Jan 15, 2013 at 9:20am ET by Barry Schwartz

A few weeks ago, Google's Matt Cutts posted in the Google forums that links from within press releases do not "benefit your rankings." I covered this tidbit of news at the Search Engine Roundtable and it got a lot of feedback from the community. Today, the SEO Consult blog posted a test showing how links from within press releases can indeed have a ranking benefit in Google. This was tested, ironically, on Matt Cutts blog, where SEO Consult issued a press release on PR.com with the anchor text "sreppleasers" pointing to Matt's blog. The press release was indexed by Google and shortly lat [...]

3 Areas That Get Overlooked When Building Links In A Bubble

Jan 8, 2013 at 3:30pm ET by Julie Joyce

One of the most frustrating things about doing a link campaign is that usually, we're doing it because no one else wants to, or no one else has the time to. Link building is one of the most outsourced parts of SEM and much of the time, we're one of a handful of agencies working on the overall online marketing strategy for a client. Many times, we're also one of a handful of link companies working on the same campaign. Are any of us communicating regularly and sharing information? No, we aren't, and that needs to change. Part of this responsibility lies with the client, to provide us with [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

Will 2013 Bring A Paid Link Resurgence?

Dec 11, 2012 at 12:56pm ET by Julie Joyce

With Google rolling out frequent changes, the last couple of years have been alternately amazingly fun and freakishly terrifying for anyone who builds links or has links built. It should be clear by now that your site can be harmed by poor quality links, whether you bought them or got them for free, or heck, didn't even intentionally get them. I previously stated (in several places) that I thought negative SEO was more of a scare tactic than a reality but I've since changed my mind after witnessing it firsthand a few times. As much as some people like to think that links aren't as import [...]

How To Build The Best Relationships, Err…I Mean Links

Nov 27, 2012 at 12:14pm ET by Erin Everhart

What is it about SEO that makes people stop acting like people? Sure, it has your fair share of data mining in dark corners, but the SEO industry is brimming with personality, sometimes too much of it. So why is it that when it comes to link building, that personality is left to the wayside? The best links come from the best relationships, and the best relationships take the most effort to create, foster and maintain. The Future of Online Marketing - Newport August 2112 from Eric Enge If you want to get success and sustain it, stop thinking about building links and start thinking ab [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building: General | Link Week

A Trick To See Your Competitors Links Within Google Webmaster Tools?

Nov 14, 2012 at 9:37am ET by Barry Schwartz

Dan Petrovic documented a competitive link hack that can easily been done within Google Webmaster Tools to find all the links pointing to any page on the internet. It is a competitive link hack that seems to work just fine for anyone. The hack takes advantage of the intermediate link feature within webmaster tools. Without getting too technical, you are tricking Google into thinking your page is a duplicate of a competitors page. Then Google is taking the duplicate version and merging it (on some level) with the competitors page. Since they are merged, Google will show you the links pointin [...]

Link Building Scam Alert: When Links Are Held Hostage

Nov 13, 2012 at 10:30am ET by Eric Ward

On November 1st I reached the 19 year mark as a content publicist/link builder. Nineteen years. I won't bore you with how we went after links back then by rubbing two sticks together and sending up smoke signals. Smoke signal spam was not a big problem yet. I poke fun at myself but at the same time there are a few things that longevity is quite good for. First, I have seen just about every linking scheme ever created, whether by clients eager to get my opinion of them, by seeing them in a backlink analyses, or by being the recipient of a spam email trying to sell them to me. Other advant [...]

Link Building Tool Review: Ahrefs

Nov 6, 2012 at 11:35am ET by Julie Joyce

Ahrefs is a suite of tools that contains "the largest index of live links." There is a free version and a premium version, an API, and an affiliate program. They have their own index, putting them into the same arena as SEO Moz and Majestic, and they post some useful stuff on their internal blog digest. Pricing starts at $79 a month and goes as high as $499 a month for more advanced plans. All plans offer a nice discount if you pay for a year upfront. Now that the basics are out of the way I have to say that I absolutely love the Ahrefs tool. It's fast and the graphical representations a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

6 Things To Think About Before Disavowing Links

Oct 30, 2012 at 1:23pm ET by Erin Everhart

Earlier this month, Christmas came early for many in the SEO industry. Google launched its wildly anticipated disavow links tool bringing with it a way for you to remove some of those shady things you your former SEO company have done. The biggest problem with disavowing your links is that at first glance, it looks like the easy way out. Instead of taking the effort to remove your unnatural inbound links by hand, there will be people who assume this tool will do it for them. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Matt Cutts warned about using the disavow links tool with caution, and if [...]

Q&A With Google’s Matt Cutts On How To Use The Link Disavow Tool

Oct 29, 2012 at 9:15am ET by Danny Sullivan

It's been almost two weeks since Google launched its link disavowal tool. Some have been busy diving in and using it, but others have had more detailed questions about it. We've got some answers, from the head of Google's web spam team, Matt Cutts. Question: How do people know what links they should remove? Answer: When we're taking targeted action on some specific links, the emails that go out now include examples of bad links. We provide example links to guide sites that want to clean up the bad links. At the same time, we don't want to help bad actors learn how to spam better, wh [...]

Link Building Tool Review: Serpi.co

Oct 16, 2012 at 10:21am ET by Julie Joyce

There's a new player on the links tool market - Serpi.co. Using Majestic SEO's data, they allow you to view link data of up to ten competitors at once, let you track keyword rankings over time, set up automatic alerts, and provide you with historic data that goes back to 2007. They also offer a link building submission service which is not a part of this review. They offer a guided setup and have several tutorials on how to best use the system, and they have a blog. Pricing Serpi.co has a few levels for pricing (and they offer a free 30 day trial) ranging from a basic $99/month plan (tha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

How To Conduct A Link Audit

Sep 19, 2012 at 11:34am ET by Julie Joyce

In the comments section of my last column, someone asked me about link audits, and after looking around to see if I could find a good resource to point her to, I didn't find anything that was exactly what I was looking for. I found loads of great pieces on SEO audits but not that much specific to links. (Maybe that particular SERP was affected by the latest Google update.) One reason that I've not written much about link audits is that it's a process that's very fluid for me. I love trying out new tools and there are always algorithm updates that favor something more than something else. [...]

Must-Have Browser Tools For Link Builders

Sep 11, 2012 at 4:24pm ET by Eric Ward

Of all the tasks associated with content advocacy (I have never actually liked the term link building, and my business card has never included those words, plus doesn't 'content advocacy' just sound better than link building?), there are a few tasks that are a genuine PITA. There have been many tools created to help manage the processes of link building content advocacy. Most of the tools are designed to help analyze backlinks, help pre-define link prospecting query strings, provide some sort of page scoring, or identify a contact address. Some tools are costly, some are free. There have [...]

How To Remove Your Unnatural Inbound Links

Sep 4, 2012 at 10:13am ET by Erin Everhart

Recently, Google went a little crazy — it’s cool; they came back — which subsequently caused anyone who owns a website to go a little nuts, too. Google has sent out oodles of the above messages over the past couple of months, and it has caused a lot of people to question if and how they should remove links in the first place. I’m a strong believer in focusing on building good links rather than dwelling on the past, but sometimes, the past is so egregious that trying to remove your bad links is the only course of action. Here’s how to do it. Start By Getting Your Data First, p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

50+ Things Every Link Builder Needs To Know

Aug 21, 2012 at 5:15pm ET by Julie Joyce

Like it or not, link building has been and still is big, big business. Doing it well takes a lot of time and resources, which means that many webmasters/site owners can't or don't want to do it themselves. Many agencies that handle other aspects of search engine marketing want to outsource it simply because of the massive resource drain. That's great news for people like me who specialize in link building but the intense supply and demand nature of links coupled with the ease of promoting yourself through social media have led to a frightening increase in people who build bad links and real [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

Google Explains New Link Warnings, Says Don’t Panic But Don’t Ignore

Jul 30, 2012 at 11:44am ET by Danny Sullivan

Confused by the latest link warnings that Google has been sending out? As we covered before, it's all been pretty confusing. That's why Google has posted more information meant to calm some worries, though it's still likely that even after this, some are going to panic. The "Old" Link Warnings: Entire Site Impacted Google's post starts with some history, explaining just as we've done how earlier this year, it began sending out link warnings: Let's talk about the original link messages that we've been sending out for months. When we see unnatural links pointing to a site, there are d [...]

Time & Value Of Link Cleanups: Should You Even Bother?

Jul 24, 2012 at 9:15am ET by Julie Joyce

Link cleanups are all the rage right now, rightly so if you can judge by the number of webmasters who received Google warnings or had their sites tank. Strategies for effective cleanup have been outlined, tools to help you find contacts for cleanup have been unveiled, but there isn't much information out there about the bottom line: are link cleanups worth the time and effort? Who Should Cleanup? Now a caveat…if you've received a warning from Google, I don't think that you have a choice here. You need to clean up your links. If you haven't received a warning, let's put you into two cam [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

Cutts: Infographic Links Might Get Discounted In The Future

Jul 9, 2012 at 5:02pm ET by Barry Schwartz

In an in-depth interview between Eric Enge and Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts - Cutts said that Google may discount the value of links generated by infographics. Matt Cutts told Eric: This is similar to what people do with widgets as you and I have talked about in the past. I would not be surprised if at some point in the future we did not start to discount these infographic-type links to a degree. The link is often embedded in the infographic in a way that people don’t realize, vs. a true endorsement of your site. Why? Aren't infographics great linkable content? They are [...]

Matt Cutts: Don’t Write The Epitaph For Links Yet [SMX Advanced 2012 Video]

Jul 5, 2012 at 2:38pm ET by Matt McGee

Will social signals replace links as a primary SEO signal affecting Google's rankings? Have social signals already replaced links in that way? That topic came up last month during the keynote conversation with Google's Matt Cutts at our SMX Advanced conference in Seattle. Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land's Editor-In-Chief, asked a series of link-related questions that led the conversation through topics like no-followed links, affiliate links, paid links and more. For a few years now, some SEO insiders have suggested that social signals are replacing links as a quality signal for Goo [...]

SMX Advanced Video: Google’s Matt Cutts On A Disavow-This-Link Tool

Jun 29, 2012 at 2:40pm ET by Matt McGee

All the talk today about Bing's launch of a disavow this link tool is a good reminder that we should go back into our video archives and post the comments that Google's Matt Cutts made about a tool like that during our SMX Advanced event earlier this month. Cutts was speaking with Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan during their annual keynote conversation when the subject turned to "negative SEO" and the possibility that some recent Google updates had made it easier for one website to purposely hurt another site with low-quality links. Here's some of that discussion: You can go back [...]

Not All Bad Links Hurt You, Google Ignores Links Also

Jun 29, 2012 at 1:34pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google doesn't always penalize you for bad links, they sometimes and very often, will ignore links completely that they find to be against their guidelines. Back in 2007, Google started penalizing sites for selling paid links and over the years they have penalized many sites for buying links. Recently, Google has stepped up their notifications of unnatural link warnings and with the Penguin update many webmasters have been obsessed with cleaning up their external link profiles. Ignoring Links But you need to know, not all links that may look bad or even be really bad actually harm your si [...]

Get Our News, Everywhere!

Follow @sengineland

Got a tip? Tell us here!

Most Likes
Most Tweets
Comments

Our Stories Being Liked on Facebook

Search Engine Land Sponsors

Advertise With Us

Free Daily Search News Recap!

SearchCap is a once-per-day newsletter update - sign up below and get the news delivered to you!

Click to watch SMX conference video

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

North America

SMX Advanced - June 11-12, 2013
SMX East - Oct. 1-3, 2013
SMX Social Media Marketing - Nov. 20-21, 2013
SMX West - March 11-13, 2014

EMEA

SMX Paris - June 6-7, 2013
SMX Stockholm - Oct. 14-15, 2013
SMX Milan - Nov. 7-8, 2013
SMX Israel - Jan. 2014
SMX Munich - March 25-26, 2014
SMX London - May 2014

APAC

SMX Sydney - April 2014

Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.