Starting work on promoting your project on the Internet, sooner or later you will come across such concepts as “link building”, “link mass”, “backlinks”, “backlink donors”, “miralinks”, and other words that are little understood by an ordinary web user. Let’s prevent this from happening and quickly figure out what backlinks are and what other terms mean.
What are backlinks?
Let’s talk about the complex in simple words. The term “backlink” comes from English, which literally means “links from external sources”. So-called only those links that lead to your site from other resources.
We will illustrate it with an example:
Let’s say you have a website. Let’s designate it X. You have prepared and want to place an article about yourself or your services with a link to your site X on the pages of any news or information resource (let’s call such a resource Y). So, a link in your article posted on resource Y will be a backlink for your site X.
Depending on the goals, as well as the method of placement, the following types of backlinks can be distinguished:
• temporary;
• eternal, which are placed in posts;
• eternal, which are posted in articles.
Everything here is very simple and clear: temporary links are placed for a specific period agreed in advance, and then deleted, eternal links, on special conditions, remain for the entire duration of the operation of the trust platform on which they are posted.
Why is it needed and what does it give the site?
The presence of backlinks gives the site one thing – the link mass. This is the general meaning of all references to source X on the Internet. Please note that this means only address mention, that is, a direct link to a resource that begins with https:// Х-site.com or http:// Х-site.com. The only difference is in the secured and unsecured protocol (have you noticed the letter “s” at the end of http?). But we will not delve into this topic, since it is worthy of a separate article.
So, a site needs a link mass for one good reason – Google, Yandex, and other search engines pay attention to it when ranking (sorting sites in search results for a specific query). Search engines even have special metrics to measure link mass. Google has PR (page rank), while Yandex has TIC (thematic citation index). The quantity and quality of the link mass determine the effectiveness of SEO promotion of your website in search engines.
What are donors, recipients and link authority
But not every backlink will be useful for promotion. Placement on low-grade or even banned Google and / or Yandex resources can lead to a drop in the site’s position. Thus, you can even drive a resource under a filter – a special search engine algorithm that removes from the search results sites that use low-quality or incorrect promotion methods.
Sometimes this dishonest method (placing backlinks on “black” resources) is used by competitors who try to remove the site of another company from the search results. But, fortunately, search algorithms are not out of place and now it is not so easy to harm a rival site by posting a couple of its backlinks on dubious forums or portals.
Still, SEO specialists are very picky about choosing a place for a backlink. It is necessary to manually assess each potential donor (the resource on which the backlink will be hosted) according to the following parameters:
1. Relevance to the topic. Want to link back to your windshield wiper site? A women’s portal about Korean cosmetics is hardly suitable for these purposes. Choose the most suitable resources for the link being promoted.
2. The popularity of the site (the number of unique visitors per day). Resource traffic plays an important role in site ranking. The more visitors stay on the selected information platform and read the articles posted on it, the better.
3. The ratio of in- and outgoing backlinks. The greater the difference in favor of outgoing from the site backlinks, the higher the risk of being filtered for spam. Leaving a backlink on such a site runs the risk of attracting low-quality traffic and suspicions from search engines in the future.
4. Age of the site. The older the better. On projects with domains less than a year old, it is not very profitable to leave your links. But, if you know for sure that this site has excellent prospects, gradually “grows”, and along with it the weight of your link “grows”, then leaving a backlink on it will be more profitable in terms of price and prospects.
5. The presence of sanctions from the search engine. The specialist needs to check if the project is not included in the filter from the search engine. Otherwise, placing a backlink on such a site will only harm your site. Google Search Console shows straight away if the website is filtered.
Please note that the better the indicators for each of the listed items, the more “weight” the backlink will have. That is, the higher its measurable significance will be.
How to check backlinks to a site?
Very often, efforts to quickly increase the link mass by buying a lot of backlinks on the first trust sites that come across, become the reason for a sudden drop in search results or even a fall under one of the Google or Yandex filters. Therefore, it is very important to regularly check website backlinks for quality and eliminate bad links in time.
The list of low-quality includes backlinks from donors with a high level of spam, as well as:
• non-contextual backlinks, the subject of which is very different from the subject of the donor site;
• links that contain commercial anchors and a large number of high-frequency keys;
• end-to-end backlinks;
The list is supplemented by links that lead to questionable sites, as well as links from a network of sites with the same IP address. You can check backlinks to the site, as well as find out their number, using the following services:
• Ahrefs
• Megaindex
• Google Search Console
• Serpstat
• Yandex. Webmaster
When analyzing the quality of backlinks, indicators such as domain age, its rating and authority, indexing in Google Serp, as well as the site quality index in Yandex and other important indicators are used. In the event that low quality backlinks were found, it is strongly not recommended to delete them all at once. Remember that search engines are negative about drastic or massive changes. Remove gradually, replace low-quality ones with high-quality ones, or simply close them from indexing.
Where to buy backlinks?
There are many possibilities of getting backlinks. Here are two of the most popular and effective ones:
Purchase
Using exchanges or directly negotiating with a suitable resource, the SEO-optimizer pays a negotiated or static price for a link. In 90% of cases, it will be an advertising or informational article with an organically inscribed link to the desired page. In the CIS region, Miralinks remains the most popular platform for posting such articles. These are interesting informational or advertising articles, written in accordance with the requirements of the sites, for further placement with a link to your resource.
Some exchanges allow you to rent quality backlinks for a fixed period of time. It simplifies the process of using backlinks and makes it more affordable.
Crowd marketing
Mostly a free way to leave a mention of your site on thematic platforms. To do this, leave comments with a link to the project in the forum, any discussion, on the information portal, etc. But it is not a fact that the link in the comments will not be deleted or closed in noindex / nofollow over time. Nevertheless, this option is working and should not be discarded.
How do you know if you need backlinks?
To do this, answer the following questions:
1. Do you have your own website?
2. Does it have a commercial purpose? Are you looking to profit from it?
3. Are you promoting it in search engines?
4. Are you dissatisfied with the result of the promotion?
5. Do you want to improve your site’s position, increase traffic and increase the number of orders?
If you answered “yes” to at least 3 out of 5 questions, then any SEO optimizer will point you to the need for backlinks. If only because this is a really effective method. Of course, not as a full-fledged replacement for a comprehensive website promotion, but as an additional source for strengthening and growing the positive reputation of the site in the Google and Yandex search engines.
And if you do not have time to understand all these SEO features or you are afraid to do something wrong, order links in our SEOTANKER.COM store. We will do everything right!
