Even after a decade, backlinks remain the essential element of search engine optimisation. Page and domain-level back-links are the most significant ranking factors, according to Moz, while CIO ranks them second after content relevance.
However, unlike the past decade, it is no longer quantity but content of backlinks that matters. In reality, since Google’s 2012 Penguin Update penalises sites with a high concentration of low-quality backlinks, having a lot of them can lead to your site being de-indexed. A solid SEO plan is more important than ever before. What, then, are the qualities of an excellent backlink? How can you increase the number of positive connections while decreasing the number of negative ones? Let’s go find out!
What is exactly good backlink?
When determining a site’s ranking, Google and other search engines take into account a wide variety of metrics, including the content of its backlinks. Experts believe most of these factors can be loosely grouped into four broad categories: relevance, trust, diversity, and authority; however, they rarely reveal their exact mix.
Relevancy
When a user types a query into Google or another search engine, they should get the most pertinent results possible. People will stop using them if the quality of the search results they provide decreases. It makes sense, then, to evaluate connection quality based on relevance. The quality of the linking site increases the value of the hyperlink. An inbound connection from a construction site, for instance, could be more relevant to your home decor site than one from a fitness site. Of course, this is simplifying things too much. Numerous variables contribute to a page’s ranking in a search engine.
Trust
When we say a website has high “trust,” we’re referring to how highly Google regards it. It has been contended that search engines likely use a list of “trusted websites” to evaluate a domain’s reliability. The BBC, Hubspot, and Huffington Post are three instances of reputable online publications. A domain’s credibility increases as it draws closer to an established one. The number of reputable external connections that point to a domain is one indicator of its proximity. Theoretically, a search engine is more likely to believe Site A than Site B, and so on, if Site A has a backlink from, say, the BBC, and Site B has a backlink from Site A. According to industry speculation, Google employs a confidence ranking system to assess the relevance of inbound links from various domains.
Diversity
A well-rounded link profile would include backlinks from a wide variety of websites. All of your connections, or at least the vast majority of them, should not originate from the same domain. All or the vast majority of your links shouldn’t come from the same category of sites (like other web directories). A strong link profile has a wide range of links, in more ways than one.
As well as varying the anchor text you use, you should vary where on the website the link appears (the main text, the footer, the sidebar, etc.). The link’s property, such as NOFOLLOW or FOLLOW, may also be included.
Authority
Authority can be interpreted in a wide variety of contexts. It appears that everyone in SEO automatically treats DA (Moz domain authority) as the gold standard for measuring influence. In reality, DA is just Moz’s speculation on how Google measures credibility. Open Site Explorer provides a straightforward computational measurement of domain authority out of a possible 100 points.
CNN.com, to give just one illustration, has a 97/100 domain authority. More than 5,000 unique domains contribute to its more than 152,000 overall links. Equally, before focusing on a name for your link-building campaign, you can look up its domain authority. Ideally, we’d like to see a score of 70 or higher, but anything above 40 will do. However, drawing conclusions about a domain solely based on the DA measure is problematic.
Finding Reliable Sources for Backlinks
Some SEO specialists have taken Matt Cutts’ statement that “The objective is not to’make your links appear natural,’ the objective is that your links are natural,” to mean that if you produce excellent content, people will naturally want to link to it. The old adage “write it, and links will come” isn’t always true, though.
Although essential, high-quality material is not the only factor in attracting inbound links. That can only be accomplished by actively seeking out high authority websites and providing them with material they will want to link to. The issue is that websites with a high DA score may not always post your content because they have, quite reasonably, extremely high standards for content quality. Some possible solutions are outlined below.
The Majestic SEO Link Audit Tool
Majestic is a great resource for investigating your existing link profile and identifying problem areas. In a short amount of time, you can compare your website’s link profile (in terms of quality, diversity, and relevance) to that of your rivals. This will offer you a good idea of which sites to focus on.
Build a Catalog of Online Resources
To begin, think about who you’re trying to reach and compile an inventory of relevant websites. The aforementioned authority and trust ratings, as well as the perceived difficulty of gaining a backlink from a specific site, should be included in the list.
For instance, getting links from a website that allows guest articles from anyone is much simpler than getting links from a website that does not. Keep in mind that the finest links are typically found in the most difficult-to-obtain posts.