Stop The Freak Out Over Linking

On Friday, Google Webmaster Central had a post about linking that I’m
watching generate all types of new worries of what’s allowed or not allowed.
I’ll do the freak out, then a summary of it, then try to push the reset button
by revisiting my golden rules on linking.

Let’s look at key parts of the

Google post. From the top:

One of the issues that came up in sessions and in conversations was a
certain confusion about how to most effectively increase the link-based
popularity of a website. As a result we thought it might be helpful to clarify
how search engines treat link spamming to increase a site’s popularity.

This confusion lies in the common belief that there are two ways for
optimizing the link-based popularity of your website: Either the meritocratic
and long-term option of developing natural links or the risky and short-term
option of non-earned backlinks via link spamming tactics such as buying links.

Non-earned links? What’s a non-earned link that might get you into trouble?
Buying links is named, but perhaps there are other non-earned worries. Hold onto
that thought. Let’s go to another chunk:

So nowadays, undermining the PageRank algorithm is likely to result in the
loss of the ability of link-selling sites to pass on reputation via links to
other sites.

So if you sell links — and Google figures this out — they might take away
your ability to pass along link love to other sites. That’s nothing new, and the
vast majority of sites don’t sell links. So we have both a restatement of known
facts and an issue that doesn’t concern most people. Move along!

Next important chunk:

Discounting non-earned links by search engines opened a new and wide field
of tactics to build link-based popularity: Classically this involves
optimizing your content so that thematically-related or trusted websites link
to you by choice.

OK, in other words, have good content. Good content attracts good links. This
has been said for years. Like over a decade. Move along.

Next chunk:

A more recent method is

link baiting, which typically takes advantage of Web 2.0 social content
websites. One example of this new way of generating links is to submit a
handcrafted article to a service such as
https://digg.com. Another example is to earn a reputation in a certain
field by building an authority through services such as
https://answers.yahoo.com.

So link baiting, as I read it, is given the all clear. Some people have
worried that getting links through buzz efforts like link baiting would be bad.
Nope — because the post implies that you aren’t going to get those links unless
you’ve earned them (setting aside the recent discussions that some of the top
sites get on Digg through behind the scenes deals with top submitters, of
course).

Next, probably the most important thing:

Our general advice is: Always focus on the users and not on search engines
when developing your optimization strategy. Ask yourself what creates value
for your users. Investing in the quality of your content and thereby earning
natural backlinks benefits both the users and drives more qualified traffic to
your site.

And finally, the bombshell…

To sum up, even though improved algorithms have promoted a transition away
from paid or exchanged links towards earned organic links, there still
seems to be some confusion within the market about what the most effective
link strategy is. So when taking advice from your SEO consultant, keep in mind
that nowadays search engines reward sweat-of-the-brow work on content that
bait natural links given by choice.

I bolded the bad part — exchanged links. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Are exchanged links reciprocal links, IE links between two web sites? Or just
between two specific pages? Or are they links only exchanged because two people
agree to do so solely for search engine purposes? Or if I link to someone’s
post, and they link back to me referencing something I’ve said about it, is that
an exchange?

Damn, I wish the post had never used those words. It’s right back to the
morass of worries that only finds its match with those who wonder how many times
you can say a term within the meta keywords tag (and should I use commas? should
I put spaces after each comma? should I….).

You can see the worries spark off in a WebmasterWorld
thread:

It’s been a matter of debate whether or not Google discounted reciprocal
links. Today it is safe to say that Google is not fond of reciprocal link
exchange schemes. It doesn’t get more explicit than this.

Reciprocal link schemes, of course, are not the same as exchanged links. The
post didn’t talks reciprocal links. The post pretty much ill-defined what’s a
good or bad exchanged link at all. That’s one reason why I ignored the post
initially. The lack of precise definitions meant it was just going to spark more
confusions.

Google Discusses
Link Building Strategies from Search Engine Roundtable covers the thread
more and how Google had to come in to do damage control, with Adam Lasnik
saying:

If it’s good for your users, link to it; if, by chance, the link is not
given the *full* weight of a "vote," by Google or MSN or Yahoo or Ask or
whatever… that shouldn’t be a huge deal. These things tend to work
themselves out in the aggregate….

Link bait is quite visible nowadays… it’s the trend de jour. That doesn’t
mean that it’s accounting for even 1% of all link popularity, nor is it — by
a long shot — the only way to get links. With that said, I agree that perhaps
the choice of words ("bait") at the end of the blog entry might have been
unfortunate.

Anyway, I hope this has put some fears to rest. I link to friends who link
to me; we like each others’ sites, we think that folks who visit our sites
might like them, too. And that’s fine! And also, as Sugarrae pointed out, it’s
only natural that someone may want to link to an article that links to them.
Reciprocal linking happens, and it’s very often done in a natural, innocent
way.

Over time and with lots and lots of data (and very handy tools for
crunching it :-), it becomes more clear to us at Google what is "natural" (or
organic) on the Web and what is not. We aim to reward the former, discount the
latter. Take that as a broader SEO strategy statement if you will… it’s not
just about links, and it’s DEFINITELY not all about reciprocal linking.

Pretty much, I agree with Adam. I disagree that Google necessarily is getting
better at knowing what’s "natural" versus "fake" on an individual link level,
especially if you were very clever. But I do agree that sites will have lots of
"natural" looking links that can form a pattern and are harder to fake. And
sites heavily reliant on links by buying them should be easier to spot.

Meanwhile, some of gang at Digg
come
away thinking the post is about spamming Google via Digg. I didn’t read it
that way. Rather, I read it as Google saying that links from places like Digg
are among the many, many places you can obtain links that are fine.

In summary, from the Google post:

• Earned Links/Trusted Links: Google tries to determine what are
  "earned" links or what more commonly have been referred to in the SEO
  community as trusted links. To some degree, this isn’t new. Google’s long
  tried to reward some links with more importance than others, back to the
  original PageRank days.
   
• Non-Earned Links/Non-Trusted Links: What happens to non-earned
  links or non-trusted links (whatever Google decides in its wisdom for these to
  be) isn’t clearly defined, but from past talks with Google, these simply don’t
  give you credit. The post itself talks about "link-weighting" that hints at
  this. You don’t get hurt by them unless you were of the incredibly small
  number of sites where Google thinks you’ve done something so bad that they
  might actually ban your site. This is practically no one, promise.
   
• Buying Paid Links: Google considers paid links to be non-earned and
  will discount these links if it can spot them. That’s not all in the post, but
  that’s what Google has said in the past.
   
• Selling Paid Links: From the post, consistent with past Google
  statements, sites known to be selling links might find their ability to pass
  along link love within Google’s ranking system stopped.
   
• Have Good Content: Because it will naturally attract good links.
   
• Link Baiting Is Fine: In case you were worried.
   
• Exchanged Links Are Bad BUT I Say Ignore This: You can pretty much
  ignore this since it’s so badly defined as to what they are that you’re likely
  going to worry about the wrong thing.

And now to my Golden Rules Of Link Building. I wrote these
back in
2002 when I first started seeing major freak out over link building. The rules
are simple. They are so simple some people might find them laughable. But I
think they still hold up for the confused site owner.

Rule 1 – Get links from web pages that are read by the audience you
want

Want links from Digg? Is there an audience there you want? Go for it. Want
links from some site you’ve come across? Screw what Google thinks. Is that a
site with an audience that matches your content? Then go for it — and by
doing so, you’re actually very likely to do exactly what Google and other
search engines want you to do.

Rule 2 – Buy links if visitors that come solely from the link will
justify the cost

Is Google discounting paid links? Did the site owner block link love with
nofollow? Is the link one of hundreds on a page and perhaps not likely to give
you as much link juice? Is the site banned from passing link benefits?
Uncertain of all this? Then don’t buy links hoping they’ll boost you in the
search engines. Buy them because you think you’ll get traffic from them. And
if you do buy them for this reason, then I’d recommend using the
nofollow
attribute with them. That ensures the search engines know you aren’t
trying to some how trick them. Don’t like my advice and want to buy link love.
That’s your decision, of course.

Rule 3 – Link to sites because you want your visitors to know about
them.

Did you just do a "bad" exchange? Why, just go over to the Google bad link
exchange checking tool and find out. Whoops. It doesn’t exist. Don’t panic!
Again, and I mean this in a totally positive way, screw Google. Stop thinking
of whether you are doing a link because Google will like or dislike it. Link
because your audience will like it. Do right by your audience, and you are
showing the exact behavior that Google is trying to tailor its algorithms to
detect.