How to check if a website is good to get a link from?

[3 MORE YEARS]

Which tools can you use to check if a website is good to get a link from or if it could have a negative impact on your site? Are there any online tools you can use, free or paid, than can do that?

I ask because I hear there are some sites where getting links from them could actually have a negative impact.

Thanks.

 

[UseYourWeb]

Hi, if t's easy to get the link then it's probably not going to do you any good. Placing links in places where you are likely to get clicks from actual paying customers is usually a good one. That means local forums, etc. I usually think to myself "is anybody actually going to click that link, and once on my site actually get in touch and become a paying customer".
Avoid tools, avoid automatic link building, optimise and if you are going to post links, post them in places that real people with intentions to use your business are likely to click them. This might not help your SEO efforts but if done right, can bring more business to you.
Posting blogs that interest people and encourage them to share it between their social networks again can bring positive incoming traffic.
Theres a guy on here called Zigojacko, he's a bit outspoken but deffinately knows what he's talking about. He could offer advice on this subject but I recon he'll basically tell you the same, forget building links for robots to follow and start building good content with links that real people with real money will follow instead

 

[Uzair Kharawala]

A good page rank is a great place to start from. The higher the PR the better the back link. Also look at the Alexa ranking to get an indication of traffic on that site.
Hope this helps.

 

[UseYourWeb]

A good page rank is a great place to start from. The higher the PR the better the back link. Also look at the Alexa ranking to get an indication of traffic on that site.
Hope this helps.

With all due respect, I think this is becoming a thing of the past. Not saying there is no importance what so ever in high pr links but I'm pretty sure it's not what it used to be. Again, having a link from a high pr website isn't much use if the traffic it brings is unlikely to actually want to use your services or interact with your website in any way.

 

[Inbound_Consult]

Page rank is still important, but it's not been updated by google since February 2013 so what does that tell you? Page authority and domain authority are the new measuring sticks for google, but I do still use page rank as a starting point.

In terms of building backlinks I tend to have 1 golden rule- does this website contain very high quality content that I want my business to be associated with? If the answer is "yes" then chances are it's a good place to get a link from.
Guest blogging is a great way of building strong backlinks. If you remember the golden rule then you should be fine, and if the content you add to the guest site is also of high quality chances are you will get a nice kick of link juice from it.

 

[Uzair Kharawala]

With all due respect, I think this is becoming a thing of the past. Not saying there is no importance what so ever in high pr links but I'm pretty sure it's not what it used to be. Again, having a link from a high pr website isn't much use if the traffic it brings is unlikely to actually want to use your services or interact with website in any way.

Respectfully, I never said to target websites outside your market/niche for untargeted traffic. Forget search engines for a while, getting your name, brand, product, etc on high authority websites plays a big part in how your clients / potential clients see you and your business and gives tremendous confidence to clients who see you associated with major / big brands who almost certainly will have high PR websites.

 

[Tin]

Page rank is still important, but it's not been updated by google since February 2013

It was updated 6th December 2013 for those that are interested.

 

[UseYourWeb]

Ah right got ya lol there are still people who advocate spamming every high pr site with links without any regard to the relevance of the site itself

 

[amitmax]

Website should be relevant,
good domain authority
less number of external links
Fresh,quality and relevant content
Avoid exact matching keywords
Don't use same page every where

are some points that can be considered while you build links.

 

[Scotty71]

Check out Opensiteexplorer - if there's a particular website you're looking at, you can get the domain and page authority there, alternatively check out your competitors and analyse their links for high domain authorities and match / improve on these. Ahrefs does something similar if I remember correctly.

 

[WebMeUp]

Which tools can you use to check if a website is good to get a link from or if it could have a negative impact on your site?

Most of the existing backlink tools can analyze a potential linking site against various SEO criteria (PR, domain age, country of origin, # of outgoing links,etc.). However, none of the tools can say whether or not a site is good for link building.

That's why you will have to take into account different SEO factors, and decide on your own which websites are worth your efforts.

If you are interested in how to do that, check out our online SEO guide:
http://webmeup.com/seo-guide/seo-guide-manual-backlink-research.html

 

[Scotty71]

The sites above do give you domain authority, as well as other information which can let you know whether it'd be a good link (some are complete no brainers!). As for the relevance you can check this easily yourself by looking at the site. It's not rocket science, but good old common sense and not something you can automate or buy in bulk from India.

If anyone knows their industry well, it's likely they know where a lot of links should come from, getting them however can be another issue altogether!

 

[Ronita Neal]

Just select the one that is within the same niche as yours and check if the contents/posts are really good.

 

[MobileEarth.Net]

According to me, First you select your niche site from that you will get maximum traffic and then check all the site's PR and Domain Authority. Then you submit your site in all this site. From this you can get maximum benefit.

 

[browse4]

Great tips -Thanks

 

[seomasters1]

All this advice is incredibly relevant. I would add that as there have been so many sites created over the years that have been used for the purpose of link building, to understand how good a site may be or infact how real it is, the best way is to look at their social media presence and how regularly they update it. Another area is to view their about us page and see if any of their images are real. The reason I say this is because I have come across hundreds of great looking sites with good DA, outbound links etc but as soon as you scratch below the surface you can see that the site has been created for link building purposes only which in time could be penalised by Matt Cutts and his search team.