Obtaining followed links - white or black?
-
I have just watched the overtake of the number one UK position for garden accessories.
The old 1st place holder held it for the last 2.5 years (min) ....taking a look at the back links of the number one holder it seems they are paid links ...as they are little follow image adverts with anchor text posted on the home page of niche blogs, forums and design related website..
....so is this white hat or black hat?
-
lets say I have 2 sites (two companies I am doing SEO for) one is for a Taxi service and one is for a limo service. Would me offering my taxi traffic a link to a limo service be black hat? **no way! ** Would google look at that link as a bad link? I highly doubt it!
Kink building is great and works as long as the sources are relevant.
Googles goals are to make money. in order to make money they need the best search engine. In order to have the best search engine they need the best SERP's. The only way have the best SERP's is via user interaction. If the user likes the link so will Google.
-
Buying links to benefit for SEO is frowned on from google. However, if your buying to gain real traffic to your site such as links within a directory it is not a bad thing.
For example, I can pay yellow pages (Just an example... I would never do this) for their best tier package and it will not affect my results, in fact it can help them.
-
hey thanks - i'll take your advice - life is too short !!! plus I could be wrong - this SEO world is fun and games indeed
-
You do have an option of reporting them to Google (with detailed explanation of what they did). I have to admit in all my years of SEO I have never actually done it. Firstly not all spam submissions get looked at and actioned and many are used to simply improve the algorithm on a global scale, secondly there are much better things to do.
I would suggest that you continue marketing, branding, networking and building compelling content for your site and products. Create as much buzz about your business as possible and get people talking about it.
On a technical side of things there are probably links that you SHOULD have and didn't think of it.
Here's a few tips:
- If your web design company linking to you via their portfolio page?
- Have you given testimonials to service providers you used?
- Are you involved in the local chamber of commerce?
- Where you rent your office space, do they have a website with a tenant directory?
- Do you allow user generate content on your site?
- What happens when people buy on your website? Thank you page can be a great time to get people tweeting and sharing what they just bought. Use the momentum of after purchase to get links for free
-
Yes - my competitor - I held number 2 for 2.5 years as well but due to some site rearrangement have fallen for this term - but am really annoyed if they are paying for these links - they are chasing very similar terms to me and at the peak of the gardening season seem to have raised to the top -
-
Are they your (or your clients) direct competitor?
-
right - so is there anything that can be done?
-
OK, let's keep the various colored hats out of this for a sec. What they did is simply against Google's Quality Guidelines - and that's it. The level of severity is not as high as if they hacked somebody's website - nevertheless still in breach and it could bite them back if Google should ever audit their link profile.
-
Buying links or using any marketing tactics that are against Google's guidelines would be considered Grey to Black Hat methods.
Buying a link period from another website to be listed on their home page for an anchor term you would like to optimize for would be black hat. However there are linkbuilder's out there paying for Guest Posts which can be considered Grey Hat.
Obviously everyone has their own opinion on what Black, Grey, White hat methods really are.
-
buying links is generally blackhat. You can sell advertising, but to keep it whitehat, it's best to use nofollow.
Pete
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
One page hit with 10K no follow spam links, should we disavow?
Hi everyone, I'd like your opinions on the best way to handle this situation: One particular site page just got hit with 10,000 no follow spammy backlinks over 10 days time. I've read that it's pointless to use the disavow tool on no follow links (since it basically does the same thing) but we want Google to be aware that this WAS NOT US and we don't want to be penalized for these spammy links. Couple of questions: 1. Do we send backlink removal requests to each domain webmaster? 2. Should we skip removal requests and move right to disavow? 3. Should we take other action? As a site we have NEVER used any black hat SEO tactics over a 15 year history and have many HQ do follow and no follow links to the site and this particular page. Thanks for any suggestions in advance!!
Link Building | | geteducated0 -
Links from same server or not?
Hello, I make websites so every website I make has a backlink to my website. Currently all my websites are hosted on server A, but my OWN website is hosted on server B. I plan to move my website to server A too. This will indicate that all the backlinks I have currently are from a difference server, now all these links will come from the SAME server. Will this have any results on my positions? Is this something that you have to take into account? Jeroen
Link Building | | conversal0 -
Is providing a paid scholarship to schools and receiving a back link, classed as a paid link scheme?
I've always wondered if it is classed as paid links in Google's eyes?
Link Building | | ResumeGenius0 -
Reciprocal links
Are they worth anything, if they are from relevant sites? I'm I better off avoiding linking back wherever possible?
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Are Non Followed links good or bad for my website?
I have 3,000 followed links and a 1,000 non followed links. The non followed links are from an advertising campaign. Do these hurt or help me? Thanks Ron
Link Building | | bsofttech0 -
How might Google differentiate between an artificial link exchange and partners linking to each other?
Hi, All! Artificial link exchanges (contacting a vaguely connected site and requesting to exchange links to increase your PR) is, as far as I know, considered an outdated, not-so-smart technique, as Google might devalue them. Yet, for real business partners to exchange links seems to be an entirely accepted and encouraged technique. While that would be intuitive to a human who's viewing the pages. how might Google detect when two sites that link to each other are linking because they are trusted business associates (valuable) as opposed to when they are doing a link exchange (devalued)? Thanks! Aviva
Link Building | | debi_zyx0 -
Link building
I have two separate websites on different servers and was wondering that since reciprocal links effectively eliminate each other, I'm curious if this link strategy will keep the links counting. Here's the strategy: I will have someone link to my site A and if i link to their site from my site B in a three way link strategy, will the links count even though both my site A and B have me listed as the Whois so Google knows that both sites are owned by me? Or will the links be discounted as reciprocal? Thanks in advance for your feedback! Take care, Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Porn link ...
I just ran https://www.majesticseo.com report for back links and showed me that I have one link at porn site ... not sure if it will be appropriate to post it here. The link was discovered on 03.05.11 and when I visited today link is not there... I dont know who put that link there. Can I get penalty for that from google? Can it be a mistake?
Link Building | | DiamondJewelryEmpire1