Most importantly, and contrary to what you may have heard , link building is far from dead. Many of the " link building is dead" theories are rooted in wishful thinking and / or anxiety . The fear is real and understandable as the Penguin update finally delivered employed on Google's long run promises to severely penalize websites in manipulative link systems.
( Do not fear ) the Google Reaper
Some have found that the best and safest answer to Penguin is to stop link building altogether. This is a bad idea.
Here's a reality check : the best way to improve the visibility in the SERPs , in 2014, is still link building. Links are still believed to be the most important part of the algorithm , according to the most recent Moz search engine ranking factors survey.
Google's own Matt Cutts confirmed the same in an interview with Eric Enge , which states :
"Links are still the best way we have found to discover ( as relevant or important one is ) and perhaps in the course of time, the social or the copyright or other types of markup give us much more information about it."
This statement has some pretty important implications when it comes to planning and budgeting for a digital marketing campaign.
The main takeaway is this: Link Building is still the key to greater visibility in organic search . If your goal is to improve the visibility in organic search , then invest in resources accordingly. Social media and the author may ( and probably will ) impact on the SERPs at a specific time in the future, but not today and probably not much in 2014.
Relevance is the new PageRank
The development of the original 1 link = 1 vote algorithm took a quantum leap May 2012 the introduction of the knowledge graph , which is used by Google to search results with semantic search - to provide information . This information is derived from a variety of sources to add , using more than 500 million and 3.5 billion objects. In Google Speak the knowledge graph is about " things, not strings. "It is quite likely that knowledge graph is baked in Hummingbird, the latest Google algorithm. Assuming that this is the case, then a correlation between the " context , not to anchor text " and " things not strings" is applicable . Relevance is the new PageRank in the search for linking opportunities.
Pre- Hummingbird, a search for car covers can the results below Car Accessories split up your car, tribute bands , to protect the classic rock group " The Cars " and songs covered by Ric Ocasek costs and obtain : An example from practice might look like the cars. The "old" algo could not distinguish a car cover from another. Hummingbird, on the other hand knows the difference . Unnatural : Now all these auto parts links from high PR band websites are now exposed for what they really are. In the best case, the link will be devalued. In the worst case it triggers a manual review .
Link Schemes vs Link Building
The difference between link intrigue and link building in 2014 is crucial. For webmasters do SEO before Panda was , this can be especially difficult to navigate .Many were charged directly from the Google paradox. Unlike the Einstein theory of insanity , actually result in the Google paradox SERPs different results after doing the same thing (Spam Link Building ) over and over again .
A link schema , the number one rankings in 2010, can and will pull a manual or algorithmic penalty today. The paradox has driven a lot of webmasters nuts !
According to Google , the following activities link intrigue - not link building :
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
• Create Automated programs or services , links to your website
• Linking to a Web site for the sole purpose of getting a link back
• Building a Netzwerkverbindungzum purpose of linking
• Great Article Marketing or Guest Post with keyword rich anchor text
• Purchase of advertorials or articles, the links pass PageRank close
• Create and distribute press releases with optimized anchor text
Recently removed from the specifications , but still more likely to trigger a penalty :
• Link to web spammers or independent websites to manipulate with the intention of PageRank
• Links that are inserted in Article with little coherence
3 safe ways to build links in 2014
So what's left?• Focus external link efforts to acquire editorially given links . These are links require human intervention and approval.
• Build links that are relevant - on Pages , where the readers would have a genuine interest in your site.
• Quality trumps quantity . A few links from high trust / authority sites have more influence than hundreds of links from "Made for Guest posting" blog.