Transcript Search engine marketing that works!

Analyzing Your Backlinks
How to avoid trouble
Harold Compton
Austin Account Manager
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From Christian Greiner’s SEO Audit presentation last month
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Why do a Backlink Analysis
To ensure that a website’s backlink profile does not
result in a penalty, manual or algorithmic from search
engines. Keep in mind that:
• Links should be to attract visitors, not to increase
pagerank!
• Backlinks, for the most part should not be created
by you, although there are exceptions.
• You are responsible for your backlink profile!
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Search Engine Penalties
Google, as the largest search engine, has published
guidelines for Webmasters to follow. The most important
portion of their guidelines with respect to backlinks is the
following:
“Any links intended to manipulate Pagerank or a site's ranking
in Google search results may be considered part of a link
scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This
includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or
outgoing links from your site.”
Any backlink to your site that is considered a violation of
this guideline can result in a penalty.
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Tools for Analyzing Backlinks
1. Link Research Tools
• Quick Backlink Tool
• DTOX Tool
2. SEO Profiler
• Link Profiler
• Link Influence
3. SEM Rush
• Anchor text
• Referring domains
• Most Linked Sites
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Tools for Analyzing Backlinks
4. Opensite Explorer
• Anchor text
• Linking domains
• Give indication on spam links
5. Webmaster Tools
• Most linked sites
Use multiple tools as each provides a somewhat
different list. Gather as much information as you can.
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Tips When Evaluating Links
• Don’t worry about nofollow links.
• If you think it may be a problem, many times you are
right. Use your own judgement, don’t let a tool make
the decision.
• Check your referrals to see if a link generated any visits
over the last year.
• If in doubt, take it out!
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What Backlinks Can Get a Penalty?
1.Over optimized anchor text links
2.Too many links from low quality or high quality
sources
3.Paid links
4.Link exchanges
5.Links from irrelevant sources
6.Outbound spam links
7.Foreign links for local businesses
8.Blogroll links, forum comments and anonymous
profiles.
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Over Optimized Anchor Text Links
* Website had over 120 links with the same anchor text, which was
a highly competitive search term.
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Links from Low/High Quality Sites
Although a natural backlink profile should have a
variety of high, medium and low quality sites it should
not have all low quality backlinks. In a natural profile
the bulk of sites are medium and lower quality with
some high quality sites.
This may vary depending on the type of site, for
example a major university may have a much higher
percentage of high quality sites than an ecommerce
site.
Check to make sure that low quality links are coming
from relevant websites.
Finally remember that low quality links that draw
visitors to your site are good links.
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Paid Links
This is the type link that you should avoid at all cost.
Paid links are a direct violation of webmaster
guidelines.
Check the email address of the registered owner of the
site. Get rid of any from owners such as the following:
• @LinkbuyingservicesUK
• [email protected]
Never engage in buying links!
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Link Exchanges
Typically any situation where two sites have agreed to
link to each other should be viewed cautiously.
Once again the purpose of a link is to attract visitors so if
wish to exchange links for that purpose, make them
nofollow.
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Irrelevant Sources
Examples: The following were linked sites to a local
upholstery fabric supplier in Florida
• http://www.luxury-property-south-france.com
• http://www.superairportparking.com
• http://www.videos-and-pictures.com
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Outbound Spam Links
Most often these are found in sites with a blog or forum
within the site that contain numerous follow links in
posts and comments.
Ensure that blog and forum posts and comments are
moderated and should contain nofollow links.
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Foreign Links to Local Businesses
If a website is for a local business and contains
numerous links from foreign websites this can
be viewed as a violation of webmaster guidelines.
Ask yourself if you expect to get customers from
those links.
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Blogs and Forums
This is probably one of the biggest areas you will find
problem backlinks. The big areas are:
• Comments with follow links
• Blog articles with numerous follow links
• Links from blogs that are irrelevant to your site
• Subscriber profiles with follow links
• Article marketing
Blog problems are easy to spot:
• Title unrelated
• Lack of ads
• No contact
• Random subjects
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Closing
•
Backlinks can cause a site to receive a penalty or
even get a site deindexed which can lead to a
serious loss of organic search traffic. If you can
afford to lose most or all organic traffic then don’t
worry about them.
•
Your backlink profile should be evaluated at least
every 6 months after you have cleaned it up.
•
If you have any questions about your backlink
profile feel free to contact me by email.
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Contact
Harry Lennard – Owner and President
817-545-1188
[email protected]
Harold Compton – Director, Austin TX Office
(512) 680-0074
[email protected]
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