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View Full Version : Link building is a waste of time. And one reason that it isn't. But it is.



Harold Mansfield
01-29-2014, 01:11 PM
I stopped the futile exercise of random, attempted self manipulating link building over 2 years ago.

Used to be a time you could plop up a WordPress site with about 10 posts on it.
Run it through a directory script.
Link it to a forum signature and a few blog comments.
Drop a press release on it.
Link back to it from a few random free blog pages like Blogger and Weebly....and on the next Google update you could get a PR4 for at least one term or phrase.

Those days are over and have been over since my cell phone had an antenna...and they were still called "cell phones".

This is a good article from Search Engine Land that exposes some of the old school tactics and misconceptions that some people keep wasting time and money on.

I'm not saying anything stupid like SEO is dead. All I'm saying is that great content, with an awesome presentation and smart targeting wins out every day of the week, and twice on Sunday (actually Tuesday and Friday).

If you target intelligently, people will share, re-tweet, re-blog, talk about, and link to good content that is presented well and is relevant to them. It's the backbone of the WWW and marketing in general. Randomly carpet bombing the internet is not a strategy that works. It's desperation hoping to get lucky.

11 Reasons Link Building Is A Futile Waste Of Time -- And One Big Reason It Isn (http://searchengineland.com/11-reasons-link-building-futile-waste-time-one-big-reason-isnt-182210?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=feed-main)

Business Attorney
01-30-2014, 11:09 AM
Thanks for the article, Harold. If the thousands of so-called SEO experts and their uneducated clients would read the article, it would ease the toll on blog owners and forum moderators who still have to waste their time cleaning up the mess created from the worthless link building schemes.

KristineS
01-30-2014, 11:39 AM
Interesting article and very true. I like that it debunks the idea that directories and article sites and such don't work by pointing out that they can, if they're well done and specific. I'm so tired of articles that say such and so is dead or such and so is the next silver bullet for marketing. The truth is that some things will work for some people and it's your job to test and re-test and find the things that work for your business.

Robert Stafford
01-31-2014, 08:06 PM
Link building is definitely not a waste of time if you do it right. I will assume that you do it manually, which is essentially the worst way to do it. Although unethical, I use SEO tools to quickly build links for my websites and I always have fantastic results.

Wozcreative
03-05-2014, 10:19 AM
This is a good paragraph to show how link building is not what you think:


How Does Hummingbird Impact Link Building?
Directly, it changes little. Indirectly, it changes everything.

SEOs used to be able to use links and other factors to trick Google into thinking that their search website was more authoritative and helpful than it actually was. Hummingbird once again makes the end user the absolute focus of search results. We can’t trick Google anymore! Building links to less-than-amazing content will fail. Google will notice high bounce rates, the lack of natural social sharing, and a variety of other quality signals no matter how many links you build — probably even faster with Hummingbird.

Everything we do should also focus on the end user. More than ever, link building needs to be focused on providing real (significant) value to users. Is our site worth the links we are trying to earn? Does blasting 1,000 potential link partners with a link request provide value? How can we leverage link building to provide more value at every step in the process?

Think quality content, intended to meet specific needs (“long tail”) and to be authoritatively long-lasting (“in-depth”).


Here is the article: Did Hummingbird Eat Link Building? (http://searchengineland.com/did-hummingbird-eat-link-building-173837)


Rigid link building formulas like this are based on dangerous out-of-date mentalities. Instead, try a new “formula,” like this:

Develop amazing content
Get to know the influencers in your space
Contribute to relevant online communities
When appropriate, ask your friends to consider sharing your valuable content
Bank on earning a majority of your links passively (i.e., naturally)

bhagabati
03-05-2014, 11:40 AM
Link building is fruitful if it is carried out properly.Quality link is important as compare to quantity.Link building is slow process and should be done carefully.Again relevant links makes a lot of difference.

Harold Mansfield
03-05-2014, 01:34 PM
Link building is fruitful if it is carried out properly.Quality link is important as compare to quantity.Link building is slow process and should be done carefully.Again relevant links makes a lot of difference.


Google thwarts every attempt to self manipulate your placement. Including manually placing links back to your site.

Getting others to review, talk about, share, and link to your site is not called link building. It's called marketing. And it's as old as business itself.

Harold Mansfield
03-05-2014, 01:42 PM
It's ridiculously hard to get people to stop thinking the way it used to be because it was so easy to manipulate before, it lasted so long and the web is full of old articles, and ebooks touting the old manipulation methods.

Even when Google and Matt Cuts write blog post after blog post telling everyone that all of that old school crap has no bearing anymore, and to focus on content, design, user experience, and traditional marketing... people don't want to beleive it.

Go back a couple of years when they got rid of page rank. That should have been your first clue that it doesn't work like that anymore.

Daniel Lee
03-17-2014, 09:04 PM
Link building can work, but people should be focusing on quality, not quantity. Create content that is unique, interesting and useful, then share this with relevant bloggers, website owners, journalists etc. Businesses should be looking to attract links from sites that would provide a valuable link, regardless of search engines, i.e. referral traffic.

@Robert Stafford - I agree that link building tools still work, but for businesses cautious about their brand, this isn't really the way to go. Unless you're pretty much manually checking every link generated by your tools for quality.

PrincePatridge
03-25-2014, 09:12 AM
Hi,

I agree link building is A waste of time.

Especially with all the updates and Google slaps!



For people that still want to take advantage of SEO traffic. I would just recommend

creating A blog relating to your target market and creating high quality post everyday!

Otherwise I would dare not touch SEO!

DeniseTaylor
03-26-2014, 09:02 AM
If this were Facebook, I'd be liking just about every post in this thread! :D

It is unfortunate that some people still promote the old ways and it makes you wonder who's paying for their services? The best ways happen to be the hardest to do. I'm hoping that the new standards will create some kind of up-lift on the Net, and in the end, make it a better place. Spammers had it way too easy before.

JohnF
03-26-2014, 07:25 PM
It's become obvious to me lately that Google Plus is getting more important. Searching for local lawyers (the main niche I'm focused on right now), I see that usually the first page results involve 2-4 websites, then a ton of G+ pages before moving on to more websites. IMO, this aspect has as much to do with making people use G+ as with improving search results- Google is trying to build a critical mass of users by basically making everyone us Google Plus if they use any other Google services, like Youtube and Gmail, and my friend who works on G+ confirms this. I'm conferring with my SEO guy right now about how to utilize this, but I think the way to go now is to have a Google Plus page, website and LinkedIn interlinking with each other, build outward from there with high-quality content, and add only a minimum of old-school link-building from there. I don't think link-building is dead, but it's easy to infer how best to do it based on Google's two goals of improving search results and making G+ a must-use tool.

v.conway222
06-05-2014, 09:33 AM
Very interesting article - I enjoyed how you challenged statements that seem to have been thrown around willy nilly far by marketing professionals far too often for my liking.

Mark Bates Lead Savvy
06-05-2014, 12:45 PM
Yeah I've just recently started looking at SEO for my company, it is quite an undertaking.

krymson
06-05-2014, 02:41 PM
For people that still want to take advantage of SEO traffic. I would just recommend

creating A blog relating to your target market and creating high quality post everyday!


No real need to post everyday, because then you run out of high quality content really fast. I would say once a month. Make it relevant and make it something people want to read. if they want to read it they're more apt to share it and thats how you gain a foot hold in SEO. Same with news letters. Send one out once a month, cover something over an important topic that most wouldnt think about. For instance I just sent out a newsletter talking about how most small business owners dont track the traffic on their website... A lot of small business owners don't even know how to track that or that they even could. I got 4 calls the next day. So it all depends on what note to hit on with the people you're reaching out to.

Damon the Marketer
06-06-2014, 11:37 AM
People who complain about link building not working are people who either:

1. Tried and failed

2. Tried and succeeded but got booted off the first page from a Google update

Here's the solution: keep up with Google updates.

bigcat1967
06-13-2014, 09:33 AM
I read the article. Pretty interesting.

I totally agree. I was one of those people who wrote an article about link building was dead and posted it on GoArticles btw...

I still backlink, but to get referral traffic.

It's all about social media anymore.

chrismarklee
06-13-2014, 12:00 PM
Link building is not a waste of time. It just takes tremendous amount of time. There are no short cuts. Plus you have to wait for your Website to age and the links to age. This should be included in your marketing plan. You are not going to make a sales instantly. I do Facebook marketing. It takes time to build relationships too

Powered
06-15-2014, 04:58 PM
Link building's not a waste of time, but it is when you are doing no follow links. You need to find sites that links are going to count according to google and Alexa.


It's become obvious to me lately that Google Plus is getting more important. Searching for local lawyers (the main niche I'm focused on right now), I see that usually the first page results involve 2-4 websites, then a ton of G+ pages before moving on to more websites. IMO, this aspect has as much to do with making people use G+ as with improving search results- Google is trying to build a critical mass of users by basically making everyone us Google Plus if they use any other Google services, like Youtube and Gmail, and my friend who works on G+ confirms this. I'm conferring with my SEO guy right now about how to utilize this, but I think the way to go now is to have a Google Plus page, website and LinkedIn interlinking with each other, build outward from there with high-quality content, and add only a minimum of old-school link-building from there. I don't think link-building is dead, but it's easy to infer how best to do it based on Google's two goals of improving search results and making G+ a must-use tool.

Google Plus is so important now, and obviously this is intentional since Google botched it the first time around (back in '08). I've noticed a difference in my traffic by posting one post a day. And I only have 40 followers now, so imagine if I build it up even more.

The average layperson doesn't care about Google+, but as a business person I think it's going to be crucial to build it up.

bmell
06-16-2014, 01:07 PM
Google+ has been a an excellent resource for industry traffic as well as a huge part of our linking strategy. Though I don't actively "drop links" I do work towards earning social share links to the content we provide. Much stronger connections have been made using this approach.

whiteboardvideos
06-19-2014, 07:38 AM
Hi I am Eliot, I think link building does not work how it used to thanks to the boys at Google. I have started using social media rather than updating my websites and its working far better without using backlinks. For example naming the site on tumblr with the keyword I wish to rank for. The traffic is not huge but targeted and converts to buyers.

user2837
08-01-2014, 05:18 PM
When I place comments on sites such as blogs, I focus on the potential for direct traffic from those kinds of sites rather than whether the link will help with SEO. Any SEO benefit is just a side bonus.

CoolHandCol
08-05-2014, 02:50 PM
Links are still the backbone of SEO. Look at the top 10 results for almost any search term and it is still the quality of links that matter. The days of automated spamming are long gone but selective, manual link building is critical for the rankings of your website. Great content on it's own will not work

samuelbursnel
08-12-2014, 07:39 AM
I don't think that link building is waste of time. It is still a foremost important factor in ranking. You can say that it has become a difficult task now. You have to do research on the domains before linking to them.

MichaelBK
08-13-2014, 12:01 PM
If links doesn't matter, then how search engines rank websites ? :) In-content links, high pr, with unique content does work well. Guestbooks, low quality directories, forum profiles - yes, bombing website with these links might harm your website.

singhabhishek251
10-07-2014, 10:45 AM
I agree that the days are gone when you were doing these stuffs to get better ranking, but now also it is there in a different way, we need to work more precisely to get a valuable link for your website and you can say that the method of building links with directory submission and blog comments are dead now, but link building is too much there in the way only the method and relevancy has changed.

Beat15
10-16-2014, 11:45 AM
I don't have a problem with the idea of having great content on your site, since it's something that Google highly recommends. However, the problem is that your site could be filled with great content and still struggling as far as traffic is concerned. If you find yourself in a highly competitive niche, without link building you'll never get anywhere. The bottom line is that content only is not sufficient to get you where you want to get. I completely disagree with the idea that building back-links is a waste of time. You can spend your time on publishing great content on your site, without some links that can allow you to get some ranking which in turn might give you some level of visibility in the search results you won't see any results.

singhabhishek251
10-17-2014, 08:22 AM
I do not see this as a waste of time and I am sure that all you are talking about the negativity if link building is nothing to do with quality link building for your website. I have tried to rabk only with the links and has been successful as well.

CoolHandCol
10-17-2014, 10:25 AM
Everyone is scared to link build - but they shouldn't be. As long as it's not unnatural and it is relevant then it will only be good

shrinkme
10-17-2014, 03:20 PM
Well are you talking about link building for search engine rank? Or possibly to get a few random visitors? I think it's worthwhile to contribute to a forum, other blogs, classified advertising, and other ways of promoting your website/blog. May not be too thrilling to start with, but the more links out there, the more traffic you will eventually get.

I do agree that content will attract traffic, but getting links out there doesn't hurt.

Harold Mansfield
10-23-2014, 04:43 PM
From Yoast:

Just two weeks after the Panda 4.1 update, Google has begun a worldwide rollout of an update to Penguin last Friday (October 17th). Penguin is an algorithm that targets websites that have unnatural backlinks.

This has always been my main contention. That trying to self manipulate 100's or 1000's of back links from all over the web is eventually going to backfire.

Google Penguin 3.0: Worldwide Rollout Still In Process, Impacting 1% Of English Queries (http://searchengineland.com/google-penguin-3-0-worldwide-rollout-still-process-impacting-1-english-queries-206286)

brita811
11-14-2014, 01:05 AM
Remember, your content isn't just something to get google to like your site, it is the whole point of your site. The content and how you structure it is what will make visitors do what you want when they get there. If it's crap they'll just leave

Harold Mansfield
01-17-2015, 05:26 PM
Ran across this article the other day and thought of this post. It's by Shae Baxter just after she returned from an SEO conference.

It explains how the old days of relying on keywords and link building to rank are completely, 100% over and have been for a while.
To get traction online you need an actual marketing plan that reinforces your brand and message across many platforms.



The SEO landscape has changed and it’s only getting harder.

SEO no longer works in isolation because it’s part of a much larger holistic digital ecosystem. Gone are the days where you could focus on SEO as its own channel because it’s connected and influenced so heavily now from other channels such as branding, content, paid search, email marketing and social media.



It's a good read. If I could only get some of my clients to move out of the early 2000's and accept this life would be much easier.
Search Engine + Content Strategies For 2015 Part 1: Why Google Wants You To Become A Brand (http://shaebaxter.com/search-engine-content-strategies-2015-build-a-brand/)

john14
01-18-2015, 03:25 AM
Link building is still beneficial in ranking a website high as with on page SEO link building is also important

Harold Mansfield
01-18-2015, 09:23 AM
Link building...as in manipulating your own back links is dead. Over. Google has evolved past the point where you can't trick them into thinking 1000's of people are linking to you. Which is what this article, many other articles, Google, and most SEO strategies keep repeating.

An overall, solid marketing plan has the effect of raising your SE "clout" and online exposure overall. That's what you need to do now. Actual marketing. Just like always. Link building is dead. I don't care how many ways people refuse to accept it.

Not saying you shouldn't link back to your site from your other online marketing efforts. I'm saying sitting back and doing nothing but fake link building is over.

billbenson
01-18-2015, 11:51 AM
The thing that confuses me on this is surfer are going to search for keyword. If I want a lawnmower, I'm going to put lawnmower in the search bar. G just can't ignore that. They can rate lawnmower sites on different criteria. But still the customer base is searching for 'lawnmower'.

Harold Mansfield
01-18-2015, 12:25 PM
The thing that confuses me on this is surfer are going to search for keyword. If I want a lawnmower, I'm going to put lawnmower in the search bar. G just can't ignore that. They can rate lawnmower sites on different criteria. But still the customer base is searching for 'lawnmower'.
Yeah, and how many retailers and manufacturers sell lawnmowers? There's only so much room on the first page and Google can't rank them all high purely based on what the webmaster has built since they all are targeting the exact same demographic.

So now they take other things into account...such as how much other information and the consistency of your over all brand around the web to provide the most relevant and helpful results to their readers. So the point is that you cannot self manipulate things like reviews, social media shares and engagement, videos, press articles, and mentions on industry related sites and so on. If your competition has all of that going for it, they will rank higher.

Here's the thing, if you're in an industry with little competition and whoever else is in it is only doing self manipulating link building then you're probably all on a even plain and who ever out links the other and has more content and a better design will probably rank higher. But that strategy is dependent on no one else who is targeting your audience doing more than you.

What we think of as SEO (as it used to mean) is now just the basics. Building a nice site with decent on site SEO doesn't make you special. That's what you're supposed to do. Now it's time to get to work to bring people to your company overall, which will bring people to your website, which will boost your exposure. They aren't just going to give you all the search traffic because you've done the basics. And you shouldn't be relying heavily on search traffic alone anyway. That's just nuts. If you have a real marketing plan, search will be a small or equal percentage of your overall web traffic.

You think sites with a lot of traffic are doing it all on site? That's ludicrous. NO successful company puts all their eggs in one basket like that.

Google rewards actual marketing now. They literally want you to be a brand with all of the bells, whistles and variety of your marketing to take you seriously and show you to their readers. You have to stop thinking of them as a tool for us, and understand that they are a tool for readers. They are there to please them. If we want to be a part of that we have to make a strong presentation that is more than just self manipulating links back to our sites.

Also remember this, offline is important too. Anything significant that you do offline like participating or hosting events, sponsorship and so on, ends up online with your name it and probably a link. Lending more credibility to your brand. It's all about credibility. After all the years of us bitching about crap and spam sites online, we should be happy that search engines are paying attention to your overall credibility and not just how many links you seem to have.

I'm actually happy about it. Online marketing got lazy. People were sitting back and doing the absolute minimum of stacking links and out ranking better content. Those days are over. Now you actually have to do some real marketing and I love it because now it really is a level playing field where hard work does get rewarded.

And as a business it's just more things that clients need help with. It used to be just build the website and that's it. Now they need help with all of it and it's a lot more fun.