Backlink Questions

[evan89]

Hey Mozzers,

I have spent some time researching proper backlink analysis, and then I have been going through some of the steps. Here are a few questions that I have had in the process.

1. Why would backlink tools like OSE and Ahrefs return different results for (say): "www.domain.com" vs "domain.com"?
2. I noticed that competitors have almost 6x the backlinks as I do, but when I look at where those links are coming from, they are coming from old sites with moderate DA (under 10-30), but many are not current. I also noticed that many of these sites have links placed site-wide so that there are maybe 6+ referring pages per domain. So I guess my question is, how powerful are these links? Am I better off building relationships with bloggers, even though they only offer one link per page? Ultimately it will take me a long time to build the same quantity of links, but it seems like many of these competitors' links are old fashioned, but still moderately effective.

Any help is appreciated, you guys have always been so helpful!

[SajeetNair]

Hi,

Regarding the number of links - domain.com and www.domain.com are two separate URLs and hence treated separately. So its a possibility that some domains will link to domain.com and some domains will link to www.domain.com and accordingly the numbers reported will vary.

Regarding acquisition of links - Based on the evolution of links over the past 5 years and Google's stand on acquisition of links, I would strongly suggest that you don't focus on building links artificially. Instead, I would suggest that you focus on the following -

Generation of content that results in a lot of coverage - Surveys, useful information to users/consumers , interactive content are some of the elements of the website that can help generate a lot of natural buzz. IMO, citations and natural references across the web are the future (if not the present already) and keyword based linking should be a complete NO NO.

Focus on consumers - The moment we focus on consumers and come up with innovative techniques for more customer acquisition, more the word of mouth awareness and more the possibility of mentions across the web (social media channels, online press etc)

As far as competitors are concerned, even if say they are using non white hat techniques, its only a matter of time before search engines penalize them.

Regards,
Sajeet

[MonicaOConnor]

The quantity of links isn't as important as the quality of those links. If there are several links to and from low quality websites it is only a matter of time before your competitors get smacked with an algo update. Sure, blog back links take time to build, but they also appear natural, and more importantly, related to the content on your site. That means that theoretically they are good for searchers. This is the best strategy.

Link building should really consist of high authority directory listings, competitive link analysis, branded comment backlinks, social bookmarking, and guest blogging. You should never allow more than 10% of your existing link profile to be added at a time. Doing any more than 10% looks unnatural, and unnatural link building is not the way to go.  Buying links is kind of an SEO death wish.