Important Alert:
Backlinks have a significant role in search engine optimization. So if you want SEO to work for your website, you must get a better understanding of backlinks and their types, especially the ones you need to avoid. Before getting ahead of ourselves, we must first learn what backlinks actually are.
Backlinks are incoming links to a specific webpage from other websites. To get a better understanding of a backlink, let’s look at its illustration below –
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Backlinks basically say that other websites find your content useful and have linked it to their own content to improve its value. That is why backlinks act as vital indicators of popularity and reliability, and for the same reason, search engines consider these links signs of authority and trust. Backlinks are also a crucial aspect of the benefits of off page SEO, as they help improve your website’s credibility and increase its chances of ranking higher in search results. Thus if you aim to appear higher on search results and increase web traffic, backlinks are pivotal and are an important SEO ranking factor.
Dofollow links are HTML attributes directing search engine crawlers/spiders to linked web pages or websites. They are the most common types of backlinks, as they are the default types of links if no special attributes are added.
💡 What They Do
Dofollow backlinks demonstrate to crawlers that the linked page is trustworthy, and they must follow it. This, in turn, passes the link juice or authority to the linked page.
Backlinks using the “nofollow” tag tell search engines that they should not pass link juice through these backlinks. However, by sending users to the linked website, nofollow backlinks can still boost traffic, branding, and referrals.
💡 What They Do
Nofollow tags were created to counteract spammy or deceptive link-building techniques. When a link on a website has the nofollow property, it instructs crawlers not to follow it and pass the link juice.
Backlinks that are contextually relevant and educational are those that are incorporated within the text of a web page/blog post/PR.
💡 What They Do
Contextual backlinks are contextually relevant, which means they provide the users with helpful information. That’s why they are thought to have higher chances of getting clicked. Additionally, strategies like the Link Wheel In SEO can further strengthen your website’s link-building by interlinking multiple high-quality contextual backlinks to improve SEO performance.
These backlinks are positioned in the header section of a webpage, such as the site-wide header or the navigation menu.
💡 What They Do
Header backlinks can give search engines a strong sign of relevance and importance.
These backlinks use the brand name or anchor text that is associated with the brand.
💡What They Do
Branded backlinks promote a connected website and raise brand awareness while supporting SEO initiatives, as brand mentions are an important SEO ranking signal.
These backlinks don’t use any special keywords; instead, they just use the connected website’s actual URL as the anchor text.
Source: https://www.scoopearth.com/
💡What They Do
Naked URL backlinks help to promote direct traffic and raise brand visibility. They also aid in diversifying a website’s anchor text profile.
Source: https://www.thehindu.com
These backlinks develop naturally, without the website owner making any conscious effort.
💡What They Do
Since other websites are willingly giving you a backlink, they are highly prized by search engines.
These backlinks are acquired by mentions or suggestions in editorial content, including reputable blog posts or news pieces. They are given significant importance since they are provided by reliable sources and provide search engines high credibility.
💡What They Do
Editorial backlinks are hyperlinks included by an editor or author into the text of a webpage to signify the linked website is a trustworthy and reputable source of information.
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) backlinks are acquired by responding to journalists’ or bloggers’ queries looking for expert opinions or quotes. It is a powerful way to gain high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites like news portals, magazines, and popular blogs.
💡 What They Do
HARO backlinks help build credibility and authority for your website. When your response is accepted and published, it includes a backlink to your site, driving high-quality referral traffic and improving your domain authority.
👉 Pro Tip: Regularly check HARO queries, provide valuable insights, and increase your chances of getting featured on high-authority sites.
Link insertions refer to adding your website’s link into an already existing, high-quality, and relevant article or blog post. Instead of creating new content, you simply request website owners to insert your link into their existing content where it naturally fits.
💡 What They Do
Link insertions help you gain quick backlinks from authoritative and already-indexed pages. This boosts your website’s authority, improves search rankings, and drives organic traffic.
👉 Pro Tip: Always ensure the inserted link aligns naturally with the content context to avoid looking spammy.
Business listing backlinks are created when you add your website to popular business directories, local listing sites, or citation platforms. These backlinks typically include your business name, website URL, contact details, and address, helping improve local SEO and online visibility.
💡 What They Do
Business listing backlinks boost your website’s local SEO, making it easier for customers to find your business online. They also enhance brand credibility and drive local traffic.
👉 Pro Tip: Always keep your business information consistent across all listing platforms to build strong SEO authority.
UGC (User-Generated Content) backlinks are created when users post content that includes your website link. These backlinks commonly appear in blog comments, forum discussions, Q&A platforms, social media, or community pages.
💡 What They Do
UGC backlinks help increase brand visibility and referral traffic. However, these links often carry a rel=”ugc” tag, signaling to search engines that they are user-generated and not editorially placed, thus carrying less SEO value.
👉 Pro Tip: Engage in relevant forums or community discussions to build natural UGC backlinks without appearing spammy.
PBN (Private Blog Network) backlinks are created by building a network of multiple websites, usually owned by the same person, to link back to a target website. The purpose of PBNs is to manipulate search engine rankings by creating artificial backlinks. However, using PBN backlinks is considered a black-hat SEO technique and can lead to penalties if detected by search engines.
💡 What They Do
PBN backlinks can temporarily boost your website’s ranking by passing link juice from multiple sites. However, they come with high risks, as search engines may penalize or deindex your site if caught.
👉 Pro Tip: Avoid using PBN backlinks and focus on earning high-quality, natural backlinks to ensure long-term SEO success.
Image backlinks are created when someone uses your image on their website and links it back to your source (website) as a credit. These backlinks often come from infographics, custom graphics, product images, or creative visual content shared across various platforms.
💡 What They Do
Image backlinks drive referral traffic to your website and improve your domain authority. Additionally, they boost your website’s visibility in Google Image Search, helping you attract more visitors.
👉 Pro Tip: Create high-quality infographics or unique images and upload them to platforms like Pinterest, Flickr, or Unsplash to gain natural image backlinks.
Source: https://www.wikipedia.org/
💡 Create Helpful and Unique Content
The best way to get backlinks is naturally when websites do it willingly. But that requires you to create helpful and unique content, and it is quite challenging. For that, you must try to solve problems, conduct original research and provide insights, create visual content, and, more importantly, share your unique POV. However, your unique POV should come from expertise and experience. This approach is an essential part of natural link building, as it encourages other websites to link to your content without any direct effort on your part.
💡 Guest Blogging
Guest blogging involves creating and posting content on other websites relevant to your niche, and these websites, in return, give you a backlink. Guest blogging for SEO is a great strategy because it not only helps you build relationships with other sites but also allows you to acquire high-quality backlinks that can enhance your site’s search engine performance. You must ensure, though, that the websites you choose to partner with are trustworthy. And here, too, the aim should be to produce content that is helpful.
💡 Broken Link Building
Broken links are hyperlinks that no longer lead to a functioning webpage, resulting in a 404 error when users click on them. Having broken links is a red flag for websites, presenting an opportunity for you to capitalize on and correct this issue. By offering to replace the broken link with your own relevant content, you not only assist the website owner in fixing their broken links but also have a chance to gain a highly relevant backlink in return. It’s a win-win situation that improves user experience and enhances your own website’s SEO efforts.
💡 Skyscraper Technique
The Skyscraper technique is a powerful strategy for acquiring high-quality backlinks. It involves creating extraordinary, in-depth, and highly valuable content that outperforms existing materials on a given topic. Once you have developed your exceptional content, you reach out to websites that have linked to similar but outdated or less comprehensive resources. By showcasing your superior resource, you provide them with a compelling reason to replace their existing links with a link to your content. This technique leverages the interest already shown in a subject to gain backlinks of the finest quality.
It’s critical to keep your backlink profile authentic and ethical by steering clear of certain backlinks and practices that could potentially hurt it.
🚫 Paid Links go against Google’s guidelines as they undermine the integrity of search results. But these differ from sponsored content with “nofollow” attributes, strictly indicating that it is an advertisement and does not pass any ranking benefits.
🚫 Low-Quality Directory Links solely created for link-building purposes can harm your website’s reputation. Instead, focus on reputable, industry-specific directories that hold more significance.
🚫 Link Exchanges with other websites solely for the purpose of manipulating search results is not recommended. Instead, concentrate on fostering genuine relationships and acquiring contextually relevant backlinks.
🚫 Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are web-based networks created with the sole intention of manipulating search engine results through link building. Engaging with PBNs can lead to severe penalties from search engines.
🚫 Irrelevant and Spammy Links can negatively impact your website’s authority and rankings. It’s crucial to ensure that your backlinks are from reliable and relevant sources. If you’ve accidentally acquired harmful backlinks, disavow bad links to prevent them from affecting your site’s performance.
Backlinks are vital for SEO and trustworthiness. Keeping that in mind, this blog post has covered all the different types of backlinks and the practices you must avoid. If you need help in implementing a robust strategy, contact us for SEO services and get a proper off-page SEO plan.
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