Sculpting Gets Debated

Not everyone agreed it was helpful. There’s been quite a bit of debate on whether it gives boost or not. Some have argued against using it at all. And the search engines, when asked about it since it gained popularity, have generally said that there are other things that are better worth the effort. But neither had they ruled it out. As I summarized last year:

I agree with the view that sculpting is a marginal activity compared to other things that can be done. But if you’re an advanced SEO — even someone advanced in terms of working with design issues — maybe it’s not so marginal. The search engines themselves are saying it has some value. They’ve not said it’s a flat out waste of time. And if you’ve mastered all the other things that are much more important, then yes, something like this may very well be worth giving more attention to.

Or as Michael Gray explained, if you’re driving a beat-up old car of a web site, putting a PageRank sculpting “engine” in it probably isn’t worthwhile. But if you’ve got a hot new sports car, well….

PageRank Sculpting Gets Depreciated

So today at SMX Advanced, sculpting was being discussed, and then Matt Cutts dropped a bomb shell that it no longer works to help flow more PageRank to the unblocked pages. Again — and being really simplistic here — if you have $10 in authority to spend on those ten links, and you block 5 of them, the other 5 aren’t going to get $2 each. They’re still getting $1. It’s just that the other $5 you thought you were saving is now going to waste.

Further, it was explained that YouTube wasn’t doing sculpting way back in 2007 as a way to boost certain video content. Instead, it was that YouTube randomly shows some video content and didn’t want these random selections to perhaps gain more authority than they should. And even with the change announced today, that still works. In the past, the unblocked videos got more authority money and the blocked ones got none. Now, the unblocked videos still get authority money — just not as much — and the blocked ones still get none.

But while that may be how it works on YouTube, I still recall PageRank sculpting being positioned by Google as a way to also give some pages more link juice. To quote Matt when asked about this in an official Google thread:

What are some appropriate ways to use the nofollow tag? One good example is the home page of expedia.com. If you visit that page, you’ll see that the “Sign in” link is nofollow’ed. That’s a great use of the tag: Googlebot isn’t going to know how to sign into expedia.com, so why waste that PageRank on a page that wouldn’t benefit users or convert any new visitors? Likewise, the “My itineraries” link on expedia.com is nofollow’ed as well. That’s another page that wouldn’t really convert well or have any use except for signed in users, so the nofollow on Expedia’s home page means that Google won’t crawl those specific links.

Most webmasters don’t need to worry about sculpting the flow of PageRank on their site, but if you want to try advanced things with nofollow to send less PageRank to copyright pages, terms of service, privacy pages, etc., that’s your call.

I’ve bolded the key part. Matt stresses — as he’s consistently done since talking about this at the SEO meeting — that this is something most people didn’t need to worry about or do. But saying “why waste that PageRank” means that at the time of giving this advice, PageRank was something that could be “saved” and “spent” on other pages.

You can expect Matt will do a blog post to cover this topic more. You can expect lots of people to be analyzing the change, and what it might or might not mean. And you should really understand that it was never the case that links shared equally in the amount of authority money a page had. In talking with Matt during the “You & A Session” at SMX Advanced, he confirmed that Google itself makes many determinations of how exactly a page can spend that authority money. IE — while a page might have $10 to spend, Google itself largely acts as the page’s investment banker, not the page’s author.

I wouldn’t panic and immediately start removing nofollow attributes that have been done for PageRank sculpting purposes. In general, I’d never recommend changing anything to a site that seems to be performing well. Take the time to let more discussion and information come from Google and other sources.

JavaScript onClick & Paid Link Worries

Those who PageRank sculpted following Google’s advice may have spent time doing something that no longer will work, or work as effectively, but they’ve not necessarily wasted time. Maybe it was helping them some in the past (plenty believe this). And they might not have to spend time removing it, any more than there are plenty of sites that still have meta keywords tags in place even though widespread search engine support of this was dropped long ago. That’s good depreciation, or effectively backwards compatibility. No one needs to change anything because the sites still keep “working” despite the past support being gone.

It’s a different case with Google’s new handling of JavaScript’s “onClick” function. To fully understand it, read Vanessa Fox’s in-depth report from last week, Google I/O: New Advances In The Searchability of JavaScript and Flash, But Is It Enough?, which broke the news here.

Links in JavaScript that were invisible to Google before are now being read. And some people have used JavaScript as a way to deliver paid links in a way that don’t violate Google’s guidelines may not technically on the wrong side of the Google law. It’s been a long accepted practice that this was a “safe” way to deal with paid links, once that Google’s suggested itself.

It’s as if Google has suddenly passed a new safety helmet law for web sites, mandating that the old helmets they’d been using are no longer good enough. Now they need to do something different.

What about nofollow? After all, Google’s been pushing nofollow as something sites should do as a safety device for paid links long after paid links themselves had been in existence.

True, and there are plenty of sites out there that have never caught up with this new Google guideline (and still sucky for those who really still innocently don’t know better). But that’s different than sites that thought they were doing the right thing and now which have to change again.

For the record, Matt said today that there’s no immediate penalties likely to be given out. Honestly, I think the spam team is still having to digest how to handle this change that’s been brought about by Google’s crawling team. And he also said that the nofollow attribute can be applied to JavaScript links that are not otherwise being redirected through a robots.txt block.

As I said in the case of PageRank sculpting, I wouldn’t immediately panic. But unlike with PageRank sculpting, if you’re selling paid links and thought JavaScript was protecting you, I would fairly quickly ensure that redirects are blocked by using nofollow within the JavaScript itself or by going through a robots.txt block.

(For an example of this, our paid links get delivered through JavaScript generated by Google Ad Manager. The links all get redirected through this domain — http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net — and you can see from the robots.txt file there that search engines aren’t allowed to crawl it. So, the links pass no authority on to other pages)

Backwards Compatibility Is Important

Overall, I want Google to keep advancing. But it needs to ensure that the changes don’t dramatically cause more work for site owners, as a result. We need a period of backwards compatibility in terms of Google indexing, just as much as it’s helpful with computer operating systems.

For more about the discussions today out of SMX Advanced, also see these selected stories from the live blogging round-up:

• Duplicate Content Solutions & The Canonical Tag – SMX Advanced Coverage 2009, SEO Gadget
• Duplicate Content Solutions & The Canonical Tag, outspokenmedia.com
• Beyond the Usual Link Building, outspokenmedia.com
• Beyond the usual linkbuilding – SMX Advanced 2009, SEO Gadget
• Live from SMX Advanced: Beyond the Usual Link Building, Search Marketing Sage
• Nofollow Makes News at SMX Advanced, BruceClay.com
• You&A With Matt Cutts, outspokenmedia.com

“Get more links” is not an effective goal, even if it’s the directive you’ve received from clients or management.

This article proposes ten different link building goals along with prospecting suggestions. Further, you’ll find suggestions for using the Link Qualification Work Sheet we created for the Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value & Potentiality to reach your goals as quickly as possible.

The goals:

1. Broaden/deepen relevant keyword portfolio
2. Increase targeted referral traffic
3. Steady high-flux rankings
4. Increase market awareness
5. Move from 2nd to 1st page for proven keywords
6. Own your brand name & top keyword searches
7. Naturalize your link profile
8. Get new pages/sites indexed
9. Show results quickly: build link count by X
10. Improve geo-specific rankings

Before digging into the link building goals, here are a couple of quick refreshers. Recommended link building tools and related resources follow the article.

A Refresher on “RVP” metrics for link building. The core measurements we use for analyzing link prospects are Relevance, Value and Potentiality (RVP). Relevance (R) is the measurement of a page’s relevance to your keywords, Value (V) is an approximation of the amount of link juice a page is capable of directing to yours and Potential (P) is the likelihood that a particular link prospect will actually “convert” into a link to your site.

Sorting is done in a descending order. Sorting by PRV, for example, sorts by Potentiality, then by Relevance, then by Value, all descending.

Manipulating RVP data in the link qualification work sheet. A quick review of how to sort your link prospects, for users of the Link Qualification Worksheet:

1. Highlight the rows that you wish to sort
2. From the File menu, click “Data”
3. Then choose the “Sort” option
4. Toggle, in order, which measurement is primary, secondary and tertiary
5. Click “descending order” for each

In the current version of our work sheet, Relevance corresponds to Column C, Value corresponds to Column D and Potentiality corresponds to Column E. We suggest a number of sorts for each of the goals below. Remember that in every case these sorts are in descending order.

1) Broaden/deepen relevant keyword portfolio

You’ve achieved rankings for a core set of relevant keywords—congratulations! Now it’s time to broaden and deepen your organic keyword portfolio.

Objectives:

• Diversify your targeted search audience
• Increase long tail organic search engine rankings
• Increase revenue/conversions from highly-targeted search engine rankings

Tactics:

• Build deep links to existing pages using longer tail anchor text
• Create new content pages targeting long tail keywords

Link Prospect Sources:

• Backlinks to pages that rank well for your new target phrases
• Relevant, ranking content pages
• Conversation threads on relevant social media

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RPV and VRP. Sorting your link prospects by RPV lifts prospects that will demonstrate relevance to search engines and have a higher likelihood of converting to links—for longer tail keywords value is not always as important. Sorting by VRP shows you the prospects that will deliver the most “link juice” and relevance for your new targeted phrases. They may take longer to acquire but will cement your new rankings.

2) Increase targeted referral traffic

Sometimes link building is about generating targeted traffic from the linking site rather than search engine rankings.

Objectives:

• Grow sales, leads and brand awareness
• Join influentials in conversation within social media comment threads

Tactics:

• Conduct ongoing content distribution to key media (guest blog posts, etc)
• Engage in ongoing conversation contributions in key media comment threads
• Develop expertise-based relationship with relevant, influential media

Link Prospect Sources:

• Media/resource sites that rank for your keywords
• Relevant conversation threads on influential social media

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RVP, VRP and PRV. Sorting by RVP will reveal the articles and blog posts where the most relevant conversations are happening. Sorting by VRP shows you the pages and sites that search engines have decided are the most important within your keyword space. Sorting by PRV shows you the relevant comment threads for joining or starting conversations.

3) Steady high-flux rankings

Due to the eternal quest for relevance conducted by search engines, we will always see fluctuations in search rankings. Pursuing the right links can help to reduce the yo-yo effect.

Objectives:

• Steady fluctuating rankings

Tactics:

• One-off link bait and distribution
• One-off content created for distribution
• Niche directory and resource/links page requests

Link Prospect Sources:

• Backlinks to pages that rank well for your target phrases
• Relevant, ranking content pages
• Relevant links/resource pages
• Article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by VRP and RPV. Sorting by VRP shows you the pages that will confer more link juice to your page, helping search engines interpret your trustworthiness. Sorting by RPV helps you to find highest relevance pages most likely to provide links—high relevance to your target keywords again helps search engines trust that your pages are indeed about what you say they are.

4) Increase market awareness

Sometimes link building is about PR more than search rankings. Sometimes you just need to get the word out and show people where they can learn more about you.

Objectives:

• Product/service launch
• Distribute company news

Tactics:

• One-off link bait + distribution
• Content distribution to influential media—guest posts/guest submissions
• Conversation participation in influential media

Link prospect sources:

• Conversation threads within relevant social media
• Influential media/resource sites

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by PVR and RVP. Sorting by PVR shows you the prospects with the highest linking potential, followed by the most link juice value (which can in some cases be assumed to confer overall market influence value). Sorting by RVP will show you the sites and pages most likely to have an audience that’s interested in your message or news.

5) Move from 2nd to 1st page for proven keywords

Your second page rankings can provide quick boosts in relevant, valuable traffic. If you rank on the second page for a term that provides even a trickle of traffic, sales or conversions, jump on this opportunity with both feet.

Objectives

• Get more traffic from high value keyword hovering on page 2

Tactics:

• Niche directory + resource/links page requests
• One-off content created for distribution
• Comment contributions on keyword relevant media pages

Link prospect sources:

• Backlinks to pages that rank well for your target phrases
• Relevant, ranking content pages
• Relevant links/resource pages
• Article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by VRP and RVP. Sorting by VRP shows you the pages that will confer the most link juice, which is useful in getting pages up and over that second page hump. Sorting by RVP helps you to find highest relevance pages most likely to provide links—high relevance to your target keywords helps search engines trust that your pages are indeed about what you say they are.

6) Own your brand name & top keyword searches

Sometimes you have to duke it out for competitive and highly-valuable organic rankings. Though it can be costly to get there—and stay there—high rankings for some terms can be necessities in some industries.

Objectives:

• Rank for competitive phrases that result in high returns

Tactics:

• Ongoing link bait + distribution that targets home page
• Ongoing content distribution to key media – guest posts/guest submissions
• Ongoing conversation participation in key media
• Niche directory + resource/links page requests

Link prospect sources:

• Backlinks to pages that rank well for your target phrases
• Relevant, ranking content pages
• Relevant links/resource pages
• Conversation threads on relevant social media

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by VRP and RVP. Sorting by VRP shows you the prospects that will increase your target page’s perceived value to the search engines—the more you can get the better for highly competitive spaces. Building links from prospects that appear in the top for RVP sorts will help demonstrate your page’s relevance to those phrases.

7) Naturalize your link profile

Some people buy links. Some people bulk up on links from certain types of content management platforms known for their dofollows. There are many paths to unnatural link profiles…

Objectives:

• Ward off potential link buy penalties
• Diversify profile to attain longer term rankings

Tactics:

• Moderate your link velocity from month to month
• Adjust your home page vs. deep link ratio
• Vary your anchor text

Link prospect sources:

• Varies based on your current profile

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RVP, VRP and PRV.

8) Get new pages/sites indexed

Links can help to get new pages—and new sites—indexed.

Objectives:

• Get new pages indexed

Tactics:

• Conversation participation in targeted dofollow media
• One-off content created for directory distribution

Link prospect sources:

• Search for relevant conversation threads on relevant social media
• Search for relevant article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by PRV. Sorting by PRV in your worksheet reveals the prospects with a high potentiality for converting into links – just what you need to urge those spiders over to your site.

9) Show results quickly: Build link count by X

Sometimes, certain conditions necessitate the rapid accumulation of inbound links.

Objectives:

• Stall clients/managers who expect unreasonably quick demonstration of “link building” while your other efforts come to fruition

Tactics:

• Conversation participation in targeted media
• Directory/niche directory submissions
• One-off content created for directory distribution

Link prospect sources:

• Conversation threads on relevant social media
• Article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by PRV. Sorting by PRV in your worksheet shows you the prospects that have demonstrated a high potentiality for converting into links – in certain circumstances these are the only prospects that matter.

10) Improve geo-specific rankings

Even though you may rank for your target keywords in New York, you may not rank at all in Los Angeles. One way to improve your geo-specific rankings is to build links from sites associated with the region you’re targeting.

Objectives:

• Improve regional rankings for valuable keywords
• Ranking well in one region indicates opportunity to rank well in others

Tactics:

• Regional link bait
• Regional blog/news site comment participation

Link prospect sources:

• Find local blogs, then search [site: + keywords] to find most relevant pages
• Find local news sites that allow comments then search [site: + keywords]
• Create relevant, strategic content that appeals to local sites
• Local directories/review sites

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RVP, VRP and PRV. Go for the faster opportunities revealed by a PRV sort. Acquire these links and wait to see if they have enough impact. If not, go for the RVP links next and then the VRP prospects.

Recommended link research tools

• SEO Toolbar
• SEO for Firefox
• Link Suggest Tool
• Link Acquisition Assistant
• The Link Qualification Worksheet

Related link building resources

• A Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value & Potentiality
• Why Just Build a Link When You Can Build Deep Links?
• Building A Natural Link Profile
• Different Links Have Different Goals
• If You Don’t Rank, Did You Fail?
• Link Baiting: Which Hook Attracts the Right Fish?
• 7 URL Selection Tips for Link Builders: How to Choose Which Pages to Build Links Into
• Second Page Keyword Targeting
• Tracking Referrals from Second Page of Google in Google Analytics
• 17 Ways to Accelerate Links to Your Link Bait (and Other Highly Linkable Content)

The core problem of link building—assuming you’ve maximized your site’s linkability—is not prospecting for sites that may potentially link to yours. The problem lies in rapidly identifying the link prospects whose links will provide the fastest and largest impact on your search marketing goals.

With tools like the SEO Toolbar and SEO for Firefox, every URL from every domain that ranks for your keywords reveals a wealth of inbound linking pages, each of which is a link prospect. Add in opportunities from the link suggest tool, and several .edu site searches and a determined link builder could find thousands, if not tens of thousands of link prospects in less than a day.

Based on our experience in automating link research and link prospect qualification for millions of URLs, we wrote this article—and created a free, downloadable worksheet—to enable motivated link builders to quickly identify the most relevant, valuable and likely-to-link prospects from thousands of potential link opportunities.

The core metrics for link prospect evaluation

When building links to influence search rankings we look at three key metrics for evaluating link prospects: relevance, value and acquisition potentiality.

To illustrate the link prospect metrics of relevance, value and potential we created the following Venn diagram:

Let’s walk through the metrics, how they’re derived and discuss their importance to your link building process.

Measuring link prospect relevance

Relevance in link building is the measurement of a page’s relevance to your keyword(s). Relevance should measure whether the keywords are present or not as well as where they appear on the page or in the tags, as these factors will have shadings of influence on the search-rank impact of a link prospect.

Here are some factors to measure that will indicate a link prospect’s relevance to your target keywords:

• Keywords in the Title tag
• Keywords in the body of the text
• Keywords in H1 tags

As you visit each link prospect, put a “1” in the appropriate column for that page’s relevance to your keywords.

Measuring link prospect value

The value of a link prospect—for the purpose of influencing search rank—lies in the amount of link juice the page is capable of directing to yours. For these purposes, no-followed links have little impact. As a primary measure of value we recommend looking at the PageRank for the hostname as well as PageRank of the specific page. Many hold that the PageRank that Google displays is not an accurate measurement. While this is true, PageRank represents the only page value measurement currently available from a search engine. Further, PageRank makes identifying penalized sites easy. We propose that by combining the measurement of a link prospect’s relevance with its value, one can make faster decisions regarding acquisition priority.

Here are some factors to measure that indicate a link prospect’s value:

• PageRank of hostname
• PageRank of page
• Outbound links followed/no-followed

As you visit each link prospect, put a “1” in the appropriate column for that page’s value to your search marketing goals.

Note: If your link building goals include increasing community involvement and referral traffic from relevant sites then no-followed links should be considered. Read this for more information about measuring the value of no-followed links.

Measuring link prospect acquisition potentiality

Acquisition potentiality is the likelihood that a particular link prospect will actually “convert” into a link for your site. We look at link potentiality based on your ability to add a link to a page yourself and secondarily your ability to impact or influence the page’s creator to add a link.

Here are some factors that indicate a link prospect’s acquisition potentiality:

• Is it a competitor?
• Ability to submit, add or comment
• Relationship with someone at that domain
• Publication date
• Can you make a valuable addition or correction to the page?

As you visit each link prospect, put a “1” in the appropriate column for that page’s acquisition potentiality. Note: link buyers may not have as much of a need for this metric. Keep the column in the worksheet, though—it could represent likelihood of accepting a reasonable offer.

Using the Link Building Worksheet

We created a spreadsheet – freely available for download – to accompany this article and assist motivated link builders seeking to grow their current capacity for rapidly and effectively qualifying their link opportunities. Not only does this worksheet streamline work flow and keep your team more organized, it comes pre-programmed with equations derived from the ones we use in our automated link prospecting and qualification process.

Download the Link Building Worksheet.

All you or your team has to do is evaluate 9 elements of each link prospect URL and mark a “1” in the appropriate column of the spreadsheet if that element is present. The spreadsheet does the rest for you.

Remember – the link building worksheet works best with large numbers of link prospects. The more you can evaluate the better. We prefer working at a scale of hundreds of thousands of prospects. If you’re working by hand, try and get up into the high hundreds, if not thousands.

In future articles we’ll cover methods of slicing the link prospect data you add to your worksheet as well as advanced link research methods that will ensure that you find only the best opportunities for your link building campaigns.

More link qualification resources

Link prospecting by-hand would be significantly more tedious and difficult without the tools created by Aaron Wall of SEOBook. We highly recommend the SEO Toolbar and SEO for Firefox.

Our Link Building Guide has a section called Link Opportunity Qualifiers Within Large Scale Link Prospect Data Sets that will give you more ideas for add-ons or modifications to your spreadsheet.