Link Quality, How To Build Quality Backlinks
Link quality is a funny one, it takes quite a while to really understand the importance of link quality. It’s a factor that I don’t recommend people learn if they’re brand new to SEO. Learning keyword research, link diversity and quantity is more than enough to get started.
Link quality just goes into the factors that will help you evaluate your competitor’s backlinks and boost your own.
Every page on the Internet has page authority. Myself and others like to give pages a score out of a hundred for authority. The higher the authority of a page, the higher it will rank and the more link juice it will send to your website. Really there are about 5 different factors to link quality:
- Base Type
- Age
- OBL (Out Bound Links)
- Page Rank
- Inbound Links
- Authority
All links aren’t created equal. Certain links carry a lot more weight than others. This is a list of backlinks in order of their base authority/value from least to most:
- Commenting
- Forum Profiles
- Directory Submissions
- RSS Distribution
- Social Bookmarking
- Q & A Marketing
- Forum Discussions
- Web2.0 Profiles
- Video Distribution
- Article Marketing
- Web2.0 Sites
- Social Media
- Press Releases
- Private Blog Networks
- Pay Per Post
- Guest Blogging
A lot of link-building strategies, I know. And that’s not even all of them. Those are just 18 of the techniques you should be using if you’re trying to completely obliterate the competition and take over your niche.
You can get top rankings from just one or a few of the techniques. Anyway, each link type has a base link quality. Comments have the least, and guest blog posts have the most if they’re on high authority blogs.
One guest blog post on a Page Rank 4 blog may give you as much link juice as 10,000 forum profiles or 200 private blog network links. Links start with their base value, but can be improved.
Next is age. Backlinks tend to gain power over time. It’s been proven many times, and I’m definitely an advocate of this theory. Quite a lot of SEOs believe old links devalue, but I believe as long as you keep building new links, the old ones only gain strength.
OBL is an important one that most SEOs overlook. It stands for out-bound links; the fewer, the better. Think of Page Rank as this universal score pages receive based on how much link juice they have. Link juice is always flowing, and nearly all websites “let it escape” through their external links.
By building links to a page, you’re sending it link juice. Then if that page links out to another page, some of the link juice will be passed through to it. So the more outbound links on a page, the less link juice it will pass through to your website.
So if you think you’ve found an amazing backlink opportunity commenting on a Page Rank 5 blog post, you’re probably wrong. You’ll probably find that 1,000 other people have also left comments, and the sheer amount of OBL’s will cause the blog comment to be worthless.
Next is Page Rank, an important quality factor. The higher the Page Rank of the page you’re getting a backlink from, the more link juice it will pass through to your website. At the same time, you must take into account the number of OBL’s a page has.
Page Rank is why everyone spams authority sites to death. For example, with web2.0’s, people build their own blogs on sites like Hubpages and Blogger.
They think they’re getting high Page Rank backlinks, but they’re really not. The root domains may well be PR6 or 8, but the microblogs you build on them have a base Page Rank of 0. However, link juice is usually passed all the way from the root domain through to internal pages where your backlinks are situated.
Getting high Page Rank backlinks will help you rank quickly and give you direct authority.
Next is inbound links, meaning inbound backlinks. How many backlinks your backlinks have. As I said, link juice flows through open links. So when building backlinks, you should only ever link to 1-3 of your own websites and or pages. Then if you want to increase the quality of your backlinks, you can build more links to them.
Many SEOs build multi-tiered link structures, building tens of thousands of links to the lower tiers, forcing tons of link juice to flow through tier two and one all the way to the money site.
Lastly is the authority factor. The higher the authority of the site you’re getting a link from, the higher the quality of the backlink. Authority is basically another word for quality. It’s also very similar to Page Rank.
A high authority site is generally one that has high Page Rank, tens of thousands of pages, and even more inbound links. The best links you can get are from niche-specific authority sites. Niche authority site backlinks are king.
Sites commonly known as authorities are like EzineArticles.com, Hubpages, and Squidoo. They have high Page Rank, tens of thousands of pages, and countless backlinks. But they don’t focus on a specific niche. They cover every niche on the Internet, which makes them irrelevant. Links from relevant (niche-specific) websites have always generated superior results to links from general authority sites.
So just to recap, a quality backlink should be:
- Aged
- Low OBL’s
- High Page Rank
- Relevant
- Authoritative
- Have Many Inbound Links
It’s almost impossible to build all of your backlinks using the above criteria. It’s also a bad idea—diversity is the key. However, you should always aim to build a variety of high-quality backlinks taking the above criteria into account.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below.
Mikey: Really liked this article, I learned what it takes to make a high quality backlink, and now its time to implement what I learned. My 2 faves, that I’m currently doing are article marketing and social media. Found a couple of gems that I can utilize in the future.
Colleen Kelly Mellor: There’s a definite learning curve to this blogging thing…I mean, I’ve been at it now for almost two years (in July–the 4th to be exact–not exactly my Independence Day, but in a way, it was), and I have never sought to comment on others’ sites. My God, I couldn’t even remember where I’d been if I didn’t make a note of the ones I liked–immediately. Now, I note those special web addresses where I get a chunk of real value. In other words, I’m getting better at discrimination–not usually a good word, elsewhere. But on the world wide web, it’s a positive, as we’re deluged with less-than-spectacular word vaults, penned by others. Dave, I will be back for you offer quality information and I am ready for this next step, seeking backlinks. Now, tell me, dear sir, am I just a slow learner or does it take pretty much 18 mos. for anyone to get on board in seeking those important back links to their sites?
Maria Eves: I’m getting into commenting on blogs, David. It’s a lesson that needs discipline which I found very lazily at the beginning I was. It’s so extended to extended SEO. I’m getting the guts of it day by day, it seems to get better and better and really enjoying. You always share value, you are too clever. Blessings to you both…
Ken A: Good advice. I’m surprised that you have guest blogging ranked so high (over private blog networks). I have to look into that some more.
Tyronne Ratcliff: Leaving comments on blogs is a good way to linkbuild since your comments have sticking power, a great way to get residual traffic. Thanks for the information.
Ruth: Thanks for this article, David. Guest blogging is definitely something to look into. I’ve heard of it but didn’t pay much attention to it until now.
Adam: Hey Dave, nice article! I think link diversity is so important when it comes to getting ranked and staying there. I’ve noticed I can get to the 1st page with simple strategies like submitting to article directories through AMR, but have noticed once the campaign ends, my rankings start to drop slowly. This article was a good reminder to mix it up and keep the link-building going.
Linda M: I had no idea there were so many factors involved in link quality! This post really opened my eyes to the importance of each element. I’ll definitely start paying more attention to OBL and the authority of the sites I’m linking to. Thanks, David!
Jason T: It’s fascinating how much thought goes into building quality backlinks. I always assumed it was just about getting as many as possible, but now I see that quality truly matters more. The detailed breakdown in this post is extremely helpful.
Rebecca S: I’ve been struggling with my SEO strategy lately, and this post gave me a much-needed boost. The explanation of inbound links and how they contribute to link juice was particularly useful. I’ll be revisiting my approach to see where I can improve.
Eric B: I never really considered the age of backlinks before. This post makes a strong case for why older links can be more powerful. Definitely something I’m going to start tracking more closely.
Stephanie K: The section on authority sites was a real eye-opener. I’ve been focusing too much on quantity over quality, and this article helped me see why that’s not the best approach. Time to adjust my strategy!
Tom H: David, your posts always bring something new to the table. The detailed list of backlink types and their values is something I’m going to bookmark and refer to regularly. Thanks for the great content!
Angela W: I’ve been trying to boost my site’s rankings, and this guide is just what I needed. The advice on keeping OBL low and focusing on relevant, high-authority links is invaluable. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Michael P: This post has clarified so many things for me. I had no idea there were so many layers to link building. The part about multi-tiered link structures was particularly insightful. Great read!
