The Components of Quality Backlinks
Almost every single day I get asked what are quality backlinks? Luckily, the answer is simple, but not necessarily what you think it is. Most people take for granted any backlink on a relevant page with a decent Google Page Rank is a “quality” link. This, however, isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, I’ve actually used the format of relevance and Page Rank with stunningly unimpressive gains in the SERPs. And here’s why:
First off, with the amount of spam out there and the tons and tons of people trying to game Google daily, the search giant is always looking for new ways to analyze the quality of backlinks. And over time, while the specific techniques have changed, it all comes down to this: Almost all the search engines – especially Google – are constantly trying to gauge if a backlink is a natural “vote” (an organic backlink created by a genuine user referencing another website) or a backlink created by a webmaster with the intention of manipulating his or her rank in the SERPs.
Once Google determines what is an “organic” link from another site, it will be tallied in with your other backlinks. But if the link is, in Google’s opinion, a link created by a webmaster for no other reason than to manipulate their rank in the SERPs, then the link is flagged, or given very little weight. So if you want to create quality backlinks, that’s what you need to keep in mind: they MUST be natural “votes”, or at least appear that way to Google.
Fortunately, there’s no rocket science to this. In fact, there’s lots of disparite ways to get links that keep Google’s guidelines in mind. Some of the better known examples are: social bookmarking; posting in forums; Yahoo! answers; and so on. I’ve learned that a lasting quality backlink can be had from links being included in web log postings. Certainly these are the highest quality backlinks you can build to your website(s).
Why? That’s an easy one. Because unless you own or control the blog, it’s nearly impossible to create backlinks within posts, unless you’re paying the webmaster to do it for you (which is usually too expensive for most people), or you hack into the blog and create the links yourself, which is illegal and could land you in prison. This means that most of the time, these kinds of links are organic, put up by a real person and relevant- a formula Google thrives on.
To prove this to yourself, check out high ranking WikiPedia pages and their backlinks. Careful examination of these backlinks will reveal that they are from web logs that are related to the topic. And because WikiPedia ranks so high naturally for highly competitive terms, don’t you think it’s important to follow suit?
It’s a good thing that there are other ways to obtain quality backlinks, since blog posts can be extremely pricey. Essentially, whenever you’re creating links back to your site, always ask yourself how difficult it is to do this manually, and do people usually create these backlinks naturally? Suffice to say that if there’s extensive effort going into your backlinks and people tend to gravitate toward this type of backlink (considered more natural/ organic) then Google will consider it a quality backlink.
For over seven years, I have been in the search engine optimization arena and have taught both noviciates and more seasoned marketers how to get their websites to Google’s first page using quality backlinks. My own sites have held the number one slot for keywords with competition most marketers would shy away from. Head on over to my Area 51 Backlinks to get the scoop.
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