Questions regarding backlinks

[Sandstone]

I am wanting to increase my blog traffic (duh, doesn't everyone?! ) I have been doing some research on backlinks. I found the following company: http://www.submitedge.com/. Are these companies generally reputable? What can they do that I can't?

[Aminka Ozmun]

Well, as I understand the process, these companies have got a lot of sites that will give yours a link, creating the impression that your site is really popular and authoritative or something. That's the theory.

What they have for an advantage over any one individual blogger, typically, is lots of time and money (relatively speaking) to invest in building up such a network of sites: C-Class, unique IPs, et cetera.

I'd appreciate it if anyone else can elaborate or correct me!

[Sandstone]

Are these companies generally reputable? They won't just go around spamming everyone on my behalf or will they?

[mainstreetcm]

Search Engine Optimization is a finicky beast... and there are a LOT of salesmen. I've never personally purchased services on the site in question, however, I have been hosed many-a-time.

Google (to be honest, nobody else really matters) changes on a near daily basis. This can, and will, offer a variety of challenges for a website looking to attain organic rankings for keywords--especially extremely popular keywords.

What I can tell you is this. Stay far away from "profile links." These days they are generally sold as "links on PR5+ or higher sites!"

What you actually get is a bunch of links placed within the profile of a message board forum--and your page that the link is actually build on is ALWAYS a PR N/A. Worthless! But they'll charge out the ass for them.

Next up are blog roll links, which can be tricky. There are a few reputable services out there that sell blog roll links, but they are few and far between. It is important to ensure that your link is placed on sites with low OBL, if not everyone and their dog is getting the "link juice" and your going to get just a small piece of the pie.

Then you have blog comments, which in 2011, if not placed on extremely authoritative sites that are do-follow (very hard to find) your wasting your cash.

So how does one actually build links in a post-panda world? Guest posting still works. Also, links places within the blog roll or footer of extremely high value sites that are niche-related work.

Think of it this way. If someone wants to build you just 100 links for $15, what kind of quality do you think those are? Quality links are expensive and often your better off just doing a press release to score some good links from good sources.

I don't know if those guys you references are reputable, but there are tall-tell signs that they are not. Do some research and just go with your gut.

[Sandstone]

Thanks a lot for all the information, mainstreetcm. Very useful information. I think the right thing for me to do is continuing plodding along building my blog and filling it with great content. The rest will come.

[splok]

Think about their offer for a sec... Anyone offering you links by the thousands is automating them. They probably don't think of it as spam since they're likely submitting to willing directories, but most people probably would. Realize that any time you're buying links, unless you understand exactly what you're getting, you're probably going to consider it spam. You can, of course, pay people to write manually write high quality comments, posts, etc. with your link attached, though that isn't cheap, and you're probably better off just hiring someone yourself to do that and telling them exactly what you want done.

[Sandstone]

Yep. I am coming to the understanding that you are 100 percent correct.

[chadcharlie]

Some do deliver the thousands of links, but they're low quality, and what's worse is that if you flag yourself on Google as unnatural accumulation of links (e.g. 5,000 over night) you could get put in the sandbox and stalled in ranking.

There are ways around it, and I very much prefer this tiered approach that I'm using with This Blue Couch. It requires a lot of work, don't be mistaken, but there is a formula for incorporating those companies you're talking about.

Check out this popular article that was featured on Smart Passive Income:
THE Backlinking Strategy That Works | The Smart Passive Income Blog

or this one, similar concept and expanded:
Submitting Articles to Web 2.0 Sites

I'm sort of combining both methods with traditional networking.

Take care,
Chad.

[GregD]

my experience is that anything that comes too easy likely not rewarding, especially in the long run

for example you could tweet your website in 1 second but you will not receive much in return

otherwise you could take an hour to write an interesting article and the benefit will be much greater

so i advice do not look for quick win amazing sounding offers if you are serious about success

Edit: Also, bear in mind that the most successful people are like 2% out of total population and 98% do not reach big success or give up too early. However this does not stop the 98% to advice others in forums/emails, so just use your head to think about the advice you are getting.

[mikethedrummer44]

Backlinks are a metric Google uses to determine whether or not your website provides value.

Buying backlinks is an attempt to game Google's algorithms.

After the Panda Update, Google's become quite excellent at determining whether or not a website TRULY delivers value.

And guess what? While the entire SEO world is still focusing on building thousands of backlinks, Google's moving AWAY from backlinks.

So stop trying to game Google – it won't work. As an online business owner, you give up an aspect of control if you wish to use SEO. In other words, you're in Google's world... if you want to succeed play by Google's rules.

It's not too hard, really... just make a valuable website and SEO comes naturally.

[chadcharlie]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Backlinks are a metric Google uses to determine whether or not your website provides value.

Buying backlinks is an attempt to game Google's algorithms.

After the Panda Update, Google's become quite excellent at determining whether or not a website TRULY delivers value.

And guess what? While the entire SEO world is still focusing on building thousands of backlinks, Google's moving AWAY from backlinks.

So stop trying to game Google – it won't work. As an online business owner, you give up an aspect of control if you wish to use SEO. In other words, you're in Google's world... if you want to succeed play by Google's rules.

It's not too hard, really... just make a valuable website and SEO comes naturally.

I agree that Panda is doing a good job of cleaning up fluff. AND I agree that as a web publisher your (our) primary focus and efforts should be on creating absolutely original and valuable content! Otherwise there is no wholesome reason to be in business...you are wasting your time and others'.

HOWEVER, I do not agree that it is unwise to allocate some time to link building. And I do not agree that if you write good content you will be found and awarded by Google. If that were true, there would be floods of .edu's in the search results. But there are not, partly because they get squat for "cool guy" points, or linkbacks.

Focus on putting out great content, yes! But if you really want to reach people, you have to also focus on gaining exposure and connecting with credible linkers.

Take care,
Chad.

[danthony]

Work on commenting on similar higher PR blogs, get your friends to crowdsource (share) your content with their favorite bookmark sites. That will get you some decent backlinks. Also, join something like a blog carnival for your category. Got alot of facebook fans? You could simply share your posts and ask your followers to 'like' the content which would cause the backlinks to grow exponentially. Submit an article to some quality article directories. Rewrite the article as a powerpoint slide and post on a site like slide share. Just a few good ideas to get the search engines to pay attention to your content and rank you better.

[Humancure]

Firstly - I would not reccomend using such services if your blogging, because you can do SEO yourself, by building relationships on forums (like this) - people will naturally link to you (create lists on your blog, that people find useful, and would very likely link to).

Secondly - NOBODY KNOWS SEO - they only have an idea, from previous experience. And this is not accurate, as Google Algorithm is changing on an hourly basis. They have PHD professors working together to keep improving the algorithm, so simply building backlinks would not do the trick.

Do the following:

- Unique Content: This means UNIQUE. This means your Blog should have its OWN unique way of communicating to its audience. Don't try to standardize your English - meaning, be creative, express things creatively (as there are many other sites, doing the same thing you are, creativity will make the difference).

- Build backlinks: Join top 10 forums of your niche, and talk, and talk, and genuinely help people in there - whilst having your link, in the signature section of the post (like mine).

- Build More Backlinks: See where your audience are (facebook? Some forum? Twitter?) and join it, and start interacting. Say, you see a facebook message of your target audience asking a question in the same niche as your blog, write a reply ON YOUR WEBSITE, and send him the link. Keep doing this, and aim to over-deliver (ALWAYS).

- Forget dofollow backlinks and nofollow backlinks; Google KNOWS we knows this, and if a website only has dofollow backlinks, Google will know this is unnatural and it is an attempt to rank for that keyword, as most websites have a good mix of dofollow and nofollow baclinks - if you don't know what these terms mean, even better!