SEO Tips: What Makes for a Bad Link?
If you are trying to develop a sound link building strategy for your SEO campaign, you should be aware that all links are not rated equally. However, there are some links that are considered worse than others and they often share certain characteristics. Here are a few properties that make for a bad link.
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The Link Is on a Known Bad Site
If the link to your site comes from a known bad site, such as a low-authority domain, spam site or a site that has been blacklisted by Google, you will probably not even see the link show up in the search index. While just one link isn’t enough to damage your campaign, if you have many of these links you may find that you could run into problems with your SEO campaign at some point.
The Link Appears Too Many Times on the Same Domain
If the link appears many times on a single domain, either your site is really, really popular on that site. However, the truth probably is that your site link is spam. If you don’t want Google to discount your backlinks, you need to make sure that the same link has not been placed many times on the same domain.
Link Site Content Is Not Relevant
If the site that features your link has content on the page that isn’t relevant to the content that can be found on your website, this is another red flag for the search engines. These days context is important and you must make sure that your site is relevant to the pages that you post links on.
You Are Exchanging Links With the Site
If you are linking to the site and the target site is in turn linking back to your business, this is an obvious sign that your link is a paid link on the site. Google does not like for users to engage in purchasing backlinks. As a result, you can lose domain authority for your site if you engage in this practice. Google has already lowered rankings for sites that engaged in this practice with several high profile cases.
Keywords for Anchor Text
These days, Google does not like any overt attempts to gain better rankings, such as by using keyword phrases for anchor text. If you are still using this practice, you should eliminate immediately from the SEO techniques that you use. Otherwise, you could be risking a Google Penalty against your site. A Google Penalty can be very hard to get rid of.
If you are unsure whether there are bad links to your site, you should use a tool that can help you to detect such links. Alternatively, an experienced SEO can help you locate and reverse the effects of these bad links on your SEO efforts. If you need help with improving your SEO strategy, Brian Hong of Infintech Designs can help. Request an SEO audit and free quote for SEO services today.
