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Is it worth building backlinks to backlink pages?

by Aaron Moser
31 replies
Hey Warriors,

I'd consider myself pretty good at SEO but I just have one question that's been bugging me lately and I can't tell if my efforts are having an effect.

The link building I do consists of building content pages on sites like Squdoo, Blogger, and similar sites. I point links from these pages to my main sites which helps get my main site ranked. This is nothing new but what I've been doing is building backlinks for the Squidoo pages and Blogger blogs too.

This takes a lot more effort to go around and build links for these pages that link to my main site and I'm not sure if it's having any positive effect on my main sites rankings?

Logic would tell me that the more relative/quality links the pages that are linking to my main site the more link juice (PR) will get passed to my main site.

What do you think?

I'd love to cut back on my amount link building if this is a waste of time...

#backlink #backlinks #building #pages #worth
  • Profile picture of the author JonathanBoettcher
    Hmm... I've been wondering a similar question as well...

    If you post a video to YouTube or wherever, and it ranks on the first page of Google, will a few social bookmarks boost it even higher?

    Pretty much the same idea I guess.
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    • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
      Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher View Post

      Hmm... I've been wondering a similar question as well...

      If you post a video to YouTube or wherever, and it ranks on the first page of Google, will a few social bookmarks boost it even higher?

      Pretty much the same idea I guess.
      Yes. This will boost it much higher. I proved this with an article I wrote recently. To test, I purposely picked a keyword with a TON of competition. 11 MILLION, actually. In only a couple of weeks, my article had moved up to the #30 spot because of my backlinking efforts. (It's now sitting at about #37.) That's a movement of 10,699,963. Imagine what you could do with a long-tail keyword; one that has 10,000 Google results or less.

      I did this test because I wanted to see the impact that my monthly backlinking service can give to marketers. I will shortly be setting up a report for my subscribers that shows them exactly which sites to go to and what, exactly, to do to get an article to the top of Google.

      If you take a site, like YouTube and Squidoo or the popular article directories that ALREADY have SEO, and do a backlinking campaign, your page on those sites can get a super high Google placement.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
        That's not really fair Angela lol

        Not everyone has access to or takes the time to find all of the backlink sources that you do. I have not even used half of what you sent me and I am already starting to see a dramatic lift in my rankings

        Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards View Post

        Yes. This will boost it much higher. I proved this with an article I wrote recently. To test, I purposely picked a keyword with a TON of competition. 11 MILLION, actually. In only a couple of weeks, my article had moved up to the #30 spot because of my backlinking efforts. (It's now sitting at about #37.) That's a movement of 10,699,963. Imagine what you could do with a long-tail keyword; one that has 10,000 Google results or less.

        I did this test because I wanted to see the impact that my monthly backlinking service can give to marketers. I will shortly be setting up a report for my subscribers that shows them exactly which sites to go to and what, exactly, to do to get an article to the top of Google.

        If you take a site, like YouTube and Squidoo that ALREADY has SEO, and do a backlinking campaign, your page on those sites can get a super high Google placement.
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        • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
          Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall View Post

          That's not really fair Angela lol

          Not everyone has access to or takes the time to find all of the backlink sources that you do. I have not even used half of what you sent me and I am already starting to see a dramatic lift in my rankings
          Well, that shows that it works, right? Imagine what you will see when this month's packet comes out.
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      • Profile picture of the author Neil S
        Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards View Post

        Yes. This will boost it much higher. I proved this with an article I wrote recently. To test, I purposely picked a keyword with a TON of competition. 11 MILLION, actually. In only a couple of weeks, my article had moved up to the #30 spot because of my backlinking efforts. (It's now sitting at about #37.) That's a movement of 10,699,963. Imagine what you could do with a long-tail keyword; one that has 10,000 Google results or less.

        I did this test because I wanted to see the impact that my monthly backlinking service can give to marketers. I will shortly be setting up a report for my subscribers that shows them exactly which sites to go to and what, exactly, to do to get an article to the top of Google.

        If you take a site, like YouTube and Squidoo or the popular article directories that ALREADY have SEO, and do a backlinking campaign, your page on those sites can get a super high Google placement.
        Hey Angela I just purchased your backlinking campaign and I must say it is an absolute steal for the information you provide. Too often someone will just tell you to build backlinks but you actually point out exactly how and where. I commend you for this!

        How quickly on average do you see the sites moving up in the SERPS? I know you mentioned 2 weeks here - is that typical? And will you increase in rankings for your specific keywords when having your name as the anchor text? Or do you recommend filling the "name" field with your specific anchor text?
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        • Profile picture of the author huggybear_dk
          Squidoo Doesn't Like Your Site...

          You will get traffic from your squidoo lenses but they will do ZERO for your pagerank as all links have "nofollow"

          So yes, increase your lense pagerank by linking to it, but your main site will not benefit pagerank wise from squidoo.
          D
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          • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
            My point is that Squidoo is already Search Engine friendly. Not as good as it was in the past, but it still does the trick. If you create a squidoo lens with your link on it and then optimize that squidoo lens for the search engines, you are more likely to have that be in the top spots in Google than you might with your own website. Who cares if buyers find you because they saw your site first or they saw your Squidoo lens first? The important part is that they found you.

            That was my example with my article. I have been building links to my website for some time now, but it is going to take years before I have the type of backlinks that EZA or Squidoo has. Why not take advantage of the SEO of those sites and build backlinks to my pages on those sites? That's how I moved my article up in Google more than 10.5 million places in a couple of weeks.

            Originally Posted by huggybear_dk View Post

            Squidoo Doesn't Like Your Site...

            You will get traffic from your squidoo lenses but they will do ZERO for your pagerank as all links have "nofollow"

            So yes, increase your lense pagerank by linking to it, but your main site will not benefit pagerank wise from squidoo.
            D
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        • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
          Hi Neil,

          Using your chosen keywords is, of course, the best way to go everywhere you leave your link. However, in some places that's just not respectful to the owner of the site. For instance, if you were commenting on a High Page Rank blog you wouldn't want to use your keywords instead of your name. I've seen that done and it just looks spammy. Usually, your comment and your link will simply be deleted. You'll still get credit for the backlink, but not the same as you would an "anchor text" backlink.

          However, in the 'real world' of backlinking (when other websites choose to link to us for one reason or another) sometimes the link will be anchored with our keywords and sometimes it will not. Because this is more of a "natural" thing, if you have some of these your linkbuilding campaign will most likely not raise red flags to Google.

          Originally Posted by Neil S View Post

          Hey Angela I just purchased your backlinking campaign and I must say it is an absolute steal for the information you provide. Too often someone will just tell you to build backlinks but you actually point out exactly how and where. I commend you for this!

          How quickly on average do you see the sites moving up in the SERPS? I know you mentioned 2 weeks here - is that typical? And will you increase in rankings for your specific keywords when having your name as the anchor text? Or do you recommend filling the "name" field with your specific anchor text?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    I would rather have:

    A => B => C

    Than:
    A => C
    B => C
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    • Profile picture of the author Karen Keyes
      Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

      I would rather have:

      A => B => C

      Than:
      A => C
      B => C
      Kurt, do you follow along what Howie Schwartz claims, that sites "C" should never link back to "A"? Anythign beyond B (such as C, D, E etc) can link to anything B,C,D but never cross over B to link to A?
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      • Profile picture of the author Kurt
        Originally Posted by Karen Newton View Post

        Kurt, do you follow along what Howie Schwartz claims, that sites "C" should never link back to "A"? Anythign beyond B (such as C, D, E etc) can link to anything B,C,D but never cross over B to link to A?
        Hi Karen...

        I rarely belive in "never". In this situation, I will cross the lines and link "outer" sites to my main sites, using Howie's definitions, not my own.

        But, I use a more advanced linking strategy when doing so, combining two concepts:

        1. Sacrificial links (I made this definition up) - This is linking to very highly rated sites that have so many links, my linking won't affect them, and these sites are so established, I will never catch them.

        For example, I have a site about pets and animals. If I link to this site, I will also link to huge sites like AnimalPlanet.com, NationalGeographic.com, About.com (pets/dogs), Wikipedia relevant pages.

        This helps me:
        A. Camoflage my own linking pattern
        B. Links me to "great" neighborhoods. If linking to ad neighborhoods is bad, then we may assumethan linking to good neighborhoods is a good think.

        I'll use main, generic keywords for the sacrificial links, like "pets", "dogs", "cats", and a little less competitive keywords to link back to my own sites.

        2. Cocitation - This is the concept that you are known by the "friends you keep". If a page links to A, B and C, then cocitation states the pages are likely related, even if A B and C don't directly link to each other. This means, if my site has a link on a page that also links to Wikipedia, About.com and NationalGeographic.com, my own site can "inherit" some of the authority of these other sites.

        This is not only good for SEs, but very effective for real people. If folks constantly see my pet site next to the other major sites, my site will appear to be an equal to these other sites. This is human nature, and not SEO. However, cocitation is equally as powerful for both humans and SEs.

        Now, I'll use this method to "cross over" Howie's boundries. Again, I don't share the same boundries...I use tin, silver, gold sites, instead. Gold sites are my money sites and tin sites are lower quality sites.
        Tin => Tin Silver and Gold
        Silver => Silver and Gold
        Gold => Gold (and rarely back to other sites)

        So the direction of my linking patern is generally the same as Howie's, never (rarely) link down.

        However, nothing is written in stone. As networks get bigger, the logistics gets to be overwhelming. Having to follow strict rules makes it even tougher. My ideas are guidelines, not hard-fast rules. Who knows when an outer "site" in Howie's scheme takes off and becomes an "inner" site? Then what?
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  • Profile picture of the author Skribblez
    I'm also wondering the same. It definitely takes time..

    Usually I'll build links to squidoo and hub pages if I want them to rank in the top 10 aswell. If I'm only going to use them as backlinks, then I just leave them and don't spend time building links to them.

    But yeah.. I think if you built more links to your backlink pages, they would be able to pass on even more link juice to your main site.
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  • Profile picture of the author JonathanBoettcher
    Angela - those are some pretty good results! How many links did you have to do to get that kind of result?

    I usually tried to target keywords with less than 300,000 competition, though sometimes the ones you really want are those 11 mil ones...
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    • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
      Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher View Post

      Angela - those are some pretty good results! How many links did you have to do to get that kind of result?

      I usually tried to target keywords with less than 300,000 competition, though sometimes the ones you really want are those 11 mil ones...
      It was betwen 25 and 30 links...but those links were from High Page Rank, Authority sites. Just so you know, they weren't all from PAGES that had High PR. However, the domains themselves have High Page Rank, and are considered "Authority Sites". There goes the "PR only comes from the page itself" argument.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Moser
    Ok I think everyone slightly missed what I was asking so I've drawn up a little example to help explain this...

    I wasn't just asking if building links for my content pages on web 2.0 sites was worth it or not. We all know it is!!

    What I'm asking is this... Let's say I don't care if my content on Squidoo ranks well or not. I just care about my own site ranking well.

    Take a look at this example below and imagine dozens of links pointing to Squidoo and Blogger and tell me if the extra back linking is worth it. There are also dozens of web 2.0 sites pointing directly to my main site as well (not illustrated).

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    • Profile picture of the author Kurt
      Originally Posted by Aaron Moser View Post

      Ok I think everyone slightly missed what I was asking so I've drawn up a little example to help explain this...

      I wasn't just asking if building links for my content pages on web 2.0 sites was worth it or not. We all know it is!!

      What I'm asking is this... Let's say I don't care if my content on Squidoo ranks well or not. I just care about my own site ranking well.

      Take a look at this example below and imagine dozens of links pointing to Squidoo and Blogger and tell me if the extra back linking is worth it. There are also dozens of web 2.0 sites pointing directly to my main site as well (not illustrated).
      I did answer your question, see post #3 above.

      I'll repeat:

      I'd rather have:
      A => B => C

      Than...
      A => C
      B => C

      So yes, you do want to link to pages/sites that link to your pages/sites.
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      • Profile picture of the author Aaron Moser
        Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

        I did answer your question, see post #3 above.

        I'll repeat:

        I'd rather have:
        A => B => C

        Than...
        A => C
        B => C

        So yes, you do want to link to pages/sites that link to your pages/sites.
        Cool thanks Kurt. I guess I didn't quite understand what you meant at first.

        Cheers
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        • Profile picture of the author NewBeing
          Aaron,

          I've been experimenting with this lately, I bought two domains - keyword.com and keyword.co.uk...

          keyword.co.uk was 17,300 search results in quotes in Google.co.uk and keyword.com was 17,400 search results in quotes in Google.com, so pretty even stuff!

          The keyword.com I just bookmarked in about 20 high PR social bookmarking sites...

          The keyword.co.uk I did the same plus added the RSS to FeedAgg and then created a Squidoo lens which linked to a Wikidot page which linked to a Wordpress.com site which linked to the keyword.co.uk...

          This was all done last week... today, the keyword.com is on page 1 varying between position 3 and 5 in Google.com and the keyword.co.uk is page 6 position 9 in Google.co.uk.

          These are my findings as of today, I don't how much you can take from them, but I think you should experiment. I'm going to experiment with other domains to see if this is a one off or not... sometimes the Gurus are wrong!

          It would be nice if other warriors could experiment and post their findings here to discover whether this tactic works or not in the majority of cases.

          Stewart
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          • Profile picture of the author NewBeing
            I've just checked my notes and I need to make a slight amendment...

            The keyword.co.uk also had the Wordpress.com site bookmarked in Propeller and the Squidoo lens was bookmarked in Digg and linked from Scribd.

            So it was pretty mixed up and the keyword.co.uk domain should have been getting plenty of "link juice"!

            I know it's still early days, but if there is any movement on the keyword.co.uk domain, I will let you know.

            Stewart
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    • Profile picture of the author Karen Keyes
      This is what Howie Schwartz explains in one of his videos. Create a ring of sites around your money site, then create more sites that point to that inner ring, never crossing over that inner ring. In his video, he not only created sites pointing to the inner ring sites, he kept going out and building more and more "circles" of sites.

      So what I took from it was
      a) it's good to not cross the first inner ring barrier
      b) keep expanding for backlinking purposes more and more rings of sites depending on the niche/market/competitiveness and importance of money site

      Is this the way to go? I don't know! But only testing will tell I guess. Thanks Angela for that post regarding testing this.


      Karen

      Originally Posted by Aaron Moser View Post

      Ok I think everyone slightly missed what I was asking so I've drawn up a little example to help explain this...

      I wasn't just asking if building links for my content pages on web 2.0 sites was worth it or not. We all know it is!!

      What I'm asking is this... Let's say I don't care if my content on Squidoo ranks well or not. I just care about my own site ranking well.

      Take a look at this example below and imagine dozens of links pointing to Squidoo and Blogger and tell me if the extra back linking is worth it. There are also dozens of web 2.0 sites pointing directly to my main site as well (not illustrated).
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    • Profile picture of the author Vince Runza Online
      Originally Posted by Aaron Moser View Post

      Ok I think everyone slightly missed what I was asking so I've drawn up a little example to help explain this...

      I wasn't just asking if building links for my content pages on web 2.0 sites was worth it or not. We all know it is!!

      What I'm asking is this... Let's say I don't care if my content on Squidoo ranks well or not. I just care about my own site ranking well.
      In a word, YES! Building a "pyramid" of backlinks, with the strongest links at the base, is the way to go.

      Your foundation links can point to both an intermediate link (new blog or new Squidoo lens) and the main link itself. The weaker links should ONLY point to the main link.

      Those weaker links can grow in stature. I took a Wordpress.com blog from a dead start at the end of August, 2008 to a Page Rank of 4 for individual posts doing this.

      PM sent...
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  • Profile picture of the author cadillac48
    They will have a positive effect on your main site. it will not happen overnight. You have to be patient but it will pay off for you if done the right way.
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  • Profile picture of the author tommen
    I have actually done the same thing as Aaron Moser, but instead of posting my own content to social sites I post other peoples content and get the traffic from my profile at the sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Aaron Moser
      Originally Posted by tommen View Post

      I have actually done the same thing as Aaron Moser, but instead of posting my own content to social sites I post other peoples content and get the traffic from my profile at the sites.
      Thanks for the good advice every!

      Tom you bringing up a good point. Would using duplicate content for link building have the same link juice power as unique content?
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  • Profile picture of the author kkchoon
    I think linking the outer sites with related information gives it authority of relevance to the main site.

    If your site is using proper SEO SILO structure, the links from those "relevant" sites should boost its' ranking even just few links!

    Anyone tested the SILO power with combination of relevancy?
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Monty
    I don't know that I've ever gotten a PR10 backlink Angela. I might have to check that out.

    As for the question, building backlinks to your Squidoo or Hubpage should create a dramatic increase in rankings.
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    • Profile picture of the author Frank Bruno
      By looking at your flowchart the first thing that comes to mind is that there's not much of any deep linking going on. It appears to be just a simple social bookmarking

      To me deep linking is having several sites straight linking all the way back to your domain or deep within your site.

      Frank Bruno
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    • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
      Originally Posted by Chris Monty View Post

      I don't know that I've ever gotten a PR10 backlink Angela. I might have to check that out.
      You'll have to take a look. I'll bet you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew Wilson
    Aaron, in simple terms what you are doing is promoting your promotions. It makes a whole heap of sense to do it for several reasons.
    1) You are increasing the value of your promotion pages
    2) Which increases the value of the links to your 'money pages'
    3) It is dead easy to do and can often be automated to a degree that you might not choose to do when pointing to your money pages

    When I do this I work on the premise that I want to build something that lasts. It is not usually a quick fix (but it can be). When I am competing with other well marketed pages I find that I can do well and my results 'stick' pretty well, when doing as you have been thinking I like to give myself a couple of weeks to get the positions that I want. If I need fast results a passel of backlinks direct top the target page still works wonders.
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  • Profile picture of the author Evita
    Kurt,
    Would it be more powerful to A => B => C =>D than
    A => B => C ?

    Thanks,
    Evita
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    • Profile picture of the author Kurt
      Originally Posted by Evita View Post

      Kurt,
      Would it be more powerful to A => B => C =>D than
      A => B => C ?

      Thanks,
      Evita
      Hi Evita,

      In theory, that's correct. But in reality, this linear linking structure will need to keep growing...

      You create a page (blog, lens, hubpage, etc). It needs a link. So you create another to link to it. But know it needs a link for it to matter.

      Every page needs at least one external link to matter to Google. At some point, it is easier to create a circular linking pattern (cross link) that to keep getting linear.

      Circular Cross link:
      A => B => C => A

      Then, any/all these sites link to D (Your money page).

      The key to all of this is that, yes, your links need links. Links pass on relevance, authority, PR, etc. So, the more link juice you can get to a link, the more it will pass on.

      From a purely theoretical, and mathematical point of view, every page on every site should link to every other page on every other site. This linking method is the one that will increase PageRank the most, if you follow the pure math of PageRank.

      However, Google doesn't use pure PageRank (enter Hilltop and TrustRank). The method of linking every page to every other page is also the riskiest, as it is the easiest for Google to detect, then penalize (or worse).

      The lesson from all this is, you want to link as much as you can, without getting caught...

      The more you cross link, the higher the PR, but the more you're playing with fire.

      The less you cross link, the safer you are, but you could be losing a lot of PR.

      In the end, it's up to you and your own risk threshold.

      This is why I have gold, silver, tin sites. My gold (money) sites are very low risk. My tin sites are often very high risk, testing things. I never put an affiliate program or use a common IP on my tin sites.

      It's OK to take risks, just learn a strategy for risk management, and the do some experimentation using my strategies, as well as Howie's and many others.
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