27 Tips For Optimizing Your Websites Backlinks

The key to ranking well in the Search engines results pages (SERPs) is creating quality backlinks to your website. The key to creating quality backlinks is to optimize them during the process of link building.

This list will provide a better understanding on how to optimize this process. It will also show you how not to get ripped off by the webmasters who agree to putting your link on their site. Many will go to great lengths to ensure your website link has no real value or ‘link juice’. This prevents their web page leaking Pagerank by reducing the number of ‘dofollow’ outbound links on their page.

Here is a list of factors that will ensure your links are fully optimized, and save you lots of time by stopping you building poor quality links that have no value. The list is in no order of importance.

1. Look for high Pageranking sites PR3+, you will need a lot of PR0 links to make an impact. Also ensure the Pagerank is real. Look at Google’s cache of the page, fake Pagerank will show an entirely different website.

2. Ensure your link is anchor texted with your keywords e.g. SEO consultant

Though this is well known, it is seldom done effectively

3. Try to use different text combinations and keywords in your links. e.g. London dentist, dentist London, W1 dentist.

4. Ensure the link will be a permanent/static html links. Links from forum signatures for example will only last a few months.

5. Create links in text format only, do not use any form of graphics that might hinder the search engine bots from following the link.

6. Do not create links in framed pages. Google and other search engines do not like them.

7. If someone says they will put a link on their website for you, make sure the links are not in JavaScript – check the source code of the site. This can sometimes be hard to spot. Search engines will ignore this type of link.

8. The websites you are putting your link on must be live. It must also be cached by Google (Another devious method to hide your link is for the webmaster to use cloaking...when Googlebot comes sniffing it will be shown a different page with no links on).

9. Check Links do not go through a redirect script – your link may be on a page, but when you click on it you are taken to another site entirely.

10. Try to avoid Flash sites – though Google is getting better at spidering them now.

11. Links cannot include a rel=nofollow tag - they must be DOFOLLOW to get the link juice. Though sites like MSN are reported to be ignoring this tag. Get hold of some good software to check this quickly – going through source code is very time consuming.

12. Avoid automated techniques – there are NO short cuts, well not many ;)

13. DO NOT use link exchange programs or web rings – Google knows them all and you will get penalised

14. Ensure the Page is not excluded by robots.txt

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/

This entry tells the spiders to avoid any file located in the cgi-bin directory. If the web site owner places your link on a page inside this directory, it’s worthless.

15. Get links from different Class-C IP addresses – 200 from one IP is not great. Again use an ip checker on the website your intended links are going.

16. Do not buy links – Matt Cutts will sniff them out. This includes sponsored ads etc.

17. Avoid websites with Scraped content, you do not want links from a bad neighbour. Though they may not harm your website, they are worthless. You can go and use Copyscape to check a websites content for originality. For a quick free check, just cut and paste a large chunck of text into Google, this will show you all the websites with that exact content. The site may be the original owner of the content which has just been stolen - this is very common.

18. Try to get links from sites that are highly ranked by Alexa

19. Do not go all out for .edu and .gov websites – it is a myth that these pass more link juice. Though they often have good Pagerank.

20. Ensure you manually submit links to directories – getting into DMOZ for example is hard enough these days. Also try and get in the top directories first and spend time getting these links. See my authority directories list for some examples.

21. Avoid reciprocal links...well in moderation. These are out dated and frowned upon.

22. Build your links slowly...organically...like producing a fine wine. Don’t go all out and get 1000 in 1 week.

23. Stick to English language sites only, unless it is a foreign language site

24. Avoid pages with a high number of outbound links – if you are blog commenting and there are 200 comments, your link juice will be heavily diluted.

25. Keep your link pages relevant to your site. A link from a dog breeding website to your SEO Consultancy will not have much link juice.

26. Do not outsource link building to third world countries just because the prices look cheap. Quality control is vital, you may end up with a 1000 links from porn sites which could have a negative effect on your SERP rankings.

27. TEST the link actually works!

Edit: 7/10/09 - A few updates:

A few more tips to add to this hub

• Make sure your link is on the cached version of the domain www v non www
• Check the age of site your link is going. Sites that are old will have more trust and authority. Use the Wayback Machine to check.
• Look for Dmoz listing, Yahoo directory etc. Use firefox plugins for a quick look. Again these add trust to a domain. See Trustrank for more information on this point.
• Has the domain been dropped? Check in above tool and use domain tools.
• Check the domain does not have a penalty – it may have 5K of links to the website put the page where your link is going could have a page level penalty.
• Ensure you are not with bad neibours. If your link is on a page with poison outbound links you could be in trouble (porn, viagra, pills).
• Link position. Try and get your link high up on the page. Footer links have less value.

Keep a log of all your hard work...go back and check things have been done properly. Also use quality backlink checking software to review your existing links. They should show you the Pagerank, IP address and dofollow tags. Think of all your links like an investment portfolio - a good link portfolio will add value to your website.

I hope this list has not put you off your link building task! If you liked this article you can also see my other hub about PageRank Sculpting.

Also on my own blog:

Understanding Linkbait with my Linkbait Examples - this post looks at how many natural links top quality linkbait blogposts actually attract.

Linkedin Optimization Tips: Get your profile to rank well

Gareth

Freelance SEO consultant