How Do You Know If a Backlink Is Good or Bad?
Strategies based on net-linking are very powerful when it comes to SEO. However, not all links are necessarily good for your site. Some can even cause your ranking in search engine results (SERP) to drop. These include bad backlinks. In this article, SEO services professionals show you how to recognize them to be safe from the worries they cause.
How to identify bad backlinks and SEO?
A backlink is a link available on the page of another website that links to your site. Your position in the SERPs is significantly improved when you have a good backlink from a successful website. On the other hand, a backlink is qualified as bad for your page when it is harmful to your SEO, especially when it is out of context or out of theme.
These bad links often come from:
- Sites penalized by Google or sites of dubious quality. They are usually accompanied by overoptimized texts that contain many links placed on competitive keywords.
- Partner sites that place backlinks to your site incorrectly. These are usually the links that are found in the footer.
- Foreign sites whose subject has nothing to do with the theme of your website.
Online software helps you know whether the backlink Is Good or Bad on your site. Below mentioned specific criteria guide you to easily differentiate a good backlink from a bad one.
How to recognize an inferior website?
If you discover a backlink or an inbound link on a website and you don’t immediately know how to rank that inbound link qualitatively, then the following points should be considered:
– What does the presentation of the website look like? Is it modern and has a professional look, or does it look more like cabbage and beets? Even though this is the first point here, you should first use the other criteria to classify a website dubious. Sometimes a bad or outdated layout is simply the result of a lack of design flair, which is often the case with hobby sites.
– Is the content visually well prepared, i.e., structured with subtitles, bullets, quotes, images, etc., or is the text rather a set of letters that are difficult to read?
– Does it have a logo, or does simple lettering replace it?
– Does the website have a serious impression mention with the corresponding contact details, or is it operated anonymously?
– Do the articles offer added value to the reader, or do you only find promotional items?
– Do the contributions have images of different articles, or is the same image often repeated?
– Does the blog deal with a specific topic, or does it consist of a collection of topics?
– Are the links in the posts useful, or are they advertising links or purchased links?
– Is the website maintained, and do you regularly find new content or contributions or does it look more like a cemetery of neglected texts?
– Are there no external links in the sidebars and footer, or are there obvious links to keywords?
If the second option is more appropriate for these points, you should be critical and classify this website as non-serious. In addition, forum links are often questionable, so bad links can be recognized because the user often establishes a keyword link, hardly responds to other users’ contributions and does not write significant contributions on the forum himself.
Tips for choosing a good backlink and avoiding a bad one:
- Choose DoFollow links
With the DoFollowattribute, links naturally impact your ranking than a no-follow link. However, the latter would still be monitored and could weigh on the authority. To identify them, use the MozBar.
- Check the domain authority
The domain’s authority is an essential quality criterion since its impact is major. Ideally, find a link from an authoritarian domain dealing with a theme related to yours. Be careful. However, it is better to aim for this link as soon as your site already has a certain weight.
3. Take an interest in the quality of the links already present
Beyond the link granted to you, consult the entire linking of the site. Aiming for a site with a “limit-limit” linking would serve you more than the other way around. Here, no tool other than your eyes!
- Aim for user engagement
A criterion that continues to gain weight! Indeed, Google will favour a link from a site whose bounce rate is low and reading time high, quality guarantees. But, conversely, the “passages” sites will be devaluing. To identify them: Analytics + Social Metrics.
- Dwell on the anchor text
The extent of the anchor can turn out to be a bonus. Nevertheless, it is better to have a link without an anchor than no link! So, try to place your anchor text along with your backlink.
- Target relevant sites
An obvious fact that sometimes flies away throughout the hunt for the link! However, the relevance of the content and its thematic adequacy are paramount. Beyond semantics, relevance can also come from geographical proximity, the official nature of the link, the authority of the site on a given subject.
- Aim for the top of the page!
The lower the link is in the page, close to the footer or advertising areas, the more Google will consider this link for what it is: a backlink! If it is in Dofollow, Google may confuse it with an advertisement… and the expected effect will not be at the rendezvous, on the contrary!
- The authority of the author
If the metric itself doesn’t have more impact, opting for a link from influential authors can still benefit you. Traffic will certainly be at the rendezvous and your product credibility by this marketing voice! In addition, it is more useful to target sites with higher authority than one’s own.
What do good links look like?
Good links during a Google SEO must bring added value or recommendation to the article’s readers. Above all, they need to be beautiful so that people do not immediately think that they are not authentic or have been bought or exchanged. And a quality backlink fulfils its function above all when it brings you good traffic, that is, more visitors to the site. It is not very easy to get good backlinks. If your website or blog offers high-quality, popular content that users are interested in and need, links to other websites may appear over time. It should not be forced, and the goal of every blogger should be to write content for their readers and not to get backlinks. In the age of social media, likes and shares in networks are more likely to be the case than backlinks from other websites.