Here is the types of backlinks your business needs right now. A few years ago, the nature of link building focused on obtaining high quantities of links, with little or no regard to where the links came from. Before the Google Penguin Update, link construction in mass was a recognized route to successfully getting your website ranking well in search results.
In 2012, Google launched the Penguin Update to rid search results that marketers were planning. In particular, the Penguin update targeted those who were buying links, getting links through link farms, participating in content farming, and employing sneaky methods to get a high amount of spammy backlinks.
Since then, the industry of expert SEO has acclimated to suit better Google’s decision of relevant and quality backlinks, rather than affluence of spammy backlinks that offer minimum value.
However, link structure is a harsh landscape that can be exciting to maneuver without the relevant skills. This article will break down the diverse types of backlinks that can be sourced and which Google believes are worth earning for your backlink profile.
Different Types of Backlinks
Genuine Guest Post Outreach Links
Guest blogging is the practice of writing an article as a customer author on another person’s website, with a link back to your website. High-quality Guest Bloggers will often write content on other blogs inside their niche that are both relevant and genuinely insightful.
Blog Comments
Blog comment link structure was a popular link-building trend until Google created the nofollow link in 2005. The blog comment link building was essentially leaving explanations on blog posts and directing keyword-rich anchor text to a landing page on a website. Eventually, the process of blog comment links was automated, and blog comment spam became a huge point of difficulty for many website owners.
Pay-for-Placement Links
Paid links are those that you have acquired with the exchange of business or something of value. Buying links is a strategy that Google does not support – paid links go immediately against Google’s webmaster guidelines. In the eyes of a search engine, paid connections hold little value.
Social Bookmarking Links
Social bookmarking for link building involves users saving links to web pages that people want to keep for later or share. These bookmarks are made revealed on bookmarking sites, with groups, networks, or private domains, and are categorized with tags. In history, webmasters would list their sites on bookmarking social sites and profits from increased “viral” traffic.
Link Exchange Schemes
An exchanged, or reciprocal link is when two webmasters agree to link back to each other’s websites. Two people may come together to make this exchange that will profit both of their sites. Reciprocal link replacements may seem like an excellent SEO hack; however, these links fall under link arrangements and are a black hat SEO practice.
Directory Page Link Building
Web directories, also known as link directories, are an online catalog or list of websites and companies. In the past, they have been used to build a solid framework for backlinks and NAP agreements’. However, today, having your site linked from masses of low-quality directories can appear as a punishment.
Author Bio Backlinks
Most articles published online will present with an author bio or outline. A few years ago, when blogging was in its prime, adding specific match anchor text for author bios links was not an exceptional practice. Authors of studies often used this ending paragraph or phase to link to their website, main site pages, an affiliated online store, and a variety of their social media outlines.
Private Blog Network (PBN) Links
A PBN or Private Blog Network is a group of sites created for the sole intention of linking to a “money” site. As the name suggests, PBNs are intended to be private, and ideally, leave no digital footstep. This can be achieved with several manipulative and deceitful stratagems. PBN links are a form of link schemes, and therefore, are abounding with risk.
Article Directory Backlinks
Blog or Article records are websites that contain collections of articles written by separate subjects. Also known as “content farms,” article records provide an opportunity for an author to impersonate an article and have it syndicated across a range of complex websites. Other website partners can then take these articles and reuse them for their website. Article Directory links are links placed in the content that will then be multiplied each time the original article is syndicated.
Editorial Backlinks
Editorial links are collected from purely having a site that produces good character content and applies white hat SEO. An acquired link has been paid for or demanded; editorial links are earned organically by providing genuinely valuable content.
Also known as contextual links, editorial links are proffered when the author of the article decides to reference where to buy xanax online another page or website to support their article’s findings. Editorial links are essentially just linked to a suitable site within a body of content. Given they are organic, natural, and based purely on the fact that the situation is a reference point, keyword density for anchor text is typically not an issue for editorial links.
Links from Social Media Accounts
Social media platforms often allow profiles to include a link to their outside websites or blogs. Profile Link building is the practice of signing up for multiple social media accounts to have an abundance of silhouettes pointing to a site or page. Social media programs like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit also allow links to surface websites and pages.
Auto-Generated Backlinks
Automatically created or “auto-generated” links are those that have been generated programmatically. Automated tools like WebEffector and SEO Hammer are programmed for a bot to post links in commentaries, forums, and posts online that target particular anchor keywords for websites. In some cases, these links will provide short-term gains before being detected by Google and quickly punished.
Links from Press Releases (PR Links)
A press release is an official statement published by a company to advertise to the public. SEO marketers quickly realized press releases’ authorization and started to use keyword-rich ballast text to link to sites from press release websites.
Widget Backlinks
Widgets are extracts of code that create ways to improve the experience of the user on a website. They are frequently in the form of tools, resources, or additions like weather widgets or calculators to a page. Back in the day, embedding links into site widgets was a popular way to obtain links.
Links Menu (Blogroll)
A Blogroll is a list of links on a blog that the blog author adds and wants to share with their readers. Customarily sitewide, blogrolls were originally intended to link to other blogs but can include links to any website.
Links from Infographics
Infographics are informational or educational models typically showcasing data or research. Infographic links can be attained by creating a well-designed image and having it received by others. Each time someone shares the infographic, whether it be on their social spiritualist channels, blogs, or websites, you get an attribution as the author. This attribution equates to a backlink to your site.
Website Footer Links
Footer links are links that are located in the footer of a page. Considering footer text is normally consistent sitewide, keyword-rich footer links were a period of exploitation for many years in SEO. Today, overused footer links are expected to result in unnatural link penalties from Google.
Profile Creation Link Building
Depending on their purpose, some websites will give users the ability to generate a user account and a profile. It is possible to add an external hyperlink in the profile section to face back to the user’s website.
301 Redirect Backlinks
301 domain redirects are practiced as a simple tool to pass existing authority from one region to another and bring both search engines and users to the new URL of an old or expired page. However, like many online tools, region redirect links have been exploited to yield deceitful SEO benefits.
In the mid-2000s, a popular SEO trend involved acquiring expired domains with inbound solid link profiles, only to redirect them to your site. It was thought that redirecting an older region with lots of links would help a newer domain build authority quickly among the “link juice.”
Sitewide Footer/Sidebar Links
Sitewide links are links that perform on every page of a website. Even though we have already touched on footer and blogroll links, there are other forms of sitewide links that were also a popular website trend before the penguin update.
Resource Page Link Building
Resource pages are pages on a website dedicated to listing helpful links and support for a particular topic. They are essentially a “further reading” page for the subject at hand. Resource pages for backlink building include getting websites included on the support page as one of the recommended resources.
Forum Commenting
Online forums are discussion boards for online neighborhoods to come together and talk about various subjects and issues that are relevant to a common interest. Forums are generally easily available and free to join. Forum links are when a forum segment leverages the platform for placement of a link in a profile link, post link, or subscription link.
Testimonial & Review Backlinks
Two types of backlinks reviews are practiced for link building for a website. The first is when you compose a review for someone else, which is posted on their site as a testimonial, and it includes a link back to your website. The second is a review that a customer leaves for your product or service on a platform that will have a link following to your site.