10 Ways to Kill Your Website Rankings With Links

[webgeek]

Linkbuilding, or link handling in general, when done properly, can be a great way to build authority and gain brand value, expand your reach and acquire new visitors to your website.

When done for the wrong reasons or using approaches deemed against 'Google guidelines', a website can be at risk for lowered rankings or even being completely de-indexed from all search results.

If you'd like to learn more about what are the things to NOT DO, please see this post on the 10 Ways to Kill Your Website Rankings with Links.

Summary of what NOT to do:
1) Buy links to improve pagerank
2) Sell links to improve pagerank
3) Link to web spammers
4) Excessive reciprocal links
5) Too many links on a page
6) Broken links
7) Sneaky redirect links
8) Doorway page links
9) Hidden Links
10) Building links too quickly

Take heed of those 10, and freely suggest any additional which may need to be added in making the list even larger.


Note: Mods, if you find this post to be too self-serving, then please feel free to remove. I'm only adding this to hopefully help clear some of the obvious confusion about links, link building and Google guidelines (which has been shown regularly in this subforum).

 

[nitro23456]

More importantly with Penguin..... vary anchor text.

 

[I, Brian]

Summary of what NOT to do:

All you've done is put a list of Google support answers on links, and added a couple of third party references.

The blog post you link to makes no attempt to explain anything about why these may be on the list, and you clearly aren't sure about how some of them may apply.

So why not try and explain how the different aspects of the list apply?

 

[webgeek]

As you've pointed out through criticism, rather than contribution, it is indeed a listing of what not to do, not a treatise or in-depth explanation.

The hyperlinks point back to the original sources, where they are explained in excruciating detail.

So, rather than me taking someone's content and rewriting it, I thought it much better to link to the original sources and give credit where it's due.

 

[ThomasBuckland]

1) Buy links to improve pagerank
2) Sell links to improve pagerank
3) Link to web spammers
4) Excessive reciprocal links
5) Too many links on a page
6) Broken links
7) Sneaky redirect links
8) Doorway page links
9) Hidden Links
10) Building links too quickly

1.) Agree and disagree - buying links from people who sell links in bulk this is bad but buying a link from someone who owns a nice clean high PR website, this is gooood.

2.) Agree - do not sell links as soon you will become greedy and oversell and then rankings will be effective.

3. + 4.) agree - don't spam or get spammed.

5. + 6.) Agree - broken links do nothing, only the first link on a page is considered by google (common misconception.)

7.) + 8. 9.) Agree - Just don't do any of them.

10.) Building links too quickly? - How quick is too quick? Can you get too many perfect backlinks? What is a perfect backlink, too many questions no one but the big G knows the answer too.

Nice post though liked it a lot.

Thanks
Tom.

 

[clara_butler]

More importantly with Penguin..... vary anchor text.

Thanks but could you please tell me after how many posts (on commenting) i should change anchor text ? means i am doing blog commenting so should i change anchor text after 30-35 posts ? or less than this ?

 

[fisicx]

Well since 99% of blog comments are no-follow and the rest are mostly spammed I'd suggest it's no going to make any difference. You could comment for the rest of your life and the difference it's going to make to your ranking is zero.

 

[clara_butler]

Well since 99% of blog comments are no-follow and the rest are mostly spammed I'd suggest it's no going to make any difference. You could comment for the rest of your life and the difference it's going to make to your ranking is zero.

Means commenting on no-follow blogs will directly affect Google ranking ?

 

[fisicx]

Means commenting on no-follow blogs will directly affect Google ranking ?

No. It means you can comment all you like and it won't make any difference to your ranking.

No-follow (99% of blogs) means google will just ignore the link.

General rule: the easier a link is to get, the lower the value of that link. Article submission, directory submission, blog commenting, social bookmarking and so on are all self generated links and are pretty much ignored by the search engines.

 

[terryuk]

Most of those still rank websites and you missed the biggest killer - interlinking

 

[Boydie]

If you follow Google's guidelines doing anything to "get" more links is bad

 

[webgeek]

More importantly with Penguin..... vary anchor text.

Although that's a great recommendation, I've not found it actually come from Google as a directive. It's come out more as anecdotal evidence after Penguin, than actual Google guidelines. Is there something you've seen on this, from Google?

Most of those still rank websites and you missed the biggest killer - interlinking

Isn't interlinking another way of explaining what happens with doorway pages? Or, what exactly did you have in mind... Is there something you've seen on this, from Google?

If you follow Google's guidelines doing anything to "get" more links is bad

I'm afraid that's completely untrue. Where have you seen mention, on Google.com, that building links is bad? I've tried to scour all the pages and references, and the Google guidelines suggest ways to avoid building "bad links" and NOT to stop link building completely.

 

[nitro23456]

Although that's a great recommendation, I've not found it actually come from Google as a directive. It's come out more as anecdotal evidence after Penguin, than actual Google guidelines. Is there something you've seen on this, from Google?

Not seen anything directly from Google no, but it is a common sense approach and my own testing has proven (to me) that this is the case.

As the saying goes 'believe nothing you read and only half of what you see'.

By all means read what Google says but don't use it as gospel, Matt Cutts for example regularly talks a load of shít for want of a better term. They regularly 'play' the industry whereby what they recommend in one breath is used to *****slap you next.

 

[Chunkford]

I think someone's been reading Hubspot too much and is living in a dream world with the prefect client, selling the perfect product/service, to the perfect customer.

Google is in the smoke and mirrors business to protect their algo and to drive uncertainty between peers trying to rank higher in their search engines.
Google will not and never will state directives and will only ever produce vague information that can be interpreted in many ways.

 

[Simon-M]

Can someone define the following.

1. Too much
2. Too fast
3. Too many

These are not quantities and they mean different things to different people. Google loves it's GUIDELINES to be "woolly as hell" as it suites their needs, not yours.

 

[fisicx]

If you launch a cloned alternative to groupon and the next day 1000 links appear from free for all directories then that's too many too soon.

If you launch a Facebook game that has angry tortoises chucking baked beans at the slugs then google will be happy with 1000 links from blogs, news sitesand other places appearing within 24 hours.

If you run a news story about a breaking scandal then 1000 inbounds within an hour is acceptable.

If the link profile is natural then there is no too many too soon. One SEO company I know doesn't do much link building. All they do is sow the seeds and let the bloggers and commentators do the rest.

 

[Simon-M]

If you launch a cloned alternative to groupon and the next day 1000 links appear from free for all directories then that's too many too soon.

If you launch a Facebook game that has angry tortoises chucking baked beans at the slugs then google will be happy with 1000 links from blogs, news sitesand other places appearing within 24 hours.

If you run a news story about a breaking scandal then 1000 inbounds within an hour is acceptable.

If the link profile is natural then there is no too many too soon. One SEO company I know doesn't do much link building. All they do is sow the seeds and let the bloggers and commentators do the rest.

Is this all anecdotal or do you have the actual numbers listed somewhere?

 

[fisicx]

There are plenty of reports on the topic. The good ones to read are those where an app or article went viral.

Remember the Cadbury' gorilla? Thousands of links in a very short period - didn't hurt at all.

I had something appear on Digg a few years back. Got a shed load of visitors and inbounds jumped from zero to about 500. Ranking improved overnight and has stayed there ever since.

There are no numbers. It all depends on the source and target pages. If the combination is sound then there is no upper limit.

 

[Simon-M]

There are plenty of reports on the topic. The good ones to read are those where an app or article went viral.

Remember the Cadbury' gorilla? Thousands of links in a very short period - didn't hurt at all.

I had something appear on Digg a few years back. Got a shed load of visitors and inbounds jumped from zero to about 500. Ranking improved overnight and has stayed there ever since.

There are no numbers. It all depends on the source and target pages. If the combination is sound then there is no upper limit.

You see this just adds to the problem. Because the guidelines are so woolly people read all sorts into them. Because people are reading what they want into these vague guidelines, it's so easy to fall foul of the big G. All this confusion just serves Google, nobody else. They are happy to see pandemonium among website owners and SEO's.

You always get the smug SEO's coming out after a big Panda or Penguin claiming none of their clients got touched or they improved across the board. This tells me 1 of 2 things.

Either.. they have no to very few clients. Or.. they are lying.

 

[bdw]

Although that's a great recommendation, I've not found it actually come from Google as a directive. It's come out more as anecdotal evidence after Penguin, than actual Google guidelines.

Nothing new there then, eh?

 

[eventdomain]

Agree and disagree - buying links from people who sell links in bulk this is bad but buying a link from someone who owns a nice clean high PR website, this is gooood

Like Google do you mean Google is the biggest link seller of them all, and its doubtful the smaller guys will allow one or two links alone, especially when their trying to make money.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

You see this just adds to the problem. Because the guidelines are so woolly people read all sorts into them. Because people are reading what they want into these vague guidelines, it's so easy to fall foul of the big G. All this confusion just serves Google, nobody else. They are happy to see pandemonium among website owners and SEO's.

You always get the smug SEO's coming out after a big Panda or Penguin claiming none of their clients got touched or they improved across the board. This tells me 1 of 2 things.

Either.. they have no to very few clients. Or.. they are lying.

here is the problem Simon. SEO's spend a LOT of time testing and evaluating (on their own test sites and not client sites) This cost time, and time is money. As a result of this, they are not going to grant open access to the actual research data for audit and use by those who will then benefit from the labours of the SEO's work, without contribution.

I have loads of test sites, I run tests, I then evaluate the findings, and refine tests further to confirm/deny my thoughts. this costs MONEY.

If I am 100% certain of something I will state it as fact, if I am not sure I will say IMO, or possibly, or could, or maybe etc all fluffy talk. I then get someone who says I am talking pooh, I then will argue a little, but ultimately, i don't really care, because it is akin to arguing with somone who is calling your black dog white, when you are well aware it is black. What is the point in arguing.

OK it may appear as arrogant, ignorant ewtc when the SEO then says 'believe what you like', but the only other option would be to turn over reaserch data, which means revealing your test sites, which of course contaminates the tests you carry out.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Like Google do you mean Google is the biggest link seller of them all, and its doubtful the smaller guys will allow one or two links alone, especially when their trying to make money.

None of googles link carry page rank, they are all PR blocked. so while they sell adverts etc, they are not relevant to the ranking algorithm as they have no effect on it.

 

[eventdomain]

they are all PR blocked. so while they sell adverts etc, they are not relevant to the ranking algorithm

I was talking about the amount of links per page, when considering advertising on websites. And that you won't be alone on such web pages! the more popular the site, the more advertisers will be using it.

Advertising on general traffic generating platforms is going to be very expensive, and its taking you away from your target market. Whats the point of 500 visitors a month if their all unfocussed and clicking away within 30 seconds on arrival to your website?

Look, SEO is geared for the SE's right, and they deal in en-mass untargeted traffic, and this is all suddenly going to collate itself into categories and hit your website, then buy from you. I doubt it.

What I'm saying is, its too easy for me to stop the SEO's from their tricks, as blocking out the freeloaders is too easy these days. You cannot force your way onto websites who dont want you - thus all this SEO work, keyword stuff only works for the 3 main engines, it won't work on blogs, forums or directories, as these aren't bot-driven. So, what are the options left - this is the question that needs to be answered, but I doubt many can get past that.

If websites remove their registration forms, and refuse access - SEO's have had it big time. Many authority/resource sites have done this, the good ones have, and I see it more and more. Deep link pages have already greatly reduced and been de-valued, and I dont mean reduced because of de-valuation by Google either!

Resource ad platform sites like directories will build themselves up, once done - any free access will be denied.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Sorry Ed but I have to disagree with a lot of what you, and the main reason for doing so is that your posts are so detached from the reality of modern SEO practices. Pinterest, facebook, Video, blogging, guest blogging, Blog commenting (proper manual quality interacting commenting where moderators approve your comments), social interaction in general, and of course. You are talking about directories, but they are pretty much dead on the water these days, google has devalued directory links to such a point that people ignore them. Only verticals are of any use, and their days are seriously numebred as Google takes over by promoting its own verticals (the travel industry being their first venture).

The reason people disagree with you so much is that Your idea of what SEO is about, is completely different to what others believe it to be about i.e. we are talking about completely different animals, with you talking about SEO apples being crap, when the SEO is not selling apples he/she is selling oranges.

As a great man once said, " there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is NOT being talked about'ergo, social is king.

I found out this week that my site has aquired a nice juicy link from an authority site that listed the top 100 most influential yada yada's. This is a do follow link, it is on a high PR page, and I was blissfully unaware of it. This sort of thing happens and happens a lot, and if enough people talk about the proiducts, then link get built, if then those links can be bolstered by other links, then everything slots together nicely.

Rumours of the death of SEO are exagerrated, it didn't die, it just grew up

I DO agree with you though that the days of out and out splatter gun SEO are numbered, and that in fact that approach can cause issues for a site.

 

[Simon-M]

here is the problem Simon. SEO's spend a LOT of time testing and evaluating (on their own test sites and not client sites) This cost time, and time is money. As a result of this, they are not going to grant open access to the actual research data for audit and use by those who will then benefit from the labours of the SEO's work, without contribution.

I have loads of test sites, I run tests, I then evaluate the findings, and refine tests further to confirm/deny my thoughts. this costs MONEY.

If I am 100% certain of something I will state it as fact, if I am not sure I will say IMO, or possibly, or could, or maybe etc all fluffy talk. I then get someone who says I am talking pooh, I then will argue a little, but ultimately, i don't really care, because it is akin to arguing with somone who is calling your black dog white, when you are well aware it is black. What is the point in arguing.

OK it may appear as arrogant, ignorant ewtc when the SEO then says 'believe what you like', but the only other option would be to turn over reaserch data, which means revealing your test sites, which of course contaminates the tests you carry out.

The thing is..... I'm not talking about what SEo's do. Seo's do what SEO's do...

I'm talking about what google does. What google says. What woolly guidelines google asks everyone to abide by.

I'm 100% convinced that top SEO's have the numbers as they see them.. I'm 100% convinced that spammers have the numbers as they see them. I'm 100% convinced that every fake SEO and their dog believes what they believe. However, I have no idea what google means by too many, too much, too often etc.

There is the problem!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I have no idea what google means by too many, too much, too often etc.

There is the problem!

<crouches down and whispers> Shall I let you into a secret? Neither does Google

I started writing a reply to this, but decided I would blog about it instead. The simple answer is, all sites are not equal, for some sites, there is no such thing as too fast to often too much etc.

 

[aidan1980]

<crouches down and whispers> Shall I let you into a secret? Neither does Google

I started writing a reply to this, but decided I would blog about it instead. The simple answer is, all sites are not equal, for some sites, there is no such thing as too fast to often too much etc.

good read that is mate

 

[OldWelshGuy]

good read that is mate

So you visited my blog then

 

[eventdomain]

All sites are not equal, yet people treat their marketing as a one-size fits all approach, and then wonder why their marketing plan fails.

A shop window product sales site is no way going to outrank an info-packed guide for link growth. So expect a guide/specialist site to get way more links, ranked pages and traffic, as people seek out information.

Take a look at the following sites - their info-based and probably got a shed load of links pointing their way:

http://www.seat61.com/

http://www.ratemyplacement.co.uk/

they get natural links for sure, and being content based that serves the searcher need, probably a huge student following too. Does SEO play a part in their success? maybe in the early days, but not now as its established, they probably dont rely on it much - they got the link flow because of who they are.... and the new site owners or wannabees miss that little fact.

What usually happens is people copy a successful site, and don't realise the media already knows who is top in the field, so any 3rd or 4th attempt at the same idea can never gain the status of the original father model.

Sites should add content and be as original as possible - this really helps with traction in all sorts of ways.

 

[aidan1980]

So you visited my blog then

yep, which is the whole point of what you were saying

 

[fisicx]

...they get natural links for sure, and being content based that serves the searcher need, probably a huge student following too. Does SEO play a part in their success? maybe in the early days, but not now as its established, they probably dont rely on it much - they got the link flow because of who they.

Duh! That is SEO. Great content properly targeted designed to attract links. It's pretty much core SEO.

 

[eventdomain]

Great content properly targeted designed to attract links. It's pretty much core SEO.

Nah, great content is down to the site owner's effort - nothing to do with an SEO freelancer.

Basic SEO can never, ever establish or grow a website. The owners idea and content building is what makes a site what it is.

 

[fisicx]

Who says the content is down to the owner? You have a very distorted view as to limits of SEO. Content is very much part of an SEO strategy.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Nah, great content is down to the site owner's effort - nothing to do with an SEO freelancer.

Basic SEO can never, ever establish or grow a website. The owners idea and content building is what makes a site what it is.

And I agree with you ED, but what you are describing is what advanced SEO's have beena dvocating for years. As i repeatedly say, you are describing SEO as something that no-one else who knows SEO does.

 

[bdw]

Content building is basic SEO.