SEO Rules Reviled. "Back-linking"

A NEW ERA OF LINK BUILDING:
The game has modified. SEO has perpetually been a fast-moving business that favors the nimble and versatile. however since Google's latest spherical of devastating update — starting with Google Panda in Feb 2011 and culminating with 2012's EMD update — the speed of modification has intense. In fact, these updates place several Google-traffic-dependent website homeowners, out of business.
You probably already recognize that SEO has modified. But alas, there is not a lot of data out there to assist provide you with the answers you are looking for, like "How am i able to update my link building methods for 2013?" and "What am i able to do to shield my website against future update?" during this section, you will get associate in-depth examine the SEO world we have a tendency to sleep in and a few unjust methods you'll use to protect your website against Google's relentless updates.
VISUAL TIMELINE OF SEO
It's not possible to know link building while not knowing wherever we have a tendency to area unit and the way we have a tendency to returned.
5 BG (Before Google): Yahoo and Alta Vista dominated the online. connection (based on keyword density and meta tags) were the foremost vital ranking factors.
1 atomic number 47 (After Google): Google's revolutionary Page Rank-based algorithmic rule, supported the amount of links inform to a website, LED to considerably higher results than the present search engines. This eventually LED to Google's dominance within the search world. For the primary time, pages were hierarchical  supported quality and connection.
Vince Update (April 2009): This rarely-discussed update was Google's initial major modification of however the ago perceived site wide authority and stigmatization. The Vince update place Google on the flight that it’s been on ever since: pro trusty brands over their smaller competitors.
Google Panda (February 2011): Affected a colossal twelve % of searches. Targeted quality "content farms" like E How, E zine Articles.com and Suite101.com. one among the primary Google updates that actively fined website homeowners that stone-broke their Webmaster pointers.
Google schizophrenic seabird (April 2012): The "over-optimization" penalty that hit three.1% of websites in Google's index. This update specifically targeted sites that used black hat link building techniques, specifically over-optimized anchor text. Like Panda, this update may be a filter that catches sites in its internet whenever they roll out a refresh (every 2-3 months or so).
EMD Update (September 2012): thus far, the newest major update from Google. This update targeted sites that used the facility of tangible match domains to induce a foothold. This any cemented Google's new hard-line stance on website homeowners that gamed the system.
WHITE is that the NEW BLACK (HAT)

There was a three- to five-year span of your time wherever black hatters dominated Google's front page. mistreatment spun content, huge diary networks and overusing anchor text, these sites were able to game the algorithmic rule with ease. Most black hat SEOs (and even variety of white hats) awakened to examine one thing like this after they checked their stats the day once Google Penguin:

Yikes.
While there is still many black hat "success" stories out there, most black hat link building techniques area unit short lived. to not get too instructive , however if you wish to try and do well with SEO over the long, it is time to adopt a white hat approach to putting together links.
HOW TO PROACTIVELY AVOID PENALTIES

The goal of SEO accustomed be gunning for one keyword. Once you hit the front page, you were gold. Not any longer. a vital a part of today's SEO is functioning to reduce the danger of penalties and Google updates. And whereas rabid on-page SEO will positively hurt you, links ought to be your focus if you wish to avoid Google’s next update.
In fact, the pinnacle of Web spam at Google, Matt Cuts, confirmed that links area unit wherever webmasters ought to be trying to stop future penalties:

Here's a way to audit your site's link profile and scale back the danger of turning into Google's next update victim.
ANCHOR TEXT OVERUSE
It's standard that anchor text overuse is one among the foremost vital web spam signals that trigger the schizophrenic seabird filter. And it is a truthful bet that future updates can target sites with associate unnatural link profile.
In fact, MicroSiteMasters.com found that sites that overused "money terms" in their anchor text were considerably a lot of possible to suffer from Google Penguin:

That's why admixture up the anchor text you employ to link to your website is extraordinarily vital.
CHECK YOUR SITE'S ANCHOR TEXT DISTRIBUTION

The first step to avoiding anchor text misuse is to grasp wherever you stand. the best thanks to notice this out is to use the link analysis tool, Majestic SEO. you'll see your anchor text distribution with a free account.
First, head over the Majestic and enter your homepage uniform resource locator.

It will show you a bang-up chart of your anchor text distribution on the "summary" page.

To get a lot of in-depth data, click on the "anchor text" tab.

And you'll see one thing like this.

You can notice similar knowledge mistreatment Open website adventurer. Plug your homepage uniform resource locator into the sphere and click on on the "anchor text" tab:

Choose "all pages on this root domain" filter:

Click the filter button:

And it'll show you site wide anchor text data:

CHECK PAGE-LEVEL ANCHOR TEXT DISTRIBUTION

While your site's anchor text distribution is vital, schizophrenic seabird also can hit specific pages that are over-optimized. you'll see page-level anchor text knowledge for your most vital pages by getting into a page's uniform resource locator into OSE:

Set the filter for "this page":

Then you will see the anchor text distribution for links inform thereto specific page:

If you see a disproportionate quantity of keyword-rich anchor text, it is time to require action. Here area unit some straightforward ways that to feature natural diversity to your link's anchor text.
DISCOVER NATURAL ANCHOR TEXT DISTRIBUTION


BRANDED TERMS
If you pay time staring at sites with a natural link profile you may notice that they have an inclination to own a majority of their anchor text as their name. as an example, vi of the highest seven of Quick Sprout's anchor texts area unit variations of the brand:
GENERIC ANCHORS
Generic anchor texts, like "here", "this site" and "website" area unit an excellent thanks to create your anchor text distribution look a lot of natural.
NAKED URLS
Although most sites use anchor text once linking to different pages, some still use naked URLs, like http://quicksprout.com.
TITLES
An underutilized kind of anchor text is that the title of the page you are linking to. as an example, a post I revealed a jiffy back, "The Science of Instagram: a way to Get a lot of Followers and Likes", boasts the title of the post because the most typically used anchor text:

APPLY NATURAL ANCHOR TEXT
TO YOUR LINK BUILDING CAMPAIGNS

Now that you simply have a pity what a natural anchor text distribution sounds like, here area unit some straightforward ways that to feature diversity to your anchor text.
WEB DIRECTORIES
Directories are not as powerful as they accustomed be. however the official word from Google is that they still pass trust and authority onto your website. and they are a golden chance to quickly add branded anchor text to your homepage links (although some directories do permit "deep" internal page submissions).
Let's use the authoritative SoMuch.com directory as associate example.
Head to http://www.somuch.com/submit-links/ and opt for "Free Link":

Accept the submission pointers and hit "Continue":

When getting into your site's data, add a branded anchor like this:

Or this (it's conjointly vital to diversify your branded anchor text):

PRESS RELEASES
Press releases, whereas overused within the SEO world, do pass some juice to your website. However, most of the people spam their press releases with four or a lot of anchor text hyperlinks:

That's a shame as press releases area unit a golden chance to use generic anchors on your site's homepage and internal pages.
We'll use the press unharness web site Release-News.com as associate example.
First, produce associate account and make sure your subscription:

Then head over to the homepage and click on "Submit Free":

When adding content you'll simply link branded text:

“Post title” anchor text:

Generic anchor text:

Or even naked URLs:

GUEST POSTING
You already recognize that guest posting is associate awing thanks to get quality Backlinks and targeted traffic. However, many folks still succumb to anchor text abuse once business enterprise guest posts. fortuitously, you'll simply add generic and branded anchors among your author bio space.
When causing over your guest post in Word, embrace the anchor text that you simply need to use (many website homeowners assume you mostly need to use branded or "brand.com" anchors and publish your links that approach automatically).
First, highlight the text that you simply need to hyperlink:

Right click (control + click on a Mac) and opt for "hyperlink":

And enter your target URL:

Click "OK":

And you'll have a live link that the guest post host will use in your author bio.

Guest posts are one the simplest ways that to use generic anchors, like "click here" and "his latest post":

And because most sites that settle for guest posts permit multiple links, you'll typically add one branded anchor text link to your homepage and a generic anchor text to 1 of your posts:

SITEWIDE LINK DISTRIBUTION:

One of the foremost common mistakes link builders create is to purpose most of their links to their homepage. This appearance extraordinarily unnatural, particularly for sites with plenty of content. massive sites presumptive can have most of their links inform to internal pages.
You can see a cool visual of your site wide link distribution mistreatment A hrefs.
First head over to ahrefs.com, and enter your name into the field:

You'll see your site's knowledge on the summary page.

Scroll to very cheap and take a glance at the "site wide distribution" graph. This displays the distribution of links across your website. The a lot of detached the image is, the a lot of links you've got across your website.
And if you set a spam my website into A hrefs you may notice a awfully totally different trying distribution pattern:

The Ahrefs.com graph may be a fast thanks to get an inspiration of your site's link distribution. however you'll get considerably a lot of precise data employing a free MajesticSEO.com account and surpass.

Click on the "pages" tab towards the proper aspect of the toolbar:

You'll see that pages on your website have the foremost backlinks.

In the case of QuickSprout.com, you'll see by glancing at the numbers that there is an honest quantity of site wide distribution happening.
But if you wish to induce a lot of elaborated data, you'll export this knowledge as a .csv (Excel) file. Scroll to very cheap of the "pages" tab and click on "Download CSV".
And open with MS surpass or Google Docs.
Delete rows C and D ("AC hierarchical  Score" and Last Retrieved").
Then delete rows E and F ("Citation Flow" and "TrustFlow"):

Cut and paste your homepage URLs and link data to a separate a part of the computer programmer.

(Important: make certain to repeat over each the "www" and also the non-www versions of your homepage URL)
Now you've got separate link knowledge for internal pages and your homepage.
Scroll to very cheap of your internal page's row and click on on the row beneath the last result.

Then click the "formulas" tab at the highest of MS Word:

Under "Auto-sum," click "sum":

This will show you the entire range of links inform to internal pages.
Do constant for the amount of referring domains.

Now you will be able to see each the amount of total links and referring domains inform to internal pages:
Now, mistreatment constant steps, get the back-link totals for your homepage.
Create a outline space on the computer programmer wherever you'll simply see all of the vital data you are looking for.

Using the Auto-sum feature (or simply manually adding the numbers together), notice the entire range of back-links to your entire site:
Do constant for the amount of referring domains:

Then copy and paste the amount of internal page links and homepage links you found earlier into the outline Area:

Now it is time to search out the share of links inform to your internal pages vs. your homepage.
Simply divide your Internal Page Links by your Total Back-links and multiply that range by one hundred.
In Excel, the formula sounds like this:

(G9 is Internal Page Links. G7 Is Total Backlinks).
And you'll get this:

About four-hundredth of Quick Sprout's links purpose to internal pages. Not too shabby!
If you've got plenty of site-wide links (like blogrolls), the amount of homepage links is also quite high. though nobody is certain however Google perceives site-wide back links, it's understood that {the range|the amount the quantity} of referring domains may be a a lot of vital metric than the entire number of links. In different words, many blogrolls could create your link distribution look by artificial means homepage-heavy.
You can simply check the amount of site wide links in your back link profile mistreatment A hrefs. place your domain into their field:

And click on the "External" tab:
Then hit the "Site-wide" radio button:
And click "Apply Filters":

In the case of Quick Sprout, a good quantity of the back links come back from site wide links:

In that case, it in all probability makes a lot of sense to listen to the amount of domains inform to the site’s pages.
To do that, merely add a field for Internal Page Domains and naturally Domains to Internal Pages:

Copy and paste the interior page domain data that you simply calculated earlier from very cheap of cell D to the outline space.

Now got wind of a formula in surpass that divides a) the amount of Internal Page Domains by b) the entire Referring domains. In surpass this might appear as if this:

G9 (Internal Page Domains)/G8 (Total Referring Domains) * one hundred
And you'll get a replacement figure:

As you'll see from this instance, this range is incredibly totally different than the amount calculated exclusively by total back links. that is principally attributable to the very fact that more or less half Quick Sprout's back links come back from blogrolls, that quantity to thousands of links from some of domains.
LINK connection

In a stunning moment of candor, former Google worker Andre Westerner explicit  in associate interview: "getting a link from a high PR page accustomed perpetually be valuable, nowadays it’s a lot of the contentedness of the site’s theme with regard to yours, contentedness is that the new PR." And per associate business study conducted by MicroSiteMasters.com, links coming back from unrelated sites may be a schizophrenic seabird risk factor:

Getting the majority of your back links from closely connected sites may be a powerful thanks to guard against schizophrenic seabird. And considering that links from unrelated sites may be a red flag for web spam, expect this to be a part of the other Google algorithmic rule update that's extended within the future. merely put: most of your links ought to be from sites that area unit somewhat associated with yours.
While there isn't any machine-driven tool which will tell you your link profile's connection, it's pretty straightforward to ensure mistreatment Open website adventurer.
SEE WHAT YOUR website sounds like IN GOOGLE'S EYES
Sure, you will assume your website is regarding weight loss, however that does not mean Google sees it that approach. so as to properly discern link connection, you've got to grasp what Google thinks your website is regarding.
First, head over to https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool. place your web site into the "Website" field:
Check off “Only show ideas closely associated with my search terms":
And click "search":

Finally, click on the "Keyword Ideas" tab (Google generally defaults to the "Ad cluster ideas" tab):

Scan through the results to examine what keywords come back up. this may provide you with a pity the topics Google feels your website tends to hide most frequently.

Another straightforward thanks to check connexion from Google's purpose of read is to place your name or name into Google:

Then, scroll to very cheap of the page. There you will see "Searches associated with..."

As you'll see here, this provides you some smart data regarding however folks look for your website, that is in our own way Google determines connection.
CHECK YOUR LINK PROFILE'S website LEVEL connection
First, pull up your link profile knowledge in OSE:

Click on the "Linking Domains" tab:

Choose "pages on this root domain" from the change posture menu.

And click the "Filter" button:

Now you will see the homepage URLs of the sites that link to you.

Now the fun begins. it is time to manually go one-by-one through your link profile to examine whether or not or not the location has relevancy to yours. Obviously, any link profile — even a natural one ­— can have a good quantity of unrelated links. the thought is not to calculate a proportion of relevant back links in your link profile. Instead, you must simply eyeball your results to examine if the bulk of your links come back from connected sites.
For example, as I take a glance at Quick Sprout's link profile I see plenty of my links coming back from sites like DIYThemes.com, SEOMoz.org, Aweber.com, Inc.com and BusinessInsider.com. These area unit all closely tied to what Quick Sprout's all regarding (namely, entrepreneurship, SEO, web promoting, conversion improvement and social media). you must see one thing similar: a combination of terribly, terribly closely connected sites, many so-so connected sites and a few fully unrelated sites.
PAGE LEVEL connection.

While Google focuses on a whole site's theme, it will take into consideration the page that your link seems on yet. After all, it does not be for a website regarding social media to link to Quick sprout in a commentary regarding dog coaching.
You can check a page's connection constant approach you'd check a site's connection.
Again, open up your link profile from Open website adventurer. This time, keep the default settings therefore you'll see the page that every link is on.

You can see the title tags of every page in OSE, that ought to provide you with an honest plan regarding the page's topic.

From a fast look, I feel pretty assured that the pages linking to American state usually match the subject of Quick Sprout. however if you are not certain regarding one or many, you'll perpetually visit the page to dig deeper. maybe that I wasn't certain whether or not or not a link that I received from a page on serpent Chill was relevant to my website. i'd merely visit the page and appearance at many things.

First, I take a glance at the page's description tag. generally description tags are literally a lot of descriptive than the title tag. the best thanks to try this is to appear at the page's hypertext markup language. On the SEO Toolbar, hit the "view supply in tab" button.

And Firefox can produce a replacement tab with the page's code. it'll look one thing like this:

To find the outline, hit ctrl + f (cmd + f on a mac) and enter "description."

And you'll notice the meta description.

Next, i'd scan the article to induce an inspiration of what it's regarding. In general, this text was regarding blogging, that is not too far flung.
If you wish to induce very hardcore regarding this you'll conjointly check the text close to your link. that provides you a a lot of precise plan on the connection of the link, as pages will cowl many topics. In different words, Google tends to place connection stress on the text around your links.
In this case, Quick Sprout was cited for the opt-in kind on the aspect of the page.

Not super-relevant. However, the very fact that the location and page {are|ar|area unit|square American stateasure} relevant makes me think about this a relevant link. the sole factor that would create it associate A+ would be for the content close to the link be regarding social media, SEO etc.
Again, the purpose is not to travel cookie and discern the connection of each single link. It's simply in our own way of evaluating the connection of your link profile. If you've got a link from associate unrelated website — however it's on a page closely tied to your site's theme — you'll toss that into the “relevant” class.
LINK DIVERSITY

In the disruptive history of SEO, fortunes are lost over one tweak within the Google algorithmic rule. First, sites that participated in link exchanges born out of the SERPs sort of a ton of bricks. many years later, profile links were massively low. In early 2012, the popular diary network Build My Rank suffered from a colossal De-indexing, delivery down thousands of niche sites along side it. the purpose of telling these stories is to emphasis the very fact that you are setting yourself up for disaster if you place confidence in one style of link. notwithstanding the technique works like gangbusters currently, that does not mean that it will not be the main focus of Google's next algorithmic rule update.
For example, many folks use info graphics because the bread and butter of their link building. whereas info graphics work nice at the instant, they may get low nightlong by a tweak within the algorithmic rule. For that reason, info graphics — like every link building strategy — ought to solely kind a tiny low a part of your link profile.
It's time to require a glance at wherever your links area unit coming back from... and break them down into classes.
For most folks conducting white hat SEO campaigns, taking a look at wherever your links come back from mistreatment OSE or another link analysis program is enough. Go one-by-one through your links and see if there area unit a disproportionate quantity of links coming back from homepages, blogrolls, press releases or internet directories. the sole thanks to recognize is to visualize every link separately and mentally store it into a class.
In the case of Quick Sprout, i am rocking links from images:

Blog mentions:

Guest posts:

I feel pretty assured that if Google suddenly low one style of link i would still be OK.
DRILL DOWN WITH LINK DETECTIVE
If you wish to induce a a lot of elaborated image of your link's classes you'll use a bang-up free tool at linkdetective.com.
First, you'll have to transfer a CSV file of your Open website adventurer link knowledge.
Make sure it's set to "only external":

And click the transfer CSV button.

While the report is being place along by SEOMoz, head over to http://www.linkdetective.com/ and build a free account. register and build a replacement project (free accounts area unit restricted to 1 project).

And give it a descriptive name.
Click the "add CSV" button.

And transfer the .csv report you downloaded from OSE

The program can method your link knowledge and show you a report.

If you see too several links coming back from one supply it should be time to feature a lot of diversity to your link profile.
YOU'RE THE COOLEST!
You perceive the present state of link building and have a website that is sturdy to future updates. Next, let's find out how to spot links that the search engines love in Chapter 2: seek the proper Link.
TAKE American state TO INTRO
TAKE American state TO CHAPTER 2
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