SEO Techniques: Link Building

Inbound links are one of the main factors for ranking well for competitive keywords. But only number of inbound links can't do the job for you. Inbound links are only helpful when it is a one-way link or a relevant link for your site. That's why there is always two opinions regarding link building.

Link Building and Its History

It started off long back when Google implemented the Pagerank concept in the Search Algorithm. Webmasters all over the world started misusing them for their own benefit. Concepts like Link Farms and bad neighborhood came into effect. Thanks to Google that took evasive measures to tackle this kind of spam through their numerous updates.


Link Building for Google

From my experience I can say that it is really tough to make your way to the top ten in Google for competitive keywords. Google considers Link as a vote of support from a site to another site on the web. And for that you have to pick quality links. Editorial links are the preferred ones but even links given out by other sites are appreciated. Link bought through any kind of network or Paid Links are the typical links that can harm you in the process and the effect may vary from poor performance to getting banned from Google.


Link Building for Yahoo and MSN

For Yahoo and MSN the case is different. If you have proper structure with great navigation, content, and few numbers of links, then you have good chance to rank for fairly competitive keywords.


Important Point to remember while Link Building

1. Do not link out to bad neighborhood site.
2. Always check the link provided to you.
3. Before giving a link out to any site think how it would help your visitors.
4. Getting a link from related site is much more appreciated.
5. Check the Anchor Text and the position of the link.
6. Check the Anchor Text of the link pointing out to the site linking to you.
7. Prefer directories for best one way links.
8. Editorial links are preferred ahead of other links.


Effect of Links in Search Engine Ranking

The followings are the metrics that Search Engines consider when weighting links. All these can affects rankings positively or negatively.

1. Anchor text (when it matches queries, it can have a significant positive impact)
2. Placement on the page
3. PageRank of the linking page
4. Trust in the linking domain
5. Link structure in HTML (inside an image, javascript, standard a href, etc.) - although Javascript links are sometimes followed, they appear to provide only a fraction of the link weight that normal links grant. Likewise, links from images (and anchor text in the form of alt text) appears to provide somewhat less weight than standard HTML links.
6. Nature of the link (when it appeared, how long it stays on the page for, etc.) - can affect how much weight the link is given and be used to identify patterns that may indicate manipulation
7. Use of nofollow
8. Relevance of page content to linked-to page
9. Relevance of site to linked-to page
10. Text surrounding the link
11. Number of outbound links present in the linking page
12. Previous link relationships between the domains (if the page/site has already linked to the page/site in the past, it may be given less weight and this may also be used to identify and discount reciprocal linking schemes)
13. Hosting relationships (if the domains are hosted on the same IP address, or same c-block of IP addresses, the link may lose some of its weight)
14. Registration relationships (if the domains share registration information, it may be interpreted as less editorial and given less weight)


Factors Affecting Link Building

1. The traditional mutual linking between sites. This process is termed as reciprocal linking. However, the SEO’s are of the opinion that this strategy of link building has been diminished by Google. There is also a belief that the better strategy of building links with sites of relevant content.

2. The three-way link (also known as triangular linking) is the method of linking the site A and site B for a link back from another site. It is a much developed and modern strategy of link building than the two-way method. The Two-way linking is not in practice since they seem to be similar to the one-way linking to Google. However there are Search Engine optimizers who are of the opinion that the Google identifies three-way linking and there is often the risk of penalties.

3. This is the three-way link method where linking is done from a different site instead of a link from the site A. The benefit of this type of link building is that there is no need of the outbound links in case of the site A. However the SEO’s are of the opinion that site A might be have to suffer penalties from Google.

4. The four-way linking is favored by few webmasters. They have the same advantages and disadvantages like the number two and number three methods as discussed above.

5. Article links: An informative article with links displayed in the middle or at the end of the article. These articles are provided to the webmasters free of cost as content for their sites in return of the link in the site of the client. There is a belief that the publication of the article on different sites might result into some problem since it has the duplicate content and the links of the articles are also similar. A number of these articles are submitted to “article farms”. It is advisable to offer unique articles on the webmaster but producing many of the unique articles is often expensive.

6. One-way link is also considered to be effective. Even though these one way links come from the sites having low page rank these are considered to be effective. However SEO’s are of the opinion that one-way link from FFA’s and the directories are considered to be spam by Google. It is essential to find out related sites in order to avoid being marked as spam by Google. However, this method seldom works.

7. Buying Links - This is the technique of buying text links along with keywords. It is stated in the guidelines for webmasters that Google does not support buying of links. There is also a method of reporting against the sites that buy links. Few of the SEO’s think that Google creates this fear among people so that people buy Adwords instead of advertising somewhere else. The SEO’s also believe that buying banner ads is better than text links since Google cannot consider them as Spam. If the text based ads are sponsored link then text based ads are not a better idea. Some SEO are of the view that if there is no keyword in the link anything can be done for reputation. It is also possible to detect reputation from site where the banner is.

8. We consider A as the site that we are trying to promote. The best strategy is to create various information sites with relevant content on the different IP C-blocks in order to “take the fall”. If you follow this strategy then site A will receive links from links from other sites like site B, C and D. The sites B, C and D participate in the different linking activities with the purpose of creating Page Rank. This might be considered spam.

9. You can also build a site naturally. The best way is to create excellent content. It is an easy way to promote a site that is informative but is not ideal for commercial site. However it is pretty time-taking affair.

10. It is a combination of all the above strategies. However, Google can punish a site for any of the strategy and may not be aware of the strategy.

Negative SEO Techniques

SEO is the technique to maximize a site's exposure in different Search Engines. There are number of factors need to be taken into account while optimizing a website to be search engine and user friendly, including the content and structure of the website's copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags, backlinks and many others. Following are some of the factors or techniques negatively affecting the SEO industry:

• Dynamically created pages

• Sub Domains

• Cloaking (or Masking)

• Spamdexing

• Link Spamming

• Page Jacking

• Mirrored (or duplicate) websites

• Hidden Text

• Doorway pages

1. Dynamically created pages

Dynamically created pages are web pages which have more than one parameter in a website URL. Such type of pages in a website is database driven. Multiple parameters in a dynamic URL (?, .php, .pl, .cgi extension) can often mean that a search engines spider will choose to ignore the document. So, such URLs are not very search engine friendly.

Google is presently able to index dynamically generated pages. However, because their web crawler can easily overwhelm and crash sites serving dynamic content, they limit the amount of dynamic pages they index. So, Search Engine representatives have long urged webmasters to limit dynamic parameters to two, optimally to one so that spiders will easily crawl them.

2. Sub Domains

Many large Web portals and online retailers structure their sites using subdomains. A subdomain lets you brand your different specialties with your primary domain name. Subdomains are considered to be independent web sites even though they may share the same IP address. But do check with your Web host to make sure you are sharing an IP address with legitimate sites. Otherwise, this could get your site banned from search engines. Some legitimate sites make the mistake of using duplicate content in their subdomains. This can also make the search engines treat duplicate content in subdomains particularly harshly.

3. Cloaking (or Masking)

Cloaking is the SEO process of delivering one version of a page to a user, and a different version to another user such as a search engine. The benefit is code and copyright protection. We can custom build a page for the user. If the user is a search engine, we want to give it our best most optimized stuff. If it is a user, we want to give it a pretty page that is tricked out for navigation and usability.

Mouse-over cloaking is a new SEO technique used widely now-a-days. When a visitor clicks on a website after performing a search query in the search engines, they are directed to another web page, but the search engines have indexed it highly. With just the slightest jostle of their mouse, the visitor is quickly re-directed to the site which has allegedly been “SEO optimized.”

4. Spamdexing

Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly manipulating search engines by SEO's to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results. Such as:

Metatag Stuffing: Repeating keywords in the Meta tags, and using keywords that are unrelated to the website's content.

Keyword Stuffing: Repeated use of a word to increase its frequency on a page. Presently, search engines have the ability to analyze a page for Keyword stuffing and determine whether the frequency is above a "normal" level. The keyword density of a webpage should be between 2% - 7%.

5. Link Spamming

Link Spamming is the process of submission of pages that are intended to rank artificially high by various unethical techniques. These can include submitting hundreds of slightly different pages designed to rank high, small invisible text, or word scrambled pages. Such as:

Link farming: A set of web pages that have been built for the sole purpose of increasing the number of incoming links to a web site. Link farms are a known SEO spam tactic and sites that participate in them are likely to be penalized or banned from the major search engines.

6. Page Jacking

When your competitor gets a high ranking page under quality keywords, the first thing that will happen is your competitor's page gets stolen (called Page Jacking). It is the SEO process of duplicating a high ranking competitor’s page, but the page is redirected to your website. Many search engines, upon seeing a duplicate page will delete the competitor’s website from the directory leaving the fake page in its place.

7. Mirrored (or Duplicate) Websites

Mirrored websites are nothing but, creating duplicate sites having the same images & the content with the same number of pages in both the websites. In this case, one of the website stands a high chance of being rejected by the search engines for indexing.

8. Hidden Text

Hidden text is links with the same background color as that of the website. This SEO spam technique is used to increase your page rank of your website.A user to your site may accidentally land to this hidden link & the page thereafter.

9. Doorway pages

A doorway page is simply an additional page on your website that is created to target a specific keyword not related to the website and then submitted to the search engines. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a website and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include websites with unsavory or illegal content.

So be aware of the above explained negative factors while optimizing a website.

RSS Feed Optimization

In some ways RSS is very similar to HTML, the language commonly used to create websites. Just as with HTML, webmasters using traditional search engine optimization tactics when creating an RSS feed will find that their RSS feed receives additional exposure and interest.

Simple steps to optimize a RSS feed for search engines:

1) Title Should Contain Important Search Terms
To state the obvious, the title should be relevant and not misleading, while still emphasizing keywords. Ultimately, the title should entice the reader to read on, not mislead them.

2) Display RSS Feeds
Most webmasters display their feeds as content on their website. When displaying a feed be sure to use PHP, ASP or HTML so that search engines will spider the contents of the feed displayed. If using a template to display feeds, use header tags to define the appearance of the Channel Title and Item Titles. Many search engines weight header tags with more importance.

3) Internal & External Links
Within a feed you should always use the full path of any links, keeping in mind that other sites may syndicate the contents of the RSS feed. Links that are not local to the site should launch a new browser. While this is not specific to search engines it will help keep visitors on your site.

4) Link Text Should Emphasize Keywords
It is no longer a deep, dark secret that the text used for incoming links will help a site contextually define the keywords that the site appears for in the search engines. Keeping that in mind, be sure to use keywords in any link text that points back to your website.

5) My Yahoo and My MSN
This is surprisingly simple to do but often overlooked by publishers and webmasters. The fastest way to have an RSS feed spidered by Yahoo or MSN is to include the feed on a personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. Simply create an account on the respective search engines and customize the home page to include your RSS feed. This is done by adding content and listing the URL to the RSS feed. Typically, within 24-48 hours the feed's contents will be spidered and indexed by Yahoo and MSN.

6) Theme Feeds
Feeds should be themed. This will help with themed links back to a publisher's website from anyone syndicating the feed's content.

7) Link Popularity
Increase link popularity by submitting the RSS feed, blog or podcast to the appropriate directories. The following directories allow submissions of specific kinds of RSS feeds. Be sure to follow the guidelines of each site and choose categories wisely.

Submit Podcasts - http://www.podcasting-tools.com/submit-podcasts.htm

Submit RSS feeds - http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

Submit Blogs - http://www.blog-connection.com/submit-blogs.htm

8) RSS Feed Descriptions
RSS feed descriptions are generally summaries or introductions to other content. Often, feed creators will provide additional information on an HTML site, enticing the reader to click through for the full information if it is a topic that is of interest to them. Provide enough teaser copy that the reader can easily discern if the contents are something that is important to them.

9) Subscribe to Feeds
This might seem obvious, but a surprisingly large number of publishers do not subscribe to their own feed. This is a great way to visualize what your customers see, and experiment with formatting and integrating HTML into feeds.

10) Image Ads
Add your corporate logo to your RSS feed. Create a brand and enforce that brand by including the image in the RSS feed. The image will enhance your corporate identity and dress up the look of your feed by adding your corporate logo.

11) Alphabetical Rank
Many feed readers list feeds alphabetically in the reader. Feed channels that begin with A will naturally appear in the top of the feed list in most feed readers. If you wish to appear in the top of list of feeds that a reader has subscribed to, keep this tip in mind.

12) Meaningful Links
Each item in your feed should contain a unique URL associated with it. This will direct users to associated information. Many find using target URLs with the "#" symbol in the link to identify specific content useful.

Most marketers have a love-hate relationship with search engines. Search engines have the abilitiy to make even the most confident webmaster feel powerless . Let's face it - all of us have felt the wrath of the search engine powers-that-be at one time or another, and while it may be difficult to know what line was crossed or how we fell out of favor, following some basic guidelines will be helpful in optomizing feeds for search engines.