Back in the good ol’ days, SEO was easy. Stuff your keywords here, here, here and here. Add them there and there for good measure. And build links, links and more links. But now those are considered as spammy link-building techniques.
Well, to quote Billy Joel, “The good ol’ days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.” Perhaps we should call them “The Good Ol’ Spammy Days.”
Here are two spammy link-building techniques that no longer work – but that are still being pushed by many SEO practitioners today.
Spammy Link-building Technique #1: DIRECTORIES:
It is hard to believe, but less than a decade ago, the top way to build one-way links was by submitting your website to directories. The more directories, the better.
If inbound links were a measure of how popular a website was – votes for that website – then it stands to reason that lots of directory votes means you have a very popular website, full of all the best content. Except that makes no sense at all, since all those links – all those “votes” were you voting for yourself – stuffing the ballot box.
Do directory submissions still work?. I believe they do. But I believe that only a small selection of directories work, those that are selective about whom they admit.
More specifically, only those that make it painfully obvious to the search engines that they are selective. These include:
- Local directories. These can be effective because they send a signal to the search engines that the sites included are relevant for local searches.
- Niche directories. These can be effective because they send a signal to the search engines that the sites included are relevant for certain topics, for certain searches.
- Discriminating directories. These can be effective because they send a signal to the search engines that the sites included are of top quality. If your website is accepted into an exclusive club, the search engines will note that it has moved up in the world, so to speak.
Spammy Link-building Technique #2: LINK EXCHANGES:
And not that long ago, link exchanges were the top means of garnering inbound links. The flow of link exchange emails used to drown out most other things in my email inbox. Now it has slowed to a trickle – a mere dozen or so per day. Yes, even now, a dozen a day.
Link exchanges were an easy way to get those inbound links, those “votes”, because everybody wanted to exchange links. In theory, this made a lot more sense than directory links.
With link exchanges, you were not voting for yourself. Someone else was voting for you. And they would not publicly, on their own website, vote for you unless your website was up to their standard of quality.
The problem came when everyone was so desperate to trade links that they were willing to put any links on their website, perhaps tucked out of the way of their visitors. Quality be damned. Topic be damned. And so, link exchanges became as spammy as directory submissions. Worse, in far too many cases.
Do link exchanges still work ?. I believe they do, very much so. And I still undertake them for clients on a rare and discriminating basis. The two key factors are:
- Quality. I don’t want my clients linking to poor quality websites. If it would be embarrassing for a visitor to the site to follow the link, it does not go up.
- Relevance. Don’t want my client’s automotive links showing up wedged between a link to a web design company and a link to an energy drink supplier. Such a placement shows no relevance; it is almost like shouting out to the search engines, “I’ll sleep with anyone to get a link!” Hardly a convincing “vote” or “endorsement”.
These two link-building techniques used to work, hard as it is to believe. They still do, if carefully executed. But beware of the peddlers still selling the old style, mass production versions. A good rule of thumb is, you get what you pay for. Another is, if it seems too good to be true it probably is. Take the time. Spend the money. Do it right. It will pay off in the long run.
David, excellent points all. Nuances are tricky little buggers. The question I’m more interested in learning the answer to is whether or not engaging en masse in low-quality techniques to improve one’s profile of inbounds has any ill effect, relative to the time period during which the campaign is conducted or not.
One of the things I’ve always struggled to accept is the possibility that through no fault of my own, I could be penalized because a savvy competitor engaged in a sabotage campaign involving the creation of such links on sites I have no control over whatsoever, using irrelevant and/or obscene/pornographic anchor text from either inappropriate, embarrassing or totally irrelevant sites.
While I have no reason to believe such practices have been targeted towards any of the sites I manage, it is a thought that is always in the back of my head, and I’ve long struggled to determine which potential contingency plan would work best in the event this were to ever happen.
Admittedly, while I’ve never engaged in such techniques either for the intended benefit of my site or destruction of a competitor’s, I have contemplated the idea and were I not so busy with legitimate business work might have even put together an experiment involving a domain I was prepared to sacrifice in the name of research just to see if this approach could actually adversely affect sites owned and operated by people who are either in competition with or for whatever reason have animosity toward the site being sabotaged.
I don’t have time to play games, but this is a question I’ve found to be curious for quite some time now, and if you or any of your readers know the answer or have ever attempted this I’d love to know how it went.
Peter, I am sure that such negative SEO could be played out. In fact, I have seen websites adversely affected by tons of spam inbound links that the owner had no hand in creating.
From a business perspective, this does not make a lot of sense. In order to get any real advantage from such a strategy, you would have to target all of your top competition, which would make the culprit stick out like a sore thumb. From an emotional perspective, this might make a lot of sense, since often entrepreneurs get sidetracked being pissed off with one or another competitor for something shady he’s been doing.
To my mind, it is much more effective to keep one’s eye on the ball and pretty much ignore the competition. But, of course, there are no black and whitre rules in the real world.