Can backlinks hurt my site

[freetraff]

This question comes back to SEO forums again and again.

I also get this question asked often, because I build backlinks and many people have FEAR factor to be very strong about backlinks being possible to hurt them.

After hundreds of questions like:

"Is building backlinks bad?"
"Will Google penalize me for building many backlinks?"
"How many backlinks is ok and how many is too much?"
...

I decided to record this video.

YouTube - Can Incoming Links Hurt Your Sites

[monitorit]

I have been using angelas and do seem to be getting anywhere? I dont even know if they are indexed and one keyword only has 8k`s worth of competing results.

[Tom Brite]

Thanks for clearing that up for most people!

Took a look at your program too and it looks interesting. Hopefully will see some more of your information videos soon too. Next one i think should be about the sandbox and building too many backlinks too quick.

Tom Brite

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by Tom Brite

Thanks for clearing that up for most people!

Took a look at your program too and it looks interesting. Hopefully will see some more of your information videos soon too. Next one i think should be about the sandbox and building too many backlinks too quick.

Tom Brite

Good idea about the video, because this is where we might be getting into another SEO myth.

I can tell a very nasty SEO thing - but I have been building even hundreds of backlinks per day - no problems. On some sites that helped to get Google page 1 on very tough keywords, where around only multi-million dollar brands are sitting.

And that was on fresh green sites that had all chances to get into sandbox!

The most important is that you build your backlinks in a natural way:

- from relevant sites
- from different IPs
- sites owned by different people
- with diversified anchor text
- from inside real texts (like blog posts, for example)

[willsmith]

Originally Posted by freetraff

The most important is that you build your backlinks in a natural way

Agreed, a natural backlink structure is the best. Also, I have been a member of your Free Traffic System for several weeks now. So far I am not particularly impressed with the results, but I do intend to give it more time.

Being a free member of the Free Traffic System allowed me to have my spun article submitted to 30 blogs with two backlinks in each article. So, after I submitted the article through the Free Traffic System I also began building other backlinks. The results are telling: practically every backlink I built - other than the articles I submitted through the Free Traffic System - is showing through Yahoo. So far, only one backlink is showing from the 30 articles distributed through your service. Hopefully more of the backlinks submitted through the Free Traffic System will begin appearing.

In the meantime, I am not really inclined to submit more articles through the free service until I see results. However, the Free Traffic System concept seems sound enough if the results actually justify the work and time invested.

[Jenie0109]

Here are some:
1. link farms
2. porn sites
3: Abnormal backlink patterns
4: Irrelevant niches

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by willsmith

Agreed, a natural backlink structure is the best. Also, I have been a member of your Free Traffic System for several weeks now. So far I am not particularly impressed with the results, but I do intend to give it more time.

Being a free member of the Free Traffic System allowed me to have my spun article submitted to 30 blogs with two backlinks in each article. So, after I submitted the article through the Free Traffic System I also began building other backlinks. The results are telling: practically every backlink I built - other than the articles I submitted through the Free Traffic System - is showing through Yahoo. So far, only one backlink is showing from the 30 articles distributed through your service. Hopefully more of the backlinks submitted through the Free Traffic System will begin appearing.

In the meantime, I am not really inclined to submit more articles through the free service until I see results. However, the Free Traffic System concept seems sound enough if the results actually justify the work and time invested.

But don't forget that search engines will never tell you the truth about backlinks - why? read more in this publication: Make Money Online Blog Archive How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Get Google Page 1?

And the best way to see the backlinks that you build inside Free Traffic System are the trackbacks, because you build backlinks from blogs and most of the blogs send pings, thus in your trackback comments you can see everything.

[stizzard]

I agree with most posts and I usually advocate the more links the merrier but paying special atention to market specific links if possible. Porn links coming into your site can't hurt these days as Google's too clever to spot the pissed off competitor tactic by linking you to "king dong's adventure weekend" website etc. However it's a different story if you link to "king dong" from your web, know what I mean ;-)

[dks]

which links are not related to your website niche, link farms and porn websites links hurt your website

[Saidar]

freetraff,

I'm was always thinking exactly the same as you do. But recently I built a lot of backlinks (about 300) no a new one week old website of mine. About 5 keywords that I want to rank for ranked within the top 30, but then suddenly my site completely disappeared. It has been a week now, and it has not returned. Is this the "Google dance" everybody is talking about? How long will it last?

[Saidar]

Originally Posted by dks

which links are not related to your website niche, link farms and porn websites links hurt your website

Good idea lets go and get porn links and farming website links to all our competitors!

As far as I know anything that you can do manually will not hurt your website because you can then do it to your competitor as well

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by Saidar

freetraff,

I'm was always thinking exactly the same as you do. But recently I built a lot of backlinks (about 300) no a new one week old website of mine. About 5 keywords that I want to rank for ranked within the top 30, but then suddenly my site completely disappeared. It has been a week now, and it has not returned. Is this the "Google dance" everybody is talking about? How long will it last?

This is a very interesting topic which I personally call "Up Down Up" effect - very interesting stuff.

This is one of the things that I am putting into pipeline for the "mind clearing" videos. Thanks for a great idea Saidar.

[Fernando Veloso]

So, Can backlinks hurt my site?

Originally Posted by Jenie0109

Here are some:
1. link farms
2. porn sites
3: Abnormal backlink patterns
4: Irrelevant niches

So you're telling us you can de-rank my site by doing a dirty backlink campaign in link farms, porn sites (heck, how the hell porn sites rank #1?), irrelevant niches?

I pay to see that. Me and 1 million IMers across the globe.

[Saidar]

Originally Posted by freetraff

This is a very interesting topic which I personally call "Up Down Up" effect - very interesting stuff.

This is one of the things that I am putting into pipeline for the "mind clearing" videos. Thanks for a great idea Saidar.

My pleasure... I would love to see someone explain that phenomena... Lets just hope my site comes back otherwise my whole opinion about "getting penalised" in some way would change

[bigcat1967]

Google knows that you can't help incoming links. If so, then I'll backlink my competition's sites from porn sites. But I know that won't work.

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by bigcat1967

Google knows that you can't help incoming links. If so, then I'll backlink my competition's sites from porn sites. But I know that won't work.

Yep, but try to deliver that into the minds of people who are scared of everything that is SEO because "Google seez all, Google iz mighty, Google will punish"

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by freetraff

Yep, but try to deliver that into the minds of people who are scared of everything that is SEO because "Google seez all, Google iz mighty, Google will punish"

I call this the "Mighty Zeus in the sky, waiting to strike us all down" thought pattern.

Great video, BTW. I'd like to keep it onhand for my folks, if you don't mind.

[refa93]

great video, bad neighbours do hurt more than benefit in SEO

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards

"Mighty Zeus in the sky, waiting to strike us all down"

Awesome quote. Awesome.

And this type of thinking is usually caused by lack of knowledge + fear (usually because one lacks knowledge)

In almost any sphere of our life this formula is working. Unfortunately.

[AlexTampa]

As far as backlinks hurting. I have never once saw links hurt a site UNLESS there was a keyword anchor.


Lets say you are in the widget market, and you have 4000 posts on a forum. You can actually harm a competitor by posting a signature to their site with "widget" in the anchor.


BUT, You can not harm the authority site by doing this. They can do whatever they want, because there is enough trust coming in to outweigh it.

But I would say you can definitely take a site from the number 10 spot to number 100 by invoking a phrase based penalty.

You can still end up in court for such a thing though

[Chris Koltai]

With what you are referencing, AlexTampa, I've noticed that it just invokes a temporary sandbox effect. Even that seems to be dependent on other factors. In any case, i have never had an incoming link negatively affect any of my sites, the end result is always either higher rankings or no change at all

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by AlexTampa

As far as backlinks hurting. I have never once saw links hurt a site UNLESS there was a keyword anchor.


Lets say you are in the widget market, and you have 4000 posts on a forum. You can actually harm a competitor by posting a signature to their site with "widget" in the anchor.


BUT, You can not harm the authority site by doing this. They can do whatever they want, because there is enough trust coming in to outweigh it.

But I would say you can definitely take a site from the number 10 spot to number 100 by invoking a phrase based penalty.

You can still end up in court for such a thing though

Sorry, Alex, but I cannot agree with you on this issue. For the same reasons that I explained in the video.

You told it yourself - if someone wants to hurt a competitor for a specific keyword, then this person simply builds lots of junky backlinks to the site of the competitor for this keyword. If that would work - that would be a HUGE hole in the algo.

And like bigcat1967 said in the reply to my post "you can't help incoming links"

P.S. Though I am seriously for diversification of anchor texts in backlinks, I have been doing SEO tests and building backlinks on the same keyword for the 100% new site. Basically I was hammering one and the same keyword. The only difference that I was building backlinks from relevant sites or general sites "About Everything". It worked like magic, I helped one guy to push his site in 3 months to Google page 1 for a very tough keyword in Forex niche (with hammering on the same keyword) and he sold this site for ~ $10,000. If you are interested, send me a PM and I will send you a link where you can read more details on this issue and proofs. So, as you can see - even hammering into the same keyword (which is not very wise, I agree) makes no problem for SEO, you just need to build quality backlinks.

[AlexTampa]

Originally Posted by freetraff

and he sold this site for ~ $10,000. If you are interested, send me a PM and I will send you a link where you can read more details on this issue and proofs. So, as you can see - even hammering into the same keyword (which is not very wise, I agree) makes no problem for SEO, you just need to build quality backlinks.

sold for 10k? I built sites in markets that make more than that per month

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by AlexTampa

sold for 10k? I built sites in markets that make more than that per month

That's great! Congrats on that (I really mean it).

But he just had a simple blog, he did almost nothing on it (some simple content), and we made lots of backlinks.

Once the blog jumped to page 1 (with only forex.com being higher), he got a proposition to sell this site for 7,500 euros (~ $10,000) - well, he thought that is was great price and sold it.

I also believe that he could make a lot more with the site in Forex niche, being position 2, page 1 for quite a tough Forex keyword. He could build a business around it and make very nice profits by sending people to forex services like managed accounts or be a Forex IB.

But what can I do - the price looked lovely to him and he sold. It was his site and he was the boss. In any case, he is happy - and a satisfied client is a loyal client.

[AlexTampa]

Originally Posted by freetraff

That's great! Congrats on that (I really mean it).

But he just had a simple blog, he did almost nothing on it (some simple content), and we made lots of backlinks.

Once the blog jumped to page 1 (with only forex.com being higher), he got a proposition to sell this site for 7,500 euros (~ $10,000) - well, he thought that is was great price and sold it.

I also believe that he could make a lot more with the site in Forex niche, being position 2, page 1 for quite a tough Forex keyword. He could build a business around it and make very nice profits by sending people to forex services like managed accounts or be a Forex IB.

But what can I do - the price looked lovely to him and he sold. It was his site and he was the boss. In any case, he is happy - and a satisfied client is a loyal client.

When it comes to valuation of time spent into, and the site etc. You have to it comes down to the creator. Some people would not create a site for less than 20K, and over 50K for eccom sites. While others will make the same site for 10% of that

[freetraff]

Originally Posted by AlexTampa

When it comes to valuation of time spent into, and the site etc. You have to it comes down to the creator. Some people would not create a site for less than 20K, and over 50K for eccom sites. While others will make the same site for 10% of that

I agree, the ROI depends a lot upon how much money was spent.

For him the ROI was close to 1,000% The creation of the blog was peanuts, I don't think that you can charge more than $500 for a blog with themed design where only logo is unique. And this is what we did for him.

And the payment, well indeed this is where the monthly price for our service for this client was several times cheaper then it could be charged. But we make serious discounts for our members and this is our policy.

So, provided that he would pay $1,500 per month instead of $300 per month - then surely the ROI would be much smaller. But still that would be a positive number.

P.S. We sided from the general topic of this discussion and I do not want to get blamed of doing super blatant promo. That is why if you would like to discuss any nuances on this issue, send a PM and I will answer your questions with pleasure.