Many competitor's backlinks are in content anchor links. Ho do I get these same links?
-
Hi I managed to open up OSE. I'm finding that much of the competition's backlinks are in content anchor text links. Am I supposed to get backlinks from these same pages using the same anchor text but linking back to my page or is that allowed? If so, how do I get these in content blog post links? Thanks. Sunil.
-
The thing is, lots of really crappy techniques like links from really awfully spun articles do work and did so even more historically. That said, it is in no way a reason for you to build these kind of links as the engines are focused on getting this garbage out of the index and you will just end up chasing your tail.
There are a couple of ways to get in content links but the big job is creating the opportunity by building a relationship with the owners of the website.
Try identifying some link candidates, emailing the site owners or maybe following them on twitter and try to get into a position where you could offer some guest content (with a link back of course).
Not easy but take solace in the fact that if your competitors links are garbage, they are easier to beat.
Hope it helps
Marcus -
I am also noticing that alot of the content that has competitor's backlinks in it, is generally of a very low quality and sometimes reads as nonsense. Yet, it has a high page or domain authority in Open Site Explorer. How is this allowed and still given high authority?
Here's an example of text for the 2nd highest authority backlink in Open Site Explorer for a competitor's URL which appears at no. 1 on google for my keyword phrase
Competitior's URL: http://www.paintzoomexposed.com/
Backlink URL: http://hughesglobal.com/2011/06 (Page authority:40 Domain authority:41)
The anchor text appears in content as a backlink in the following passage:
"In case you have a reliable belly, then you might want to pick a cottage on the back the main dispatch. These areas could cost paint zoom review a tad bit more, however they are in addition a lot more deluxe as opposed to additional log cabin renatls......"
As you can see it has no relevance and is total nonsense.
Does this mean that backlinks from this page are no good despite the high backlink authority it's given in Open Site Explorer? There are also lots of backlInks and achor text on a wide variety of irrelevant subjects from the backlinking URL.
Should I try to get backlinks on this page or avoid it despite the high authority ratings?
-
Hi Wayne,
Thanks for your insights! As for offering webmasters an incentive for backlinks, what would be a good offer in terms of widgets, partnership proposals or any other types of value added incentives? Do you have an example message that we could send?
Also, how do we make sure that the competitor's backlinks are coming from good "neighborhoods"? What are the indicators of quality within Open Site Explorer?
Thanks again.
Sunil.
-
Hi Sunil,
If I understand you correctly, you're asking "how" to get the same backlinks as those of your competitors? If that's the question, then I'm afraid the answer is there is no sure-fire way to ensure you will ever gain the same links. Link attribution is never a guarantee.
My suggestion would be to approach the webmasters where you see your competitors are receiveing backlinks and offer them a "value-add proposal" that is unique form that of your competitor.
You can also always offer a widget, a partnership proposal, etc. The key is to provide value and personal thought to your link request. Just asking for a link because your competitor has one is not going to likely yield positive results.
A word of caution: make sure your competitors backlinks are coming from good neighborhoods. There are many posts on SEOmoz that speak to this. You don't want to waste your time or effort, or jeopardize your sites performance, by acquiring suspect links.
Link building is tough, but a little creativity and human touch can usually open the lines of communication!
Best of luck,
W
-
Are the onpage links from their own domain? You need to change it to where you see where they are getting links from other domains.
You can Select All from (drop down) and you use that dropdown there to select. I don't know the word for it because OSE is loading SUPER slow for me.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do i have too many 'follow' backlinks and am i being penalised by Google for it?
Hi all. I read on Moz recently that if a website has too large a percentage of 'follow' backlinks, that Google penalise the website because that is unnatural. IS this correct please? I ask because i have recently found that our own website, according to Moz, has 16,500 inbound links and they are ALL 'follow' links. These are all from independent 3rd parties and we havent commissioned any of them, so it is completely natural. URL if anyone cares is www.themosquito.co.uk Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers
Link Building | | TheMozzy0 -
Backlinks coming from websites we've built - Good or bad?
Hi everyone, I'm just doing a backlink audit of our newly relaunched site and saw that we have about 9,000 backlinks. Unfortunately, we have neglected our own link building. About 8,000+ of these links are from the websites we have built - sitewide footer links. These are also exact match anchor texts i.e. website by Bambrick Media. Because of that, our referring domain is only at 200+. Is this bad practice? Should we keep these backlinks / keep doing this for future sites we build? We feel like our backlink profile, the above in particular, is affecting our rankings and traffic. We're not ranking very well for our keywords. Compared to our competitors who have a quarter or less of the backlinks we have, they're ranking better, have more organic keywords, and are getting more organic traffic. Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | nhhernandez0 -
Page links, header links, footer links
HI I have been hearing about links, you should keep to 100 Just look at this url http://www.powerwale.com/store/acdelco-sealed-vrla-iacdv5l--b-5ah-bike-battery/77031 and go for Recommend section, where you same product applies to different vehicles 1. im confused, should keep it or not?
Link Building | | Rahim119
2. Header links are less, Footer links are less, and in the future, we are planning to add more, will this affect SEO more than 100
i see many ecommerce sites, has menu showing many categories, more 100 categories links
3. Wht about link equity? If I have more links in header and footer page(all this will follow in the rest of pages).
4. More links in the header and footer shows that you are big ecommerce site.. Pls suggest, which is right way and go gain SEO value1 -
Link building for a 'boring' eCommerce site
Hey all, I'm in need of some serious inspiration and I'm hoping one of you generous people can help. We're looking to do a spot of link building for an eCommerce site which I would describe (without putting it down too much) as 'boring'. This isn't our fault per se as the site sells printer cartridges and there's only a certain amount of excitement such a product can create. As a result natural linkbuilding is quite tricky, especially when it comes to creating links to anything other than our homepage. For the past couple of years we have focused on creating good content and indeed have a thriving database of hundreds of helpful articles and videos on the site. These are generating decent traffic (and rank #1 for many different help related search terms) but the problem with these articles is that they don’t convert in to sales at all well. I’m also conscious that it will ultimately end in us developing a link profile which would classify us as a printer repair resource rather than cartridge sales website. I have read numerous guides on Moz but they all tend to focus on products which are a little sexier than those that we sell. Getting someone to share and link to a truly unique product would be incredibly easy compared with asking someone to engage, share and link to the latest Epson cartridge. I started writing articles on some decent quality business blogs however the links given don’t look particularly natural and the link would always be to our homepage. We have the staff and the time but we built a whole host of rubbish links back before Penguin and I want to ensure that we are going to head in the right direction before embarking on something new. If you had a site which was really dull how would you devise a link building strategy that was relevant and, most importantly, natural? Thanks for your help. Chris
Link Building | | ChrisHolgate1 -
Is it better to have a blog under your main website's domain or should the company's blog have its own domain?
Is it better to have a blog under your main website's domain or should the company's blog have its own domain? And if the blog is on its own domain, do links to the main site look good or bad to Google? Thanks! (And please feel free to add any other related advice you might have...)
Link Building | | Linda-Vassily0 -
Is the whoisbusinesslistings.com directory a good place to get a link?
I stumbled across the whoisbusinesslistings.com directory and noticed that it's home page is page rank 4 and in the listing it allows do follow links to your site. They don't have pricing listed on the site though which scares me. Only a link to a sales person. Anyone know how much they charge and if it would be worth looking into? Thanks mozzers! Ron10
Link Building | | Ron100 -
301 to main page or deeper page for best 'link juice'.
I have two rafting websites. One ranks high for one set of keywords. The other ranks okay for a different set. I want to redirect the whole second site to the first to give the first more link juice and hopefully lift the first site even more in the rankings. Would it be better to link to a deeper page of the 1st site. I have a page that does well for some long tail keywords or would it be better to link to the main page. Or is it a bad idea over all.
Link Building | | tkobrien0 -
Do you link out to good content?
I have noticed that there are a bunch of questions in the Q&A about people are concerned about allowing blog post comments or linking out in general. My question is: do you avoid linking out to other websites, even though they have good content? I am not talking about direct competitors here, but just linking to other websites in general.
Link Building | | ThomasHgenhaven0