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View Full Version : What does Google think about links from article marketing, widgets, footers, themes?



vangogh
10-30-2012, 12:18 AM
The answer comes from a Matt Cutts video. The video is less than 3 minutes and the gist is Google wants to see links that have been editorially curated. They want to see links where the page linking out has made an actual decision to add that specific link with that specific anchor text.


http://youtu.be/chuhSmwsL7s

With the items mention in the subject line of this thread those links are not generally editorially curated. For example when you place a widget on your site you grab the code for the widget and whatever link happens to be embedded is just there. You didn't specifically add it. Same for the other items mentioned.

I found the video above via a Debra Mastaler post at Link Spiel (http://www.linkspiel.com/2012/10/what-google-thinks-about-certain-links/). Debra probably knows more about link building than you and I combined and she not only transcribed the video, but added her own thoughts to it. It makes for an interesting read in combination with the video above.

Overall this is just another move by Google away from more links being better and more concentrated anchor text being better towards wanting to see links that someone added because they genuinely want to send people to what's on the other side of the link

rajesh
11-16-2012, 10:43 AM
Thank you for sharing the video. After watching this video, I have a question that does anchor texts from forum signatures count?

SDGSteve
11-29-2012, 09:13 AM
It's all about the quality, people have to stop thinking in terms of "are forum links OK?" and start thinking in terms of "is this a quality site to have a link from?". Most article are packed with duplicates and spam so generally article sites are dead for SEO, footers in forums though, if the forum has a high page rank and site authority then any link on there is good, and a lot of the best forums insist you post X number of threads etc. before you can add links or signatures so there's an element of quality control there.

Widgets; you approved having the widget on your website therefore there is editorial control over the link that comes bundled with it, if you don't want the link, don't use the widget.

As far as I can tell the jury is still out on anchor text, some SEOs are saying they think anchor text is open to spam tactics and has been degraded, others think nothing has changed, I think we'll need to wait a while for a definitive result on them.

vangogh
11-30-2012, 01:40 AM
I can't disagree with anything you said. I especially wish people would stop thinking in terms of "are forum links ok?" since it would mean less time I have to spend cleaning out spam around her. :)

With anchor text I think what's happening is it's being given less weight in the algorithm. I think it's still important, but perhaps not as important. Rand Fishkin posted an interesting video a couple of weeks ago talking about co-occurence. In the video, Prediction: Anchor Text is Dying...And Will Be Replaced by Co-citation (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/prediction-anchor-text-is-dying-and-will-be-replaced-by-cocitation-whiteboard-friday), Rand observed some sites ranking well for terms that weren't included on the page in any number and didn't have links with the terms in anchor text either.

What Rand suspects is happening is that many pages that do use the phrase or related phrases all link to a single page. Even though the anchor text doesn't include the phrase and the page being linked to isn't optimized for the phrase, it ends up ranking for it, because so many pages that are clearly about the phrase are pointing to it. Hopefully that makes sense. Rand explains it better in the video.

Bill Slawski followed up with a post Not All Anchor Text is Equal and other Co-Citation Observations (http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/11/not-all-anchor-text-is-equal-other-co-citation-observations/), which is also a good read and offers additional thoughts on the subject.

SDGSteve
11-30-2012, 12:21 PM
I was reading a blog about these articles the other day, that kind of approach would seem more likely to produce quality results than relying on anchor text.

vangogh
11-30-2012, 06:56 PM
Agreed. Anchor text can be a reasonable indicator of what a page is about, but like everything else it can be abused and spammed. Search has always been a cat and mouse game. Searching engines include some factor to consider and people wanting more traffic spam it. Search engines adjust and the spammers then adjust too. And on and on.

SEOAlpha
01-13-2013, 01:03 PM
The idea that "forum links don't count" is the wrong attitude entirely - if a link can drive traffic to a page, or has the potential to make a sale, then it's a a great link. Maybe not for rankings, but from a money making perspective, which is what we're all trying to do.

A lot of what's wrong with SEOs is that they are not business-focused - they look solely at rankings and not the bigger picture. I recently created a single blog comment link for a client, which drove 1100 visitors to the site and 4 sales. If I'd have been thinking from a purely rankings based perspective, those links would never have been created, that traffic would never have come and those sales would never have been made.

That being said anchor text is still very important. The general consensus, even amongst the blackhat community is that around 15% of inbound links can have "money" anchors, and that this is a perfectly safe amount in any industry. However, you'll often see websites with a much, much higher percentage which go untouched by Google. For instance, check out the Payday loan SERPs - they're fairly hilarious.

vangogh
01-17-2013, 02:26 AM
A lot of what's wrong with SEOs is that they are not business-focused - they look solely at rankings and not the bigger picture.

I think it depends on who you think of as an SEO. Most that I know are focused on the big picture and not specifically on rankings. Some certainly are overly focused on things like ranking, but hardly all or most. True that those focused on ranking only will miss opportunities like the blog comment you mentioned, but I think many SEOs do understand that kind of opportunity and are focused less on ranking and more on helping their clients generate more business. I think the industry sees itself more holistically now as one part of the entire marketing picture and not solely focused on moving some web pages up a few spots in the results.

WebEminence
01-18-2013, 10:40 AM
Good discussion and thanks for the video and link to debra's post.

As far as forum links, I don't view my forum links as meaningless but I don't count them much for SEO either. I'm in forums to learn some stuff, help others when I can, and gain some exposure and traffic.

Regarding the SEO discussion on non-editorial links, there's another hidden answer to the discussion within vangogh's original post. Notice how he linked to Debra @ Link Spiel's post. She has obviously written enough good content to get that link back to her site. That's the kind of content you should want to create and the type of links to expect in return.

dianecoleen
01-18-2013, 02:34 PM
A lot of what's wrong with SEOs is that they are not business-focused - they look solely at rankings and not the bigger picture. I recently created a single blog comment link for a client, which drove 1100 visitors to the site and 4 sales. If I'd have been thinking from a purely rankings based perspective, those links would never have been created, that traffic would never have come and those sales would never have been made.

I have to agree with you about this. I think we should stop thinking on how you will rank your website in quick possible time but instead we should start thinking on how to give your website a good reputation so it can gain possible leads in the future. We should not specifically count on links, but instead we should put into consideration if that link will benefit our website or not. IMHO, SEO is all about marketing and not about getting lots of links.

vangogh
01-22-2013, 11:55 PM
I don't view my forum links as meaningless but I don't count them much for SEO either.

That's exactly how I think of them too. To me their main value is dependent on the content you post on the forum. If you're contributing and helping others, then people will click the link and visit your site. If there's a small seo gain that's great, but I don't expect much from them.


Notice how he linked to Debra @ Link Spiel's post

I tend to do that for anyone who's helped me in the past. When I can I even try to write the anchor text in a way to benefit them more. It's a way for me to give back to those who have helped me.

Ted
01-23-2013, 03:53 PM
Forum Signature Links
As far as forum signature links go, I think you have to be really careful about the anchor text. You have to be especially careful if your site doesn't already have many links pointing to it and you plan on participating heavily in that forum. You can very easily make it look like you are trying to generate too many anchor text backlinks and wind up getting your site demoted by Google Penguin. I know firsthand because I had it happen with a brand new site I launched. I only had a handful of links to that site before I joined a relevant forum. I used ideal anchor text in my forum signature and the site got whacked by Penguin. So, I don't intend to make that mistake again with any site that I care about.

Article Marketing Links
As far as article marketing goes, even though Google might not prefer them, they still do work for SEO purposes. If you want legit proof of whether or not article marketing still works, just Google it. You will find proof that it does work. You will find this article marketing case study where you can see proof here - Article Marketing Worked In 2012 (http://articlemarketingcasestudy.com/article-marketing-worked-in-2012/) and here - Does Article Marketing Work For SEO - Here is Proof (http://articlemarketingcasestudy.com/article-marketing-for-seo/) and the most current info on the site's homepage. Read about it and decide for yourself. Also, Bing representatives still openly recommend article marketing for SEO. You can see proof of that on this page by Duane Forrester - Bing Articles and syndicated content - help or hindrance? - Webmaster Center blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community (http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2011/10/14/articles-and-syndicated-content-help-or-hindrance.aspx) Read part way down through his response and you will find this chunk of text:

They should work to include a link to their own website in any “BY:” line or bio posted on the site using their content. This is old-school guest blogging at it’s very best, in fact. The author’s own site not only gets a boost from the inbound links, but will see direct traffic, allowing the author to build a loyal following of direct readers that last beyond their syndication agreement.

Widget, Footer and Theme Links
As far as widget links, footer links and theme links go, I would think that you might run into the same over use of anchor text as you would with forum signatures. So, they might be useful for passing Google PageRank and they might be useful for some direct traffic, but they could be problematic if you are trying to use anchor text to boost your relevancy score.

So in my opinion, all those links work and serve a purpose. You just have to be selective and careful about how you use them.

vangogh
01-28-2013, 11:56 PM
I'm going to disagree on both points.

I don't see search engines penalizing people for participating in forums and using signature links. Again, I don't think the links are going to do anything significant to improve where the pages you link to rank, but it wouldn't make sense for search engines to penalize those people with the most signature links. Spammers don't stick around to create thousands of posts and thus links. Search engines are smart enough to realize this.

If lots of links from other sites also point back to the same pages with the exact same anchor text, then maybe it sends a signal, but I don't think it's because of forums. Forums are a use case where having a lot of links with the same anchor text makes sense.

One other point is that search engines have evolved to where they can recognize different parts of the page. For example they can usually tell when a menu on a site is a menu based on the html mark up being used. Any site with thousands of pages is going to have thousands of links with the exact same anchor text pointing to a handful of pages.

With article marketing the article you linked to about proof offers no proof. It only lists one phrase and shows how the one site ranks. It's no different than any of us trying to use the purchasing habits of a single friend as proof that the entire world shops the same way. The article never even shows what efforts went into ranking that page in the first place. I'd also point out the domain name contains the phrase and again the query itself is just cherry picked. The page currently ranking #1 uses the exact phrase as a page title. This thread currently ranks #1 for "What does Google think about links from article marketing, widgets, footers, themes?" It's not proof about the value of article marketing.

The Bing article has nothing to do with article marketing. It talks about duplicate content and syndication, but neither is article marketing. The article was written to alleviate fears about people syndicating their content. Some people are afraid if they allow others to republish their content it will hurt them because it gets seen as duplicate content. The Bing article is saying the syndication is generally a good thing and it lists a bunch of reasons why that having nothing to do with search engines.

The article does point out that it's possible a site that's republishing your content could outrank you based on a number of factors and then suggests making sure those articles link back to you through a bio link or similar to help your original content outrank the place where it's republished.

It's a different topic than what's known as article marketing.

TopLineComms
02-13-2013, 09:51 AM
If you're going to build links, think about who will be clicking on that link. Do people actually look at PR newsire and article spinning sites? I know I don't. When was the last time you visited Goarticles.com or Free-Press-Release.com? I'm guessing never.

I personally think people need to start analysing what Google wants to achieve. Google's goal is to build a search experience that gives people what they want, when they want it in the hope of also being able to return the most relevant, up to date results possible. Google's search engine is becoming more intuitive since employing AI based algorithms in their software making their clear goal more possible.

I personally don't think links from the channels mentioned above or from anywhere else for that matter will really make a difference to your rankings.

If you are building links, do it because you want to attract referral traffic that you think you have something valuable to offer in return. Don't do it to try and increase your search rankings, because success in this area is limited and there are far more effective techniques you can use to go from the search engine oblivion to the first page in a matter of weeks.

vangogh
02-14-2013, 12:08 AM
I personally think people need to start analysing what Google wants to achieve. Google's goal is to build a search experience that gives people what they want, when they want it in the hope of also being able to return the most relevant, up to date results possible.

I completely agree. I do think there can still be value in links that people might not click, but that search engines might still see as worthy, but in general you're best bet is trying to get links that real people are likely to click. Hard to see how any search engine wouldn't want to give those more value and they do a better job all the time of actually giving those links the greater value.

There's a quote often attributed to Wayne Gretzky, though he claims he never said it. Wikipedia attributes it to his father Walter. The quote is


skate where the puck's going, not where it's been

With seo look to where the search engines are going, not where they've been.

semaphore.v
04-06-2013, 05:29 AM
I really appreciate Matt Cutts and Google spam control team to update Google algorithm, before that site owners buy link and come 1st but not only quality site will come fist..all update should be average of end user behavior..

vangogh
04-08-2013, 07:13 PM
I have mixed thoughts about buying and selling links. On one hand I'm glad to see Google cleaning out spam from their results by discounting some links with little merit and only exist because money changed hands. However buying promotion is how it's always worked. Before the internet (and still now) businesses bought advertising on tv and radio. They placed ads in magazines and newspapers. If you wanted people to know about your business you often paid another business. Buying links is an extension of this practice. It's basically advertising.

I understand why Google wouldn't want to count links that have been bought in their ranking algorithms. On the other hand there really isn't anything wrong with the practice itself. Google really needs to walk a fine line between not letting money affect organic results and not punishing people for what amounts to advertising.

Tyrant
05-19-2013, 05:43 PM
Thank you for sharing the video. After watching this video, I have a question that does anchor texts from forum signatures count?

Yes, forum signatures still benefit your website's ranking however you must not overlook the content of the website. You must have fresh and frequently updated content, combined with quality links coming from relevant websites.

MasBro
05-21-2013, 09:00 PM
Google wants people and businesses of authority to link to your site. The best way to do this is to get links from them promoting your business. Soon, Google won't need links, but will give credit with simple mentions, kind of like what we now call citations. If an author with good authority mentions your site or even you, it will be beneficial. Haven't seen evidence of this yet, but it will come.

vangogh
05-29-2013, 01:31 AM
True. Google ultimately wants their search engine to find the same sites and pages we would decide on our own are the best and rank those first. Easier said than done. Citations are an interesting concept. So far I've mainly seen talk about them coming from SEOmoz. I'm not sure if or how much Google might be using them now, but it makes sense that they'll go in this direction when they can. I think it will be harder (though not impossible) to manipulate than links.

patrickprecisione
05-29-2013, 01:04 PM
Hey Van Gogh. I'm curious, have you seen any evidence that sites like EZine Article (since they're trying to clean up their act and weed out low quality content) still offer some SEO value?

vangogh
05-29-2013, 03:51 PM
This is just opinion, but I don't think they ever offered that much value. The original idea from a link building perspective was you submitted an article to a site like Ezine that was likely seen as an authority site by Google. The links from your article were probably considered pretty good. More though your article might possibly get downloaded and added to dozens or even hundreds of other sites, all of which linked back to you. The reason people submitted articles was ultimately to get a large number of links for relatively little work.

A few years ago Google started treating duplicate content different from unique content. Serving the same content over and over in search results isn't a good experience for searches. Google worked to discount the value of all but one version of a particular piece of content. That meant all those extra downloaded versions were pretty much useless in terms of any link benefit and, since they generally end up on sites that aren't visited all that often they don't have much ability to drive direct traffic either.

At that point if you submitted an article to something like Ezine the benefit was in the link from Ezine and any traffic Ezine sent. I don't think they ever sent much traffic and quite honestly there have always been better sites to get links from. The same article you submitted would probably be better placed on an authority site within your industry. More recently with Penguin or Panda (I forget which) sites like Ezine lost a lot of authority so now a link from them probably isn't that valuable at all. If they clean up their act and remove low quality content then they can certainly improve the way Google sees them, but I still think there will usually be better sites for any article you write than Ezine.

I think writing articles for other sites can be a good way to drive direct traffic to your site and also get a link from another site. However I don't think any article directory is likely to be the best place to do either.

patrickprecisione
05-30-2013, 08:46 AM
If they clean up their act and remove low quality content then they can certainly improve the way Google sees them, but I still think there will usually be better sites for any article you write than Ezine.

Thanks for the great insight, Van Gogh! When you say "better sites" do you have any specific URLs we could check out?

vangogh
05-31-2013, 04:27 PM
Better sites depend on your site. For example since I have content on my site mainly about web design and development and ideally those pages will rank for design and development terms it makes sense for me to write articles for other web design and development sites. Since I pay attention to the industry I know which sites are the popular and authority sites and those are the ones I'd sooner write for.

Since you're in a different industry those same sites wouldn't apply. With your promotional products sites you could probably write articles for general marketing and business sites. I'm not sure about the envelope site. What's coming to mind are sites like FedEx and USPS, but I doubt they have blogs you can write for. WHat you could do is search for some general terms related to your site and just see what pages are returned. Look through the results and see if you can find any that have opportunities to write.

Putting that to the test I just searched Google for 'marketing through promotional products' and the top result was an article from one of the blogs at the New York Times. Naturally it's not going to be easy to get an article published by the NY Times, even on one of their blogs. However at the bottom of the page there's a link to Work With Us, which takes you to a page where you can email them and tell them about yourself and they'll let you know if they have assignments in your area of interest. They probably aren't saying yes unless you can point them to some quality writing elsewhere, but it would be the kind of thing to aspire to.

Below the Times article though are plenty of less known blogs that likely have more opportunities to write for them. If you add something like 'write for us' to the initial search you'll find even more. These sites aren't as well known as the Times, but they're on subjects closely related to yours and your writing would be in front of an audience that's made up of people who'd be interested in your site and your products.

One last thing to add is before doing any of this you should have informational and non-sales pages on your site. Any of this is going to work better if you can direct people to your site for information and not to be sold to. It's hard to attract links to sales copy. As a first step I'd start blogging on your sites and then looking to promote your blog content. It's more likely to attract links and it offers a sample of your writing so others are more likely to let you write for them too.

Harold Mansfield
06-01-2013, 11:17 AM
You need to stop thinking of it as "Where can I go to get links?" and start thinking of it as "What can I do to make people want to link to me? ".

Link building today isn't seperate from your other marketing efforts. It IS your other marketing efforts. You won't find the kind of links that will do you any good, unless you give people a reason to link to you. And the only reason they are going to do that, is if you offer something beneficial, informative, or exciting that they want to share with thier readers or network.

vangogh
06-07-2013, 01:12 AM
I think that's the better way to think about it, though I think it's still ok to be aware of how to get links and not just wait for them. You generally need to get the ball rolling on your own before others will naturally link to you on their own. But I do agree it's better to think about what you can create or do to make others link to you. That's essential under any conditions.

When I write for other sites I'm aware that it's an opportunity for a link, but that's rarely the reason I write the article. I always think about the other site and ask myself if the audience of that site is a good match for my site. I think about how much traffic the site could drive directly to my site. I also think about who's behind the site and whether or not that person is someone I want to connect with in some way. The links are always secondary, though I'm always aware of them and do consider them.