The Relationship Between Backlinks and SEO
Make sure you’re implementing a linking strategy that will help your SEO, not hurt it.
What is a backlink?
A backlink, simply put, is a link to your website found on another website primarily for the purpose of SEO. In the past, web owners would place their URL on as many webpages as possible, but times have changed. New adjustments to Google’s search engine algorithm have given web crawlers the ability to differentiate between links with high and low quality. Because of this, quality backlinks are now just as important as quantity. The irony is that web owners spend so much effort placing their links on low quality sites that it actually hurts their SEO.
What makes a link low or high quality?
An example of a low quality link would be a site that is heavy on ads, as web crawlers have a tendency to mark these as spammy. Websites that have pages dedicated to long lists of links are often disregarded as well. Low quality links may also include those that are completely irrelevant to the content on your website. For example, if you’re a company that sells healthy food and you’re linking to interior design companies, web crawlers will recognize that there isn’t much of a correlation there.
How do I find high quality links?
High quality links are easy to find using Google PageRank. Also, try tracking what your competitors are doing! A great resource for this is Open Site Explorer on Moz. It allows you to enter in your competitor’s URL and subsequently provides you with all of their backlinks in an excel spreadsheet, where you can find those with the highest authority and develop a strategy to get them to link to your site as well. This tactic can provide you with some great linking ideas.
For more detailed information regarding backlinks, visit this blog
