Backlinks. What's that all about?

by Ray Harries

Posted: 13 years ago 17 replies

I've bought a couple of WSO offers recently and most of them refer to using backlinks to increase pagerank,etc.

Now, that's fine. I understand that a backlink is your website address posted on another (preferably higher ranking) website. Where I am getting lost is knowing what to put in the anchor text.

If I am targetting a long-tail keyword of, let's say, "London office furniture" how would I include that in a backlink anchor text to a .org authority site discussing college financing.Surely it would stand out as having no significance to the .org site's subject matter.

And should I just put in my keywords of "London office furniture" or should I incorporate them into a phrase such as "The best office furniture in London", which makes more sense but then becomes a different set of keywords?

Or am I missing something really fundamental?

Anyway, I'm sure that there are lots of Warriors out there who are far more knowledgable about this than I am so I would really appreciate some input on this.

#backlinks

astevn816 13 years ago

You will get good info here also backlinksforum.com
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KenJ 13 years ago

Hi Ray

You want to be using the exact keyword you are trying to rank for. I have a report somewhere on this I'll hunt it out and try to PM it to you

Kenj
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- Ray Harries 13 years ago
  
  Sheesh - what a quick response. I'm impressed. Thanks to you guys who've responded!
  
  Martin, maybe I haven't explained myself too well. The WSOs I'm referring to advocate using backlinking from high ranking sites and authority sites irrespective of their content. I would then get a high quality backlink (but not necessarily a relevant one) from another site.
  
  As this is connected with promoting local offline businesses the thinking is that there is so little local competition doing this that it should be relatively easy to rank well for local results - like first page of google.
  
  I've actually done this with a local business and achieved popsition 1 for the keywords I've targetted but I'm still not sure if this was by luck or judgment. So I thought I would ask for some guidance from my Warrior colleagues who are always so generous in giving of their advice and experience.
  
  Hope that clarifies things a bit.
  
  Regards
  
  Thanks
  
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  Ray Harries
  
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Martin Brock 13 years ago

Sounds to me like you are doing something a bit backlink-wards

Why would you link to a finance site from an office furniture site? The idea is to get links pointing TO your site with relevant anchor text, not the other way around.

Of course it never hurts to link to relevant resources, that won't hurt you in any way. As long as it benefits your users, it's good - but that doesn't give your site any of the benefits of backlinks.
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YouDontKnowMe

13 years ago

You want inbound links from relevant sites, my friend. Not outbound links to irrelevant sites.

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raylm123

13 years ago

Originally Posted by YouDontKnowMe

You want inbound links from relevant sites, my friend. Not outbound links to irrelevant sites.

Links from off-topic sites are not useless. Check out Angela's backlinks for proof!!!

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Ray Harries

13 years ago

Originally Posted by brendanfinn

I think the OP just had a typo that made it sound like he was talking about outbound links. He's got the inbound backlink idea right.

Here's my opinion:
1) Links from a good site are great. If Google knows that they are relevant, that could be helpful, but it's certainly not going to hurt you if it isn't relevant. Search engines can see when something is almost certainly on-topic, but they can't be sure when something is completely unrelated. Therefore, they don't penalize you for it.

2) While anchor text is taken into consideration, you'll just have to accept that it's not always possible. Don't worry about putting "london office furniture" on a totally unrelated site, because someone will probably remove it when they see it anyway (it's spam). Creating spam that just gets removed is a huge waste of your time.

Thanks Brendanfinn, that's that's exactly what I'm talking about. You've put it in a nutshell.
And I'll take your advice on anchor text as I certainly don't want to be spamming anyone.

I think Youdon'tknowme got the idea that I was using outbound links from Martin Brock's reply where he wrote "The idea is to get links pointing TO your site with relevant anchor text, not the other way around."

In my original post I wrote that "I understand that a backlink is your website address posted on another (preferably higher ranking) website." In other words an inbound link.

Originally Posted by raylm123

Links from off-topic sites are not useless. Check out Angela's backlinks for proof!!!

And thanks to you,too raylm123. Angela's backlinks are what I'm using and that's exactly what she says.

Thanks

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Ray Harries

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raylm123 13 years ago

What type of sites are you trying to get links from? Are you setting up profiles on forums, etc. or are you leaving blog comments? Or something else all together?
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brendanfinn 13 years ago

I think the OP just had a typo that made it sound like he was talking about outbound links. He's got the inbound backlink idea right.

Here's my opinion:
1) Links from a good site are great. If Google knows that they are relevant, that could be helpful, but it's certainly not going to hurt you if it isn't relevant. Search engines can see when something is almost certainly on-topic, but they can't be sure when something is completely unrelated. Therefore, they don't penalize you for it.

2) While anchor text is taken into consideration, you'll just have to accept that it's not always possible. Don't worry about putting "london office furniture" on a totally unrelated site, because someone will probably remove it when they see it anyway (it's spam). Creating spam that just gets removed is a huge waste of your time.
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King Shiloh Banned 13 years ago

Look at the basic meaning of backlinks:

What are backlinks and how do I use them? - Blogger Help
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yukon

Banned 13 years ago

[DELETED]

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Ray Harries

13 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

I applied for financing at a local college here in London. When I tried to return the application to the admissions office, I couldn't get in because all the office furniture was outside blocking the door!

I asked a mover what was going on, he said the office had moved to the other side of town...

Thanks yukon, very helpful example and just what I needed.

Thanks

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Ray Harries

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deloriagod 13 years ago

You won't always be able to use your keyword as your anchor text. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and take a link with anchor text you're not fond of for the sake of getting another link. You'll find this a lot with blog commenting. Sometimes admins will let you use your keyword for your name, and others will mark your comments as spam if you try that.
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yukon

Banned 13 years ago

[DELETED]

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Ray Harries 13 years ago

Thanks again yukon. You're very generous with your advice.
And thanks to you too, deloriagod, for your words of wisdom..

It's all good stuff.

Regards

Ray
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Ray Harries
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4morereferrals

13 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

You can also post backlinks like this (can you spot the 4 backlinks below

).

I applied for financing at a local college here in London. When I tried to return the application to the admissions office, I couldn't get in because all the office furniture was outside blocking the door!

I asked a mover what was going on, he said the office had moved to the other side of town...

I use this trick for double backlinking profile pages, from high PR dofollow sites.

Though there is certainly nothing wrong with the above structure ...

I like to do ... Profiles ---> point to ---> HIGHER PR Web 2 Blog ----> $$$$ Site

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Backlinks. What's that all about?

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