Bing Details Four Ways Not To Build Links

Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, wrote a blog post on the Bing Webmaster Blog, detailing four ways you do not want to build links to your site.

The four ways not to build links by Bing include:

(1) Blind Requests: Don’t simply mass or template email web sites blindly for links. Don’t buy email lists and send out a mass email asking these webmasters and web sites to link to you.

(2) Blog/Forum Comments: Don’t drop links in blog comments or forum threads, said Bing. Duane said it simply will not help you rank better in the search results.

(3) Link Injection: This is a spam tactic of hacking into a site and injecting links into the content. It can be link injection into the header or footer or even directly into the body content. That being said, Bing is suggesting you make sure your CMS software is up to date and secure.

(4) Guest Blogging: Bing is not saying that guest blogging is bad, they are saying that if your intent is to do it for the links, then don’t. Duane said, “if you’re going to guest blog, best to do it with the intention to build your brand, drive traffic and create awareness. Doing it to bolster your SEO efforts is a #FAIL these days.”

Of course, Google said the same regarding guest blog linking.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.