Backlinks - Anchor Text - Link Juice - PR - Authority Sites - ALL EXPLAINED!!!

[Tom Brite]

Hey,

Thought it was about time that i shared some of my knowledge for free to all of you here. It's not often that i do share knowledge for free with everyone and normally just do it on an individual basis, however i learnt from people sharing so ive decided that im going to start sharing more now than ever before.

So backlinks and getting those top spots in google seem's to be the talk of the town (or at least the forum) for a while now so im going to have a shot at explaining some of the basics to you all and try and get rid of some of those mis-conceptions.

So where to start?

Backlinks - These if you didn't know already are simply links pointing to your site/article/blog (something you made/own). The more of these you have the better however there are better backlinks to get than others. These are based on two things -> PR, Traffic. However backlinks is still mostly a number game, the more you have the better. But with high quality backlinks you need alot less than you do with low quality ones.

Anchor Text - This is the text that is in the nice blue colour like this (or in this case black and underlined). It is simply the clickable text that sends the visitor to your site from your backlink. The anchor text is very important as its what google reads and thinks ooo the site they are linking to is related to the hyperlinked anchor text and so we will give them a boost for that keyphrase. Resulting in higher rankings for that keyphrase.

Now the problem with anchor text is that if you have too many backlinks (a high %) with the same anchor text then it looks un-natural and google doesn't like that. So vary your anchor text sometimes, even just putting it into the plural sense is enough, or slightly rewording it.

Link Juice - This has become the term used for passing on the brownie points to your site from your backlinks, or passing on the juice. The juice is measured by the PR of the site the backlink is on (both the homepage and the actual page that your link is contained on) and it reduces in power the more sites it links to.

Think of it as you being a site and people come to put links on you and you are holding a pint of milk and have to share it between them. Then they each get an equal share.

Then if you don't make your outbound links to other peoples sites nofollow then you will be giving their site some of your milk juice too that you have worked very hard for.

So the sites with a higher PR will give your site more juice and means it climbs the google ranks very quickly compared to sites with hardly any juice and a low PR.

PR - This is not very compared to when it was first introduced however it serves as an indication of how much juice a site has. Plus it does have a small effect on which sites rank top in google so it is usefull to get.

You ideally want to be getting backlinks from the sites with a higher PR over a lower PR and if you get those high PR backlinks then your site will also recieve a PR rating too.

Authority Sites - These are the sites that google favours over any others on the internet. They usually rank very high on google naturally and if you can add content to them then you are going to be on an easier ride than creating a new site or content on an un-authority site. They need alot less if not any backlinks to rank top either, so you save yourself alot of time too.

The way you can tell an authority site from a normal site is because they are the ones that appear in the top of google for most keyphrases. However certain niches also have authority sites too.

Some examples of authority sites are: wikipedia, yahoo answers, youtube, hubpages, squidoo etc

If you wanted to know all of them then just take a look down the alexa top 1000 sites and the ones you typically recognize are considered authority sites by google.

Similarly if you can get backlinks from these sites at the very least then google will favour you too. Especially if it is from google controlled sites such as blogger and youtube.

Common Mistake with Backlinks: Getting backlinks from sites with un-related content does not matter. It is still a backlink and if it is from an authority site then it is even better no matter what the content is about.


Now to get your articles/sites/blogs etc ranking as high as possible make sure you optimize them for a keyphrase or if you are even smarter then keyphrase's. Then backlink backlink backlink from high pr and authority sites and if your feeling a bit adventurous then get some .edu and .gov backlinks too as they have a hell of alot of authority and gives a massive boost in the google rankings.

Also beware of the google dance and google slap... do not build too many backlinks at once... 20 to 30 a day with a brand new site is plenty and give it some breathing time so that it settles down in a position in google and then build more to get it ranking higher. I also ping each place that i get a backlink so that they are indexed quicker and you receive a higher ranking alot quicker than you would waiting for the bots to crawl those sites. It will only take about 1 to 2 weeks before you see some good results but it can depend on your keyphrase too and its competition.

Just don't give up!

I hope this small guide helps some people as it certainly took a while to write and make sure everything i am saying is correct because SEO in general can be a difficult thing to explain.

Tom Brite

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Tom Brite

Now the problem with anchor text is that if you have too many backlinks (a high %) with the same anchor text then it looks un-natural and google doesn't like that.

Not unless your talking 100K or so links from a handful of domains and IP addresses or if it is part of a well known publicity campaign (aka Google Bombing)

Originally Posted by Tom Brite

if your feeling a bit adventurous then get some .edu and .gov backlinks too as they have a hell of alot of authority and gives a massive boost in the google rankings.

.edu is pretty diminished these days since every enterprising student has figured out they can sell a link on their school blog for beer money to wannabe SEO experts. Links from government sites can still help though.

Originally Posted by Tom Brite

do not build too many backlinks at once... 10 to 20 a day with a new site is plenty and give it some breathing time

Good advice, for my competitors.

[Tom Brite]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Not unless your talking 100K or so links from a handful of domains and IP addresses or if it is part of a well known publicity campaign (aka Google Bombing)

This still has an effect on a smaller scale. It is just un-natural to build loads of backlinks with the same anchor text. So it is safer to vary them even if only slightly.

.edu is pretty diminished these days since every enterprising student has figured out they can sell a link on their school blog for beer money to wannabe SEO experts. Links from government sites can still help though.

.edu backlinks still work amazingly well especially if they have a PR too. However you are right in saying that .gov backlinks are even better but the problem is they are even harder to find.

Good advice, for my competitors.

Not necessarily. Most competitors don't fowl play although i have had a few that have tried. But in the end all that happens is my site gets sandobxed for a while and then comes flying back in top position above them and there is nothing they can do about it. If you are using web 2.0 sites or article directorys for your backlinks you can build more to them because the site is already aged. But it is best to still be carefull and keep it kinda consistent.

Another thing is most backlinks wont get crawled and noticed by google or other search engines for a while so it could take a week for your backlinks that you created on day 1 (or even longer) to get noticed. Pinging helps speed up this process.

Thanks for your comments anyhow

Tom Brite

[jenniesweetie]

I am still confused on the Anchor text part...

Have been building webpages optimized solely for the same keywords over at many web2.0 properties.

The Results?? They ranked highly on Google for those keywords..

I used to vary the anchor keywords and my webpages were nowhere or extremely slow to climb up the ranks...

Confused.......

[Tom Brite]

Originally Posted by jenniesweetie

I am still confused on the Anchor text part...

Have been building webpages optimized solely for the same keywords over at many web2.0 properties.

The Results?? They ranked highly on Google for those keywords..

I used to vary the anchor keywords and my webpages were nowhere or extremely slow to climb up the ranks...

Confused.......

Yes both are perfectly fine!
It's just you don't want every single backlink pointing back to your site with the same anchor text. You want to vary some of them.

Tom Brite

[tamtu]

I used to vary my anchor text slightly for back links and that was giving me good results, recently a client suggested experimenting with Angela's links and there it was said not to vary the anchor text so I stuck to the same phrase and got just around 10 back links but my ranking started dropping for just that keyword phrase - I am confused [but my feeling is when the phrase is long it is better to vary]

[Tom Brite]

Originally Posted by tamtu

I used to vary my anchor text slightly for back links and that was giving me good results, recently a client suggested experimenting with Angela's links and there it was said not to vary the anchor text so I stuck to the same phrase and got just around 10 back links but my ranking started dropping for just that keyword phrase - I am confused [but my feeling is when the phrase is long it is better to vary]

Quite simply you don't want every single backlink to have the same anchor text.

For example to combat that with my articles over at ezine i simply add two links in the resource box. Both to my site but one with the anchor text and the second as a normal link or with a different anchor text. That way it vary's yet i still am getting good backlinks with my anchor text in them.

Hope this clears up that confusion.

Tom Brite

[gavin6]

Tom

for UK SEO does google add the same power to .gov.uk and .ac.uk links?

thanks

Gavin

[Tom Brite]

Originally Posted by gavin6

Tom

for UK SEO does google add the same power to .gov.uk and .ac.uk links?

thanks

Gavin

Sorry but ive never specialized in local searches really!

Tom Brite

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Tom Brite

Thanks for your comments anyhow

While you're right about some of your stuff, you aren't about other parts of it. Anyway, I hope people who're competing in the same niches as me buy into the wrong stuff you're saying since it will only paralyze them against taking action while helping me.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Not unless your talking 100K or so links from a handful of domains and IP addresses or if it is part of a well known publicity campaign (aka Google Bombing)

.edu is pretty diminished these days since every enterprising student has figured out they can sell a link on their school blog for beer money to wannabe SEO experts. Links from government sites can still help though.

Good advice, for my competitors.

I was going to post the same comments, bgmacaw. While overall the initial post is good and much appreciated by many I'm certain, there is some information in it that isn't precisely on the mark -- particularly the "only 10-20 backlinks at once and then wait a while" advice. If adding more than 20 backlinks at once would penalize a site in Google, then all I have to do is backlink about 30 links a day to all of my competitor's sites and I'll be #1 in Google for every keyword I want in a week. People must think that Google crawls every single site every single day. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way.

Anyhow, let's face it: there are sites that get tens of thousands of new backlinks in a single day and Google has no problem with it at all.

Still, the OP does have some useful information in it, just not all of it.

[Tom Brite]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

I was going to post the same comments, bgmacaw. While overall the initial post is good and much appreciated by many I'm certain, there is some information in it that isn't precisely on the mark -- particularly the "only 10-20 backlinks at once and then wait a while" advice. If adding more than 20 backlinks at once would penalize a site in Google, then all I have to do is backlink about 30 links a day to all of my competitor's sites and I'll be #1 in Google for every keyword I want in a week. People must think that Google crawls every single site every single day. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way.

Anyhow, let's face it: there are sites that get tens of thousands of new backlinks in a single day and Google has no problem with it at all.

Still, the OP does have some useful information in it, just not all of it.

With my method of getting backlinks then pinging those places so the backlinks are indexed quickly i do find doing more than 20 or so a day can have a negative result for a new site. However sometimes i have made over 100 in a day and been fine. It does all depend on when they get indexed.

Plus although people say you can't harm another sites rankings in google you actually can and ive had it done to me before. Especially in squidoo since the new changes came in too.

Yes you are right there are sites that get thousands of backlinks a day however those are usually aged sites and so can 'cope' with that many without a negative effect.

Am going to update my post slightly anyway now with your suggestions.

Tom Brite

[samcarson]

Hi Tom

Thanks for the helpful post. I have a couple of questions

1. I have a new site with 50 pages, each one promoting a clickbank product. So should I be building backlinks to all my 50 pages. It is not practical, that's a lot of work. What I have in mind is, I will attach a wordpress blog to this site and then promote all these products from the blog and submit the blog to blog directories etc. Is this strategy sound or do you recommend anything else?

2. You were mentioning pinging in the above post, just want to understand that clearly, so if I create a backlink, lets say angela's profile type backlinks, we have to ping the profile page immediately and this has to be done for every backlink? Dont you think it is unnatural and triggers a google alarm? It is more natural if these links are found by the spiders, however since these profile pages are buried deep, it might take a while before they are found.

3. This is an interesting way of getting traffic. This is not backlink related. I posted this in this forum but did not get any replies. Maybe you or anyone else can give their input - Keyword Stuffing ??

Thanks

Sam

[Tom Brite]

Originally Posted by samcarson

Hi Tom

Thanks for the helpful post. I have a couple of questions

1. I have a new site with 50 pages, each one promoting a clickbank product. So should I be building backlinks to all my 50 pages. It is not practical, that's a lot of work. What I have in mind is, I will attach a wordpress blog to this site and then promote all these products from the blog and submit the blog to blog directories etc. Is this strategy sound or do you recommend anything else?

It really depends on what your going to be doing. I can tell you from experience that this wont work as it is not niche based and is defiantly not targeting the same niche target demographic.

Okay on paper it looks good but really it wont work.

2. You were mentioning pinging in the above post, just want to understand that clearly, so if I create a backlink, lets say angela's profile type backlinks, we have to ping the profile page immediately and this has to be done for every backlink? Dont you think it is unnatural and triggers a google alarm? It is more natural if these links are found by the spiders, however since these profile pages are buried deep, it might take a while before they are found.

Pinging it tells the google bots to crawl it. Nothing else!

There are millions of sites that do it automatically from within their code. So no it is not un-natural.

3. This is an interesting way of getting traffic. This is not backlink related. I posted this in this forum but did not get any replies. Maybe you or anyone else can give their input - Keyword Stuffing ??

Don't know sorry i never keyword stuff nor with LSI keywords. Plus it normally makes for lousy copy.

Thanks

Sam

Hope that all helps

Tom Brite

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by samcarson

1. I have a new site with 50 pages, each one promoting a clickbank product. So should I be building backlinks to all my 50 pages. It is not practical, that's a lot of work. What I have in mind is, I will attach a wordpress blog to this site and then promote all these products from the blog and submit the blog to blog directories etc. Is this strategy sound or do you recommend anything else?

You didn't ask me directly, but if I may:

My experience tells me that you're going to make the most hay by backlinking to the individual pages themselves. Remember, it doesn't take a lot of backlinks to boost your rankings. You could probably do 15-20 backlinks to start with to each page and get the boost you want.

Also remember, in many cases Angela's backlinks sites allow you to put in multiple links, so you could actually backlink to a couple of pages in one go.

Finally, you could outsource the backlinking pretty cheaply. 30 backlinks, if you supply the sites from Angela's packet, may cost you only something like $15 through outsourcing.

[samcarson]

Thanks a lot Tom and Steven.

Hi Tom,
I do not mean to rain on the parade here or anything but a few things must be corrected...

Now the problem with anchor text is that if you have too many backlinks (a high %) with the same anchor text then it looks un-natural and google doesn't like that. So vary your anchor text sometimes, even just putting it into the plural sense is enough, or slightly rewording it.

I have to agree with bgmacaw on this ... This is not correct and is actually confusing and bad advice for newbies. This is exactly how many companies help brand their name.

So the sites with a higher PR will give your site more juice and means it climbs the google ranks very quickly compared to sites with hardly any juice and a low PR.

Not 100% correct.. I can outrank EZA articles easily and EZA is supposed to be some PR 6 or 7. I can top rank an article in less than 10 minutes and rank that same exact article higher than EZA in google.

These are the sites that google favours over any others on the internet. They usually rank very high on google naturally and if you can add content to them then you are going to be on an easier ride than creating a new site or content on an un-authority site.

Not true.. For one thing there are more search engines besides google. An authority site is a site that is an authority on a certain topic or subject. There are authority sites that exist and they are not even indexed in google. Alexa ranking has nothing to do with authority because it is impossible for their stats to be correct. Matter fact their stats are 100% wrong.

Also beware of the google dance and google slap... do not build too many backlinks at once... 20 to 30 a day with a brand new site is plenty and give it some breathing time so that it settles down in a position in google and then build more to get it ranking higher.

This is incorrect and bad advice.. Google slap as people call it is nothing more than a myth. Sure google can de-index you if you are trying to "game" the system. I have created thousands of backlinks every single day for months and not once have seen any such "google slap" as people say. It is impossible for a search spider to spider every single link you post every single day.

James

[Saidar]

Originally Posted by Tom Brite

With my method of getting backlinks then pinging those places so the backlinks are indexed quickly i do find doing more than 20 or so a day can have a negative result for a new site. However sometimes i have made over 100 in a day and been fine. It does all depend on when they get indexed.

Plus although people say you can't harm another sites rankings in google you actually can and ive had it done to me before. Especially in squidoo since the new changes came in too.

Yes you are right there are sites that get thousands of backlinks a day however those are usually aged sites and so can 'cope' with that many without a negative effect.

Am going to update my post slightly anyway now with your suggestions.

Tom Brite

That is one thing that many people tend to forget, the age of the domain. A day old domain with 200 backlinks is not realistic. I can't seem to visualize any 1 day old website that can get 200 links in one day that is not self made. Just my opinion. Maybe one should wait a week before starting insane link building campaigns, just to be on the safe side.

Google may not be looking out for spammy sites this way (figure processing that much pages in such detail will take a lot of processing power), but if they really want to it is damn easy to catch a link spammer. Maybe people like us are so few compared to the internet that they don't really care

Originally Posted by Saidar

That is one thing that many people tend to forget, the age of the domain. A day old domain with 200 backlinks is not realistic. I can't seem to visualize any 1 day old website that can get 200 links in one day that is not self made. Just my opinion. Maybe one should wait a week before starting insane link building campaigns, just to be on the safe side.

Google may not be looking out for spammy sites this way (insane processing power will be wasted), but if they really want to it is damn easy to catch a link spammer. Maybe people like us are so few compared to the internet that they don't really care

This is perfectly normal.. What you need to understand is that the Big G can not be everyplace at one time. If you build 200 links in one day then not all 200 will be seen by google that same day. Even if you ping those links, Big G's spider has a set time to visit such and such site, a ping does NOT mean the spider will come running.

Example, I got this email from one of my customers just yesterday.

Incredible results!!
Just checked and *Edited For Privacy* is #2 up from... #three-hundred-something!

Thanks so much!

His blog is less than 2 weeks old and I did 2,000+ bookmarks in one day.

James

[Saidar]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

This is perfectly normal.. What you need to understand is that the Big G can not be everyplace at one time. If you build 200 links in one day then not all 200 will be seen by google that same day. Even if you ping those links, Big G's spider has a set time to visit such and such site, a ping does NOT mean the spider will come running.

Example, I got this email from one of my customers just yesterday.



His blog is less than 2 weeks old and I did 2,000+ bookmarks in one day.

James

From that point of view you are right. Totally forgot about the fact that Google takes a few weeks to index all the links. But still, if they really want to I'm sure they can catch link spammers. The results and experimentation shows they don't but they can if they really want to spend that much money

Originally Posted by Saidar

From that point of view you are right. Totally forgot about the fact that Google takes a few weeks to index all the links. But still, if they really want to I'm sure they can catch link spammers. The results and experimentation shows they don't but they can if they really want to spend that much money

Well in all honesty they can pretty much do as they please .... Nobody knows what the future may hold...

James

[Saidar]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Well in all honesty they can pretty much do as they please .... Nobody knows what the future may hold...

James

True, lets hope they get dumber and not smarter