The Truth About Backlinks
Backlinks are the most overrated and the most misunderstood of SEO factors. This article will hopefully shed light on the most darkest of SEO factors.
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80 percent myth
Unfortunately one of the biggest myths today about Backlinks is that search engines give 80 percent of the power to Backlinks. This is often quoted by internet marketing companies who are mainly inclined to selling you the links.
The specific origin of the myth is unknown, but suspicions lie with a handful internet marketing companies that are big link sellers. This myth has spread over the net like a wildfire giving link sellers a generous payday.
Obviously the vast majority of people do not have the time or the mechanisms available to check the information given to them. Thankfully we do. At request we can show you some of our test sites that have no backlinks at all, and are ranked at the top.
One would think, and muster up the thought, why would a highly sophisticated search engine company worth billions of dollars jeopardise its revenue by having a weak algorithm in which 80% of the power is given to backlinks?
Link "builders"
Link "builders" refers to individuals or companies who are paid to post links on forums and comments posts.
Links created on forums or comment posts are useless in terms of SEO. Links that are posted on forums contain an external reference in the source code showing search engines that the link is of a external source.
Links in comment posts and forums contain a 'no follow' reference in the source code. Using Internet Explorer, right click page (forum or comments) which contains the the link and select 'source' look at the code that follows the link.
Link 'builders' who claim to be building links, are in fact actually creating links for you. But they are playing on the clients ignorance that they don't know anything about the external reference and no follow reference codes.
Well now you do!!!
Link rolling or link buying
Usually an individual or a 'SEO consultant' will claim that they own several thousand websites and that they will place your links on those websites for a fixed sum, or monthly subscription.
1. These websites are often word press blogs, which contain rss feeds. Your links are uploaded automatically to these sites, which means the individual / company doesn't have to do it manually, which means they don't need to pay anyone to do it, hence maximising profit. Search engines are able to read the code and tell that the links are on a rss page.
2. They will tell you that the links are permanent and that the websites they own have a good page rank (Page rank is a score 0 to 10 that Google gives to pages, the higher the score the better). These links are not removed, but are often rolled back from the home page, that contains the PR to other subpages that usually contain no PR score. Hence you subscription has to be continuous in order for the links to continually roll on to the home page. The rolling occurs when other peoples links are added to the home page, and your link gets moved to page 2, 3, and so on. 3. The link is placed along with several other clients links which are often in no relation to yours.
Links that you don't want
- You don't want links from forums or comment posts
- Neither from dynamic sites or pages which contain RSS feeds
- Or from open sites such as (wiki and similar sites that are open for editing)
- Nor from blogs (i.e wordpress and others)
- Nor from sites that don't have a theme or niche area related to yours
- Or from pages that have more than 4 other links on the page
The Backlinks that are useful in your SEO
Backlinks are one of 20 factors that influence your ranking. However it is not the major factor, but more of a minor factor.
To show search engines that your site is a authoritative site in its niche area, search engines will look at what websites link to yours.
Lets say, if you have a site that's in the field of Health and Wellbeing, and you have a link coming from a well trusted and reputable medical site, it will earn you some good points. Top search engines do have systems in place to be able to distinguish which sites are highly reputable and trusted and the niche area of the site.
Before you get too exited, rest assured these sites will most likely not link to your site in exchange for a payment. Only that you will have to earn your place there.
Our 20 factors advice contains a guide that shows you how you can gain your own websites reputability.