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Costly Link Building Mistakes
Link building is one of the most important SEO activities
but this certainly doesn't mean that you should build links
at any price – literally and figuratively. Link building can
be very expensive in terms of time and money. There are many
costly link building mistakes and here are some of the most
common:
1 Check if backlinks have a “nofollow” attribute
Link exchanges are still one of the white hat ways to build
backlinks but unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous
webmasters, who will cheat you. One of the scams is when you
pay somebody for a backlink, it suddenly disappears or has
the “nofollow” attribute. That is why you should check from
time to time if the link is still there and if it doesn't
have the “nofollow” attribute.
2 Getting good quality links but with useless anchor texts
It is great when PR of the site you are getting links from
is high but when the anchor text is “Click here!” or
something like that, such a link is barely useful. Keywords
in the anchor text are vital, so if the backlink doesn't
have them, it isn't a valuable one. Analyzing the anchor
texts of links takes time but the Backlink Anchor Text
Analyzer tool can do the hard job for you.
3 Getting an image link (when a text link with keyword is
possible)
Sometimes when web masters hurry to get backlinks, they skip
minor details, such as anchor text. Yes, an image link is
great and it could even bring you more visitors than a text
link (if the image is attractive, of course and users click
it) but for SEO purposes nothing beats a keyword in the
anchor text.
4 Not using ALT text if image link is the only possibility
Image links might be the worse option than text links but if
an image link is the only possibility to get a backlink,
don't reject it. However, make sure that the ALT text of the
image link has your keywords – this is more than nothing.
5 Getting backlinks from irrelevant websites
Now, this mistake is really a popular one! When hunting for
backlinks, you should concentrate on relevant sites only. If
you have a dating site, getting links from a finance one is
not valuable. It is true that it is not easy to find
relevant sites to get links from but unless your site is in
a very narrow niche, chances are that there are hundreds or
even thousands of relevant sites you can get a backlink
from. If you need a list of such sites for your niche, try
the Backlink Builder and see what suggestions it can give
you.
6 Getting backlinks from sites/pages with tons of links
A backlink is more valuable, if it comes from a page, which
is not cluttered with tons of other backlinks. Many pages
have 200, or more links and if your link is one of them,
this isn't a great achievement. On the other hand, many
directories put the “nofollow” attribute on nonpaid links,
so actually even if there are 200 links on page and most of
them are “nofollow” (but yours isn't), this still counts.
7 Links from pages spiders can't crawl
A link might look perfectly legitimate (i.e. keywords in the
anchor text and no “nofollow” attribute) and still it might
not be a link. This is especially an issue with link
exchanges because you put a link to the other site but the
other site doesn't do the same for you. Links Google can't
index can be placed on dynamic pages or simply on pages,
which are not indexed by Google because robots.txt bans it.
That is why it doesn't hurt to check from time if the pages
your links are placed on are accessible to spiders. The
Search Engine Spider Simulator tool can help you do this in
no time at all.
8 Explicitly selling links
There is hardly a web master who hasn't heard that paid
links can hurt your rankings but still many web masters
don't miss the chance to make a few bucks. If you really
want to sell links, you'd better use the specialized link
selling services, such as Backlinks.com because they are
more discreet. However, have in mind that while some of the
paid links networks try to hide the fact that the links are
paid, the rest are not that discreet. Also, maybe the worst
gaffe you can make is to include phrases in website like
“Buy 5 PR links for $10”or any other hint that you are
selling links. You can include “Advertise here!” or similar
messages and still de facto sell paid links but this is not
as explicit as listing your prices for links.
9 Linking to sites with poor reputation
Linking to sites with poor reputation, also known as “bad
neighbors” is one of the worst mistakes you can make. When
you link to such sites, for Google this means that you
endorse them and this results in penalties for you. That is
why you must absolutely always check the sites (and their
reputation) first before you link to them. Even if you are
offered a lot of money to link to a site with poor
reputation, you'd better decline the offer because otherwise
your rating with search engines will suffer and this will
cause you a lot of problems.
10 Linking to good sites gone bad
Even if you check carefully the sites you link to, sometimes
it happens that a site, which used to be more or less decent
all of a sudden starts publishing porn ads or other
objectionable content. That is why it doesn't hurt if you
check not only that the outbound links you have are not
broken but also where they lead to.
Links are very important and that is why you should pay
attention to what links you are getting. It is not a waste
of time to monitor what's going on with your links and in
addition to the tools listed in the article, you can also
try the Backlink Summary tool.
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