The Worst Link Building Techniques (List)

Google is evolving, but can the same be said of the Link building market? Link building is often seen as the cure for all ills. Well, you won’t believe it, but for many; link building is still today in all respects similar to “very powerful” home remedies. So let’s start by clearly saying that this is not the case.

If your site does not generate 90% traffic, it is not because it lacks links but because it cannot meet the quality criteria required for specific SERP queries.

Key Questions To Ask Yourself

Before thinking about the links, you should ask yourself if you have done what is necessary to communicate correctly with the search engine. If you have worked on adding quality where others do not, and, finally, there may be errors, perhaps crawling, that may affect your ranking.

• Are you using structured data on your pages?
• Have you worked on an editorial plan with specific traffic objectives?
• Is your content complete and original?
• Are the images you use copied too?
• Have you conducted a technical audit looking for any errors?
• Do you have keyword research defined by objectives?

This time, my invitation is to avoid being the patient who goes to the doctor to tell them what medicine they must prescribe and be convinced of his self-diagnosis made on Google.

On the contrary, you would do well to contact us instead. Ask us to check whether starting with a link-building service is appropriate. Which, if you wish, we could offer you. The point is that many link-building strategies – and we assure you, we see many around – are not beneficial; on the contrary, they backfire against those who are convinced to benefit from them.

Suppose you want to improve your positioning in the long term. In that case, you will do well to use an SEO strategy; perhaps oriented to digital PR, without specific link-building tactics that are still sold by agencies and consultants who put it in a nutshell.

In this post, we intend to clarify these and other crucial aspects by telling you in detail what you should NOT do.

Link Building: The Mistakes You Must Not Make

You don’t need an SEO expert here to understand this; not all backlinks are created equal. Knowing how to get high-quality backlinks is precious. They increase your reputation, improve your domain’s authority, and ultimately make your site more visible on Google.

On the other hand, low-quality backlinks can harm the SEO side, lowering the domain’s authority and putting you in a position to risk manual penalties capable of severely compromising incoming traffic. Knowing the difference between high and low-quality backlinks is critical if you want your SEO campaign to succeed. Getting links isn’t just a question of quantity. Stop thinking of link acquisition as a basket to be filled; it doesn’t work like that.

The right links are the ones you take from real sites perfectly in the topic, with mixed anchor text, perhaps on a long tail, and at a consistent speed. Instead, do you know what is being done around it? We don’t understand how this is possible, but what we see being offered as a “link-building service” is often the exact opposite. We’re talking about really dangerous stuff, undoubtedly capable of doing more damage than anything else.

Just not to be vague; specifically, we refer to what we are going to describe to you now. Believe it or not, most link-building services still make these mistakes.

Links From Dirty Dropped Domains

A domain is simply the name of a website and consists of a string of letters, numbers, and symbols.

When a domain is defined as “dropped”, it means that it has expired. In short, the owner has not renewed it. Once it has expired definitively, at the end of all the cycles available to us by law to be able to take it back, the registrar can open offers for that domain which, inevitably after seven days, goes to the highest bidder.

Here then, intending to resurrect zombie sites and bring home all the links that are still pointing towards that domain, the magical two-penny PBNs come out from which the consultant X on duty will then sell and place the link to the highest bidder.

All very nice were it not that most of those who do these activities carry them out without taking care of some vital parameters that, if neglected, could result in a penalty for all linked sites.

Poor Page (PA) and Domain (DA) Authority

To remedy this, you can check using the Explorer link on https://moz.com/link-explorer to know the domain’s quality and understand if, in the past, Google banned it.

Even if it was the coolest domain name in the world or the most expensive, you understand that search engines cannot find it if it has been banned. So, it is not useful.

If that were not enough, you should know that many buy domains without even checking if they are still present in the Google cache when to check; it is simple as typing “cache: domainname.com” on Google!

Another VITAL check among those ignored by most is the verification of the ban by Google Adsense. Many expired domains were left because they were banned from Google Adsense. You understand that the reputation of a site of this type can only soil the authority of those who were to receive incoming links.

Here too, the control is simple; there are tons of sites. It is not an instrumental problem but put your head and patience. In short, do things well. Verification can be done on Isbanned.com. Another thing that I just would never want is for my site to take links from a site that, in the past, sold illegal items. But would it? It often happens that an elderly domain may have been hacked or used to spam by hosting the worst things you cannot even imagine.

Knowing this and other aspects is crucial if you want to avoid finding yourself inexplicably in the abyss. To do this, it is necessary to check the site’s history on archive.org (the most extensive historical archive on the web) to ascertain that it has not been a victim of such abuses in the past. Now is it done?

Not All Dropped Are Bad, Though

Let’s understand not all dropped are bad, indeed. However, it is important to realize that doing PBN is serious and very expensive. They are often raised “to save”, which is why you are much more likely to be penalized than the other way around. Since the PBNs are born to cheat Google, you’re going to steal the thief’s house. You understand that you need to assess whether the game is worth the candle, right?

Links From Sites With Link Exchange

The risk arises when engaging in excessive link exchanges. Remember that Google recognizes link schemes very well, let alone if it does not recognize a reciprocal link. Link exchanges do nothing but open the door for you to inevitably end up with a decrease in your reputation in the Google index. If you ask or accept link exchange requests blindly, you will never know the quality and relevance of the site you are adding.

And the biggest catch, do you know where it is?

Linking to a site that doesn’t matter to Google will inevitably lower your reputation in the eyes of the search engine. Links of this kind can certainly only contribute harm to you. So don’t even think about it, ok?

Massive Links From Forums And/Or Comments

For clarity: not all inbound links from forums are bad.

If a link comes from a good quality site, from an active user, and the link itself is not manipulative (e.g., always on a dry key), it probably won’t do you any harm.

However, if you have thousands of links from foreign, spammy, and low-quality discussion boards, you would do well to cross yourself. A penalty may be on the way. Even today, many offer services of this level, effectively damaging the reputation of the domain.

Suppose you have trouble understanding why. Let us explain it to you in two words: EASY MONEY, obviously, for those who sell.

As you are about to read, there is software capable of firing this rot by the ton to make the proposals attractive, extremely convenient, and apparently of excellent quality to anyone looking for many links at a low price.

Links Created Automatically by Software

Here we want to be concise and straightforward: tools like Senuke, Scrapebox, Xrumer, and Company do nothing but create damage in 99.9% of cases. This software shoots links wherever there is no spambot protection and is capable of creating thousands of links in no time. They find space in the world of negative SEO.

As an SEO consultancy agency, the least we can tell you is: to stay away from it.

Relevance (Attention, Not Authority) of the Domain That Sends You Links

The source you use to create your backlink is the most obvious indicator of its quality.

As a general rule, the lower the site’s quality, the lower the link’s quality; posting a link on an untrustworthy, low-level, or poorly designed site will certainly have a negative impact. Likewise, posting any link on a site specifically designed to manipulate rankings will only result in earning a penalty.

The quality of the site that sends you the link is not everything; its importance must also be considered. Any site completely unrelated to your industry could qualify the backlink as low quality due to its lack of relevance to the host site.

User Intent

The user’s intention is very important for your link, and this factor contributes to determining whether or not it may be of quality. The most important thing to keep an eye on is that the user deems it appropriate to click on that link and that it makes sense. When doing the keyword analysis to determine which links to insert, you must remember this to maximize your business’ effectiveness.

A haphazard link with no purpose but to generate traffic artificially – and we guarantee that it fails in most cases – will be treated as a low-quality link.

Using Poor Quality Content for Link-Building

There is no doubt that poor quality is not worth link building. You can just ask yourself, do you want to give links to a website that has poor quality? The answer is probably no. So, also, you can not get backlinks with this type of content. The solution is easy, don’t use any poor-quality content for link-building. Besides that, creating original and high-quality content will help to get backlinks effortlessly. Just focus on what you can do to create original content and how you can get a higher ranking.

Context and Structure of the Link

The structure of your link is usually related to its intention. For example, if your link is posted without any introduction or explanation in a blog comment, it will have a perfect chance of being perceived as spam. If, on the other hand, your link is structured in context and supporting content, free from spam indicators such as “click here” or like, it will be a whole other story.

Following the Google update, we refer to the Google BERT update; the context has become increasingly relevant. So you would do well to keep this in mind.

Type of Anchor Text

If Google starts to see that you are posting the same link everywhere, a typical case is that of link-building campaigns that only point to the homepage; it can be perceived as a malicious link. If you want your links to be relevant, go deep. Avoid relying on one or two common landing pages for all links.

Speed ​​of Acquisition

The speed of acquisition with which the backlinks are posted can determine their quality. If you post backlinks to the same source multiple times a day in different cases, your links could be treated as spam. The same rule applies to multiple sources; if the backlinks suddenly skyrocket without explanation, they could be understood as spam. It will compromise the health of the entire website. To avoid this risk, you need to plan an activity capable of taking your site’s historical speed and that of your competitors into account. A real editorial plan must be studied and capable of scheduling all the issues.

Paying for Nofollow Links

If you have no idea of ​​the difference between ‘DoFollow’ and ‘NoFollow’; you should know that backlinks with the NoFollow attribute tell search engines not to consider the destination; in short, they do not pass trust. The DoFollow links, on the other hand, do exactly the opposite.

Google ignores nofollow links and does not use them directly to rank. This attribute is created to identify content you do not trust. Nofollow links should not normally cause problems; however, they can become so when they are in large quantities and are of very low-quality quality.

Be aware that Google values ​​both DoFollow and NoFollow links, so it’s important that you acquire both. You should focus more on acquiring ‘DoFollow’ links to enjoy the benefits in terms of ranking. Acquiring excellent DoFollow links is not easy, but if you turn to the right professional, everything becomes possible.

Using Only One Strategy for Link-Building

You may have a great strategy that will lead to success. However, in any case, you should have a plan B and be able to change strategy quickly. Although the strategy you choose works on most sites, it may work differently on your site. All you have to do is include different strategies. You can also double your success by setting up an execution plan with different strategies.

Ignoring the Broken Links

You may have the best link-building strategy, but it will not work if you choose to ignore your broken links. The 404 messages and link errors can not positively impact your visitors. This is the same for your competitors. Stop ignoring them; when you find broken links, offer them to replace them.

Poor Internal Linking

Most people think that backlinks are more valuable than internal links. This aspect can be correct; however, if you don’t care about giving internal links, it will not work. If you don’t give links from your website, you shouldn’t wait to get backlinks from the other sites. Internal linking is also an important factor for ranking. First, you direct search engine bots and visitors to the pages on your site. Backlinks will follow.

To Conclude, Link Building

Arrived here, I hope you are clear that the point is not “to put links” but to build traffic useful for the conversions you seek. This type of activity can be as crucial as it is dangerous. We would like you to remember the word “handle with care”.