Link Types

Link building is an important part of SEO, and is becoming increasingly difficult as Google looks to minimise spam and maximise quality. One way to ensure your website thrives over others is to build a diverse and varied back link profile.

Here are a selection of different types of links, can you think of any others?

Miscellaneous Links:
There many types of links ones I couldn't classify include links are found on private blogs, links from resource pages, university links, link exchange pages, links found in the footer and/or sidebar of private websites and referral links.  These often make up the majority of the links pointing to a website. These ‘other’ types of links build up over time, giving the site more authority and value in the eyes of the search engines.

Internal Links:
Links created internally to connect pages within a site. These links are important as they facilitate the user navigation of a site. A limit should be placed on how many internal links each single page of a website has, typically less than 100.

Affiliate Links:
Links created from partner sites are called affiliate links, these links are from another website owned or partnering with the same company.

Article Links:
Articles are a good medium for advertisement and are used to drive traffic. Articles deliver a long term benefit with permanent backlinks which can grow naturally when content is re-published.

News Article Links:
These link are built naturally when a company is mentioned in the news. These links can be of great value, especially when they come from authority sites such as the bbc.co.uk which has a domain authority of 100.

Wiki Article:
Wiki sites such as  Wikepedia, which is the 4th most visited website in the world (Source: Alexa.com), are considered high authority sites and are used to create quality backlinks and drive traffic.

Directory Links:
Directories are the places where people go to look for websites in specific sectors, they are popular in the online world. Directories must be carefully selected to offer SEO benefit as many have been abused in the past.

Press Release Links:
A well written Press Release can be a good source of authority backlinks and traffic.

Foreign Site Links:
Foreign links are links which come from websites which are not written in English. The benefit of having a foreign site link is it makes your backlink profile more diverse. The problem with this type of link is a foreign site could be poor quality or spam and this can have a negative effect on the sites linked to.

Forum Posts:
Forums are a good source of backlinks, especially when the forum is related because it helps Google create an association between the forum subject and the site. Forums are also a good source of relevant traffic and the visitor is more likely to convert.


Social Bookmark Links:
This is a link from a site like Digg, or StumbleUpon where you bookmark the page for others to find.

Social Media Links:
Social links are links from sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, they are good for traffic and also get pages ranking well if the links are re-published a high number of times.

Image Links:
Image links are backlinks from an image as opposed to text. These are sometimes sponsored or paid for links, but not always. Google will often pick up images and show them in the Google Images part of the search engine so they can be a good source for backlinks and traffic.

Using Forums for Link Building

What is a Forum?
A forum is an Internet message board where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. They are great places to connect with others who have similar interests to you. Forums are typically centred on a specific topic and therefore are ideal for getting expert advice and finding people with a certain interest.

What is a Forum Signature?
A forum signature is a piece of text (sometimes an image too) which can be placed underneath any comments you make in forum posts. This is normally created in the control panel of your profile and can be set to automatically insert underneath all of your comments. Typically people include a link back to their website and give some details about their name and job title.

The Problem with Forum Links
The problem with forum links is spammers. For years underhand link builders have used forum signatures to create keyword rich anchor text links to websites without providing participating in the discussion.

How to Use Forums Correctly
Forums are ideal places to display your knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. You must however, be sure you are joining a community in order to share or give knowledge; a spammer can be spotted a mile off. If you are there solely to advertise this will be apparent and your efforts will not be appreciated by the community. You can also get banned by the forum moderators.

Use forums as a place to support your company by sharing your knowledge and creating a favourable impression to members of your community. Forums now often have a bad reputation among the SEO community as in the past they have been used by spammers only to get a link from the forum signature.

The best way to approach using forums is to look at it as a branding/PR exercise. If you get a link back it’s a bonus. If you are providing useful advice and information to the members of the forum there is a high chance people will visit your website.

There is also evidence that brand mentions do have some SEO benefit, so even if the forum does not provide a live link it is still worth participating in very relevant forums as these can still drive relevant traffic to your site. Also the better you can answer a question the more likely it is your answer will appear in SERPs

Top Tips for Forum Participation

• Stick to forums that are related to your area of expertise
• Ensure your profile is up to date with all your correct contact information
• Help members by answering questions to the best of your knowledge
• Do not spam
• Engage with forum moderators and those with a high post count

SEO Ranking Elements

When looking at why certain sites rank above others I would investigate the following metrics:

URL: The current page ranking for the specified term.

Page Authority: This predicts the likelihood of a single page to rank well. The higher the score the greater chance that page has of ranking well. Page Authority is worked out on a 100-point, logarithmic scale. Therefore, it's easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it would be to grow from 70 to 80.

Domain Authority: This predicts how well a website may perform in the search engines. It is useful for comparing one site with another. Again he higher the score the greater chance that website has of ranking well. Domain Authority is also worked out on a 100-point, logarithmic scale. Therefore, it's easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it would be to grow from 70 to 80.

On page content: Content is King in SEO and this column analyses how the ranking pages are utilising content on the page. Search engines use content to help identify what each page is about.

Internal Linking to/from the Homepage: Internal website linking is important to help link juice to flow around a website. Typically the most authoritative page on a website is the home page and should therefore successfully link to the pages on the site in a way that passes as much link juice as possible.

Anchor text used to link to the Homepage: Anchor text is the text that appears in the HTML code of a link e.g. the anchor text of this link would be engineering jobs:
 <a href="http://examplesite.com">engineering jobs</a>
Search engines use anchor text as a signal as to what the page being linked to may be about.

Domain Age and Sub-Domain Age: The age of a domain has a big impact on ranking ability this is because domain age cannot easily be faked. Older domains are likely to have more links pointing to them and will probably have built up a certain level of authority which comes with age.

Main Keywords Used On Page: The search engines use on page content to determine the relevance of a given page for a search query; the amount of times a term appears on the page can impact on the ranking of that page in the SERPS. The table counts up the main terms the page appears to be focusing on.

Total Links to Root Domain/Sub-Domain: Search engines use links as a way to determine the most relevant page for a search term. The more links you have pointing to a page the higher the chance of ranking well for a term, although there are other factors which also impact the value of links. This includes the anchor text used in the link and the quality of the site which the link has been generated from.

Link Building Strategies

For search engines links are the routes between pages. Using sophisticated link analysis, the engines can determine how pages are related to each other and in what ways.

Search engines use links as votes they help to determine which pages are important and popular. The engines themselves have refined link data to a fine art, and complex algorithms create evaluations of sites and pages based on this information.

Links aren't everything in SEO, but search professionals attribute a large portion of the engines' algorithms to link-based factors. Through links, engines analyse the popularity of a website & page based on the number and popularity of pages linking to them, but also metrics like trust, spam, and authority.

Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trusted sites, while spammy sites receive very few links from trusted sources. Authority models, suggest links are a very good way of identifying expert documents on a given subject. It is harder to generate quality authority links and therefore these links are given more weight by the search engines when ranking pages. The Hilltop Algorithm discusses how authority links can help determine authority. It demonstrates how links from relevant related non-affiliated sites will help with ranking. And also highlights the relevance of anchor text and the quality of the linking site.

The focus on link analysis makes link building critical to getting the attention of search engines and is required in order to rank highly. 

10 Ways to Evaluate Links

1 - Links Higher Up in HTML Code Are More Powerful

All things being equal siteA till outrank B, which will outrank C. Other tests show the power of the higher link will win over other ranking factors such as the title tag.

2 - External Links are More Influential than Internal Links

3 - Links from Unique Domains Matter More than Links from Previously Linking Sites
This indicates the importance of link diversity. Increasing links from a site which has already linked is not as valuable as a link from a new site.

4 - Links from Sites Closer to a Trusted Seed Set Pass More Value
This is related to trust, links from trusted sites pass more link juice. Links which flow from a trusted seed site will have more weight. Sites will benefit if links originate from highly trusted domains.

5 - Links from "Inside" Unique Content Pass More Value than Those from Footers/Sidebar/Navigation

6 - Keywords in HTML Text Pass More Value than those in Alt Attributes of Linked Images
The alt attribute of an image link is often treated as the anchor text of a link, although these pass less value than HTML text links.

7 - Links from More Important, Popular, Trusted Sites Pass More Value
Links from a less important page on a trusted site are more valuable than a homepage link from a lower quality site.

8 - Links Contained Within <noscript> Tags Pass Lower (and Possibly No) Value

9 - Pages with fewer links pass more value

Pages with fewer links are better than being linked to by a page with many links on it (all other things being equal).

10 - Pages that Link to Web Spam May Devalue the Other Links they Host

• Sites which link to spam and use poison keywords can lower the value passed through links.

• More popular sites that link to you will help your site to earn trust and authority.

• Local and topic specific links matter more than links from general off topic sites.

• The web is full of spam, links from low quality sites can lower trust. Conversely quality links from high trust domains will boost your authority.

• Your link profile can also determine your spam score. Linking to spam sites can devalue your site.

• The freshness of links also has an impact, the recency if links can help judge current relevance.

• Social links on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ have an impact but they are not the same as links.

Types of links

Natural links are given by sites who want to link to your content. These links require the creation of quality content and the ability to create awareness about it.

Manual links is when an SEO creates links. The SEO often provides a value proposition by explaining to the link target why creating the link is in their best interest.

Self-Created, Non-Editorial links is when an SEO creates links through guest books, forum signatures, blog comments, or user profiles. These links offer the lowest value, but can, in aggregate, still have an impact. In general, search engines continue to devalue these types of links, and have been known to penalise sites that solely pursue these links. Today, these types of links are often considered spammy.

Link building can also help to drive traffic. Links that send high volumes of direct traffic not only tend to provide better rankings, but also send targeted, visitors to your site.

Some ways to get links:

Get your customers, suppliers, partners to link to you.

Create a blog and add valuable, informative and entertaining content. Blogs have the ability to contribute fresh material on a regular basis and earn links from other sites who find the content useful.

Public relations can be a great way to earn links, get the attention of the press. You could run a competition, release a new product or make a controversial statement.

Getting listed in relevant directories can help with ranking and driving relevant traffic.

Beware when paying for links as the search engines look to devalue these links.