The Three Different Types of Links in SEO and Online Marketing

It is no secret that the most powerful ranking factor in SEO is links. Especially with Google. Even with all the new factors that have been spoke about the last year links are still at the for-front and I believe will be for some time to come. The recent JC Penny saga proves this. Although their link acquisition methods had not been “ethical”. It still provided great value for them until they got caught.

In SEO there are three types of links that you can get pointing to your website.

Links You Produce Yourself

We can all obtain these links it is easy. It is not hard for anyone of us to spend time generating directory submissions, blog comments, forum signatures and your own anchor link structure within your own site from your most powerful pages.
As you can guess the value provided from such links is very low. There is no editorial or vote of confidence value added from these links. The search engines are also pretty good at determine these types of link thus discounting the value they pass to your site. These links could help you move from page 20 to page 10 but they only offer short term boosting, they will of course help a site with no links at all. These are the sort of links that a website run for fun or as someones hobby/personal site gain for themselves as they know no different and it probably works for them in a non competitive market. These type of links will not earn you any money and should not be part of your long term SEO plan.

Links You Earn

This type of link is the most valuable. It is this type of link that the search engine like Google and Bing etc want your site to acquire. The reason that these type of links are given the most value by the search engines is that they are seen to them as an editorial or vote of confidence. You earned them from the content on your site. The biggest mistake or area of confusion that site owners or SEO’s have when trying to gain this type of link is that great content does not always have anything to do with your own website, or the website your are working on. Some times nothing at all. That may seem a little confusing but remember you are trying to convince other webmasters with powerful sites to link to yours. They will do this when you have some content that will improve the value that they can give to their users.

Links You Buy

You can buy links from many places you can search for related, themed and non themed directories that provide follow links. You can join membership forums/clubs that let you place profile links. You can pay to have content created and released across article sites. You can hire staff or a freelance person to manage your brand, create social media hype and engage with your targeted audience in the hope of gaining links. You can get them to source free links. You can pay to have blog posts posted on blogs with a link. You can produce and trade content with other websites for the sake of a link. You can raise money for charity or make a financial donation to a .edu establishment for a link. You can buy your way into high value and low value content farms or networks. There is literally a endless amount of ways for you to buy a link. Remember you don’t have to pass money as we know it for a link… Content, products, gifts 3 way links all act as a form of currency that people use to buy links. If you didn’t earn it you brought it!

The results and value that brought links can pass to your website is huge. The search engines do not like this practice and it is against most of their terms of service. But they cannot stop it, they just cant! They can create algorithm changes and rely on user interventions but things can be hidden so things do not always appear as it seems. Remember the search engine is just a computer algorithm at work. Links can range from a £1 to a much much higher sums of money. Yes you can get great results but it is a risky business. If you participate in this type of link acquisition be very careful.

Conclusion

The conclusion from looking at the 3 different types of links you can gain for your website tells you there are two options that will be very beneficial, especially when we are talking about websites where the purpose is to generate an income. Produce mind blowing content on your site for other webmaster in the hope to attract links. Or buy the link power you need to be competitive with your competition. Ether way do not waste time on the low quality stuff. It maybe a good starting point but any successful SEO plan will not accommodate such low quality.

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