SEO Dilemma...

[cristinabarkerjones]

I've just made this domainleia.com/www/greatfloorsanding.co.uk accidentally and I'm not sure whether it's a low-quality spammy link or a good one. What's your opinion?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

As a one off it won't hurt you at all, but if your entire footprint consistyed of such links, Google wouldn't think much of your site trust.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

I think you are right, but do you think this link type (if only used once) can help the website "climb" in Google's SERP? The link is dofollow and the TF of the domain is not bad.

 

[TODonnell]

Years ago, one could get Indian spammers to push your domain onto sites like this to increase your backlinks. Today, I wouldn't touch such a method. You'll get such links naturally, anyway.

- One won't hurt at all, so don't worry. It might give a tiny boost.

Q: What's TF?

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Q: What's TF?

TF = Trust Flow this metric is used by majestic.com to determine the quality and safety of a website.

 

[TODonnell]

Ha, just had a look at your site. I think it's improved?

- You should put the sander picture first and the lovely sitting-room picture second. Otherwise it looks like "We'll take your gracious dining room and grate the hell out of it. Call now for a quote!"

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Ha, just had a look at your site. I think it's improved?

- You should put the sander picture first and the lovely sitting-room picture second. Otherwise it looks like "We'll take your gracious dining room and grate the hell out of it. Call now for a quote!"

Thank you for the advice! The marketing department will be notified I'm glad you like our website. It's not the best looking one on the Internet, but we have tried to make it as informative as possible.

 

[TODonnell]

"Are you bothered by your laquered wooden floors. Are they just a bit too ... shiny?

If your children are just a bit too happy and your neighbours envious, we can fix that! Just call 0800-INSANE-BOJAN and we'll be right over. Splinters are free and tea stains a speciality. Call TODAY!"

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

You made me laugh!

 

[Deleted member 184921]

Using short cuts is likely to hamper your rankings in the long run.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

I also think this link can't harm the rankings of my website. Otherwise, every blackhat SEO would build such links because they are extremely easy to build (3 seconds per website). Google must have thought about it!

 

[altonroot]

It looks one type of web 2.0 link. Google said on record that they ignores most of web 2.0 or UGC content links. But I doubt because there are only web 2.0 platforms available to share the content and acquire link. Decide what to believe on your own. I also think web 2.0 links won't hurt if not benefit.

 

[webgeek]

If it takes you just 3 seconds to build the link, doesn't that answer the question as to how valuable or risky it might be to undertake, in the first place?

When it comes to getting a link: Earn it, buy it, or beg for it, but please don't spam it.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

If it takes you just 3 seconds to build the link, doesn't that answer the question as to how valuable or risky it might be to undertake, in the first place?
When it comes to getting a link: Earn it, buy it, or beg for it, but please don't spam it.

I have to disagree with you. Sometimes, things in life that happen very easy are actually good for (for your website). Such things as love at first sight and link built in 3 seconds

 

[fisicx]

In what way are they good for your website? The easier the link is to get the lower the SEO value of that link. Social Media links rarely lead to a conversion so their value is low as well.

However...

A link from a respected site that get bucketloads of visitors looking for home improvement advice is worth more than a thousand links built in 3 seconds. And the way you get that link is by having a really great site that answers all the floor sanding questions.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

We have such a website. However, nobody will notice it, if Great Floor Sanding is not on the front pages of Google. This is the sad truth! And it takes a lot to start from zero and become a hero in Google's algorithm. Link must be built. I totally agree with you that a link from an authority home improvement website with loads of traffic is more valuable than anything else. Unfortunately, having a great site doesn't mean such websites will link back to you for free.

 

[fisicx]

No Christina, you do not have such a website. It is content light and has very little indexable material.

A great website would have page after page about engineered wood, the different types, how to care for it, making the right choices, where the wood comes from, project pages showing the process, description of the job you did and so on.

And then you do the same for each other wood floor.

And then put up a seperate page for each job you do with lots of captioned images and words to describe the project.

That's how you create a great website. Show the world you are an expert. Google will sonn pick this up and you will see the site start to appear on page one.

Links as you describe won't do this.

 

[Chinavasion]

These links are completely fine. It will hurt you if you built links with spammy content. These links will not hurt you, though they will also not have much effect on ranking.

 

[SEOpie]

fisicx speaks a lot of sense

 

[ZeroDouble]

It's a pretty easy niche by the look of it...

For whatever reason, there seems to be this love affair with content marketing / link earning on this forum, and most of the time it's totally unnecessary for local businesses to peruse that route anyway.

I'm not sure if becoming the 'authority' website on floor sanding is really what the OP needs, or if that is going to produce the best return on their time or investment?

By all means they should have a showcase of their work etc. but most of all they should look at making sure the site is properly optimised both for search engines and visitors / conversions, then get ranking for those keywords (along with some non google, targeted traffic generation, obviously).

 

[Adwords_Guru]

Haha

 

[Adwords_Guru]

Jwhite is right though. Short cuts a direct route to do indexing

 

[DavidMorrow]

If you have a good mix of links then even a few spammy ones are likely not going to do any damage. After all, if a website is relatively popular or very popular it's inevitably going to attract some spam links.

 

[StevePoster]

"Are you bothered by your laquered wooden floors. Are they just a bit too ... shiny?

If your children are just a bit too happy and your neighbours envious, we can fix that! Just call 0800-INSANE-BOJAN and we'll be right over. Splinters are free and tea stains a speciality. Call TODAY!"

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I noticed a lot of people use this kind of approach and I think its effective because you are talking to your targeted audience with this content. It is important to generate conversation with them through your website's interesting and engaging content.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Interesting approach, but I don't think it will be effective for our target audience. It might work with younger prospects though.

 

[altonroot]

I have to disagree with you. Sometimes, things in life that happen very easy are actually good for (for your website). Such things as love at first sight and link built in 3 seconds

I agree with you. I have checked one big e-commerce website's links and to my surprise they are getting thousands of links from one website which is fashion junkie social media platform and the links are nofollow but still they are effective and helping many product pages to rank well.

 

[fisicx]

I...the links are nofollow but still they are effective and helping many product pages to rank well.

How?

If they no-follow they will be ignored by Google. There may be other underlying ranking signals relating to the citations but it won't be the links themselves.

 

[altonroot]

How?

If they no-follow they will be ignored by Google. There may be other underlying ranking signals relating to the citations but it won't be the links themselves.

Yes links may be ignored! But I would buy this logic.
http://www.northcutt.com/blog/2014/06/seo-myths-from-experts/
Drill down to Debra Mastaler's answer!

 

[fisicx]

Read the words carefully. The traffic from those links may be incorporated into the behavioral data but they will have a minor impact. It's the traffic that counts not th links themselves.

 

[webgeek]

I have to disagree with you. Sometimes, things in life that happen very easy are actually good for (for your website). Such things as love at first sight and link built in 3 seconds

Show me a couple who were married because of love at first sight and you'll be showing us a couple with a 50% likelihood of divorce. I'll show you a couple who talks about anything and everything and we'll be looking at a pair who only have a 15% chance of divorce.

Show me a a 3 second link that's "actually good for ... your website" and I'll show you 10 or 100 or 1000 that are actually bad, or high risk at the very best case scenario.

You don't have to play the odds, and have the free will to decide to play the long-shot.

There's a reason rolling a hard-8 (4 + 4) is called a hard 8 and not an easy 8. It's because when you take your hard earned lunch money and bet that the exception is about to become the rule - you have a hard time explaining to the family that they will have to eat jam sandwiches for dinner again tonight (2 pieces of bread jammed together without anything in between).

Sometimes Google overlooks spammers. Sometimes people take shortcuts and win races. Sometimes a blind dog can find a bone.

Are you basing your website future on - sometimes?

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Are you basing your website future on - sometimes?

Well said! I think you are completely right and I should be more careful while building links to my website. It's just that nowadays with all algorithm updates and changes almost nothing is 100% certain. For instance, can you tell me for sure, whether or not a website needs a sitemap? Because I've seen a lot of competitors without neither sitemaps nor robots.txt and they rank on first page for very competitive niches with high searches!!!

 

[fisicx]

I can answer that one. If your site has been indexed your don't need a sitemap. If you aren't restricting access to anyone or any part of your site you don't need robots.txt.

The guidelines regarding link building have remained the same since google began. People get penalised because they try to trick google.

 

[webgeek]

... with all algorithm updates and changes almost nothing is 100% certain... I've seen a lot of competitors without neither sitemaps nor robots.txt and they rank on first page...

Length of time in a top position of the rankings is a bit like insulation, the same way recognised brands get treated differently than startups. If you or I were to build backlinks like some big brands have done, we'd be hammered so hard by Google, we'd have to change our name to Nail or Spike.

Google have kindly published a bit of information about what they want/expect from a website:
http://static.googleusercontent.com.../search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

While in principle what fisicx is saying is completely true, I personally don't advocate that site owners go with the 'least required' approach. If the time required to do something is trivial, and if there's a small chance that it could positively impact your rankings, visitor counts or engagement, or improve sales - then what else have you got better to do than invest that small amount of time in doing things the best you possibly can do them?

If you ever get a manual review (perhaps due to a competitor making bogus claims about you), do you want a human examining your site and noting that although minimum requirements were met, minimal recommendations were not?

By the way, page 11 of that guide points out what Google recommends about sitemaps, and page 21 discusses robots.txt.

Focus on getting your site error free, falling in line with the recommendations from Google, adding remarkable content on a regular basis, syndicating socially and on occasion get some backlinks - the ones that take more than 3 seconds to build

Cheers!

 

[DexSmart]

It's obvious that everybody can create a page on such websites. Sooner or later they will get spammed and will point a negative backlink to you. Like the guys said try and see some of the Google Guidelines before doing more of this.

 

[CoolHandCol]

The page authority of that link is 1/100 - not great! You won't get any traffic from it either. It's equivalent to the old fashioned forum signature links and will get your site punished if you have too many of them. You have some decent backlinks (those .gov ones will get deleted!) but you have quite a few low quality ones which are dragging down your own sites authority and trust. Don't use rubbish directories - look for low Alexa rank and high page authority

 

[sisindia]

I am agree local search optimization must depend on service/product popularity. The algorithm for local search terms is different so you such not follow unnatural link building . You should follow link earning.

 

[neils3]

If it takes you just 3 seconds to build the link, doesn't that answer the question as to how valuable or risky it might be to undertake, in the first place?

When it comes to getting a link: Earn it, buy it, or beg for it, but please don't spam it.

Totally agree