Linkbuilding - Which is best?

[FreddieChatt]

Okay so we all know that:

1 Link on 10 Sites > 10 Links on 1 Site (potentially untrue with spammy links on 1 site than 10 links on high authority but that's not the point of this discussion)

I've had some discussions at work I seem to be fighting a losing battle...

So the questions is... which is better?

1 Link on 1 Site vs 5 Links on 1 Site (same site)

We seem to operate on the form of - once we have a link from the site (in most cases blogs for product reviews / guest posts) - that's it , we move on and never talk to them again.

For continued growth of links, would it be beneficial if we guest posted on some sites once a month?  Then we get a steady stream of links each month.

[ScottBaxterWW]

Hello,

At the moment were submitting around 3 - 4 guest posts a week to relevant, high PA and high DA sites and we are seeing some great jumps in our rankings for our microsites.

I would say 1 link on 1 site all the time, the more linking domains the better.

One thing I would say is try to keep a natutal looking link profile, don't over-do your "money keywords" push more brand and even add some naked links www.example.com

That's my penny worth...

Hope it helps.

[MalcolmGibb]

I would definitely say 1 link on 1 site as long as it's on a prominent page, not on some abysmally deep PR 0 page.

I always use metrics of unique inbound domains. I know a lot of SEO'ers use metrics of total backlinks which is a completely false representation of how link building is progressing, but it's easy to show clients a massive number.

Some sites will naturally develop more links on one domain on their own, i.e. blogs that link you in the sidebar and/or footer links. These are now devalued by Google, and I do believe that those sites that had say 100 links coming from one domain were hit hard in the recent penguinanda updates!

[RankStealer]

I dont think its quite that simple.....

For instance even if I have got one link from a blog that doesn't mean I won't revisit that blog again and get another link from the same blog however to a different place on my site.

I do however try to get as many different links from as many different domains as possible.

The key I think is variety, variety of domains linking to you and variety of places you are linking to on your site.

[MalcolmGibb]

Yes I agree with deep linking to other parts of your site on 1 domain, that is acceptable as the individual pages are different.

My point was using the same page to link to. So having say a link pointing at www.domain.com/page.html on 5 different pages of www.domain2.com is not good practice and Google will not see each link as individual but rather this will only count as one link.

[DesignbysoapLtd]

I would aim for variety in your linking domains, which usually means 1 link on 1 site. But bear in mind a large part of link-building is building relationships, so you shouldn't necessarily 'never talk to them again'. I would aim to build a link on a site via quality content, which you then go out of your way to promote via social media, etc. as well as ensuring you reply to any comments and stay involved in the conversation. Not only does this make your link more valuable, but helps you build stronger relationships.

I'd also stay away from using direct match anchor text on your keyword targets - use your brand name to link back and you'll increase your overall domain authority, which will help you rank (assuming your on-site elements are solid).

But back to the question, generally speaking I'd always aim for 1 link on 5 sites vs. 5 links on 1 site, just make sure those sites are relevant, high quality and not involved in any potentially worrying activities (such as selling links, aggressive advert blocks, etc. etc)