10 Link Building Mistakes You Should Avoid

Backlinks are one of the most important factors in getting good ranking in the search engines. Nevertheless, there are many talks going on the web that links has lost its value. But if you ask me, I would say that backlinks are still the big factor for search engines, specifically Google to rank websites. But I would agree that if your website’s on-page optimization is not good then backlinks may not help much.

Link building is the traditional way to get better ranking, but since the Google Penguin rolled out, the way of doing it has been changed a lot. If you do wrong, your site might be penalized, and in some cases it might get de-indexed completely. So, you need to be very careful while building links for your website.

In this blog post, I am going to share the 10 link building mistakes you should avoid to stay safe. Here are they:

1. Backlinks from irrelevant sites

In the early years, getting backlinks from any kind of sites worked great, and that is the reason many people still build links from irrelevant sites. As I said above, things have been changed a lot in SEO industry, and thus you must update yourself with the trend and search algorithm updates. Getting links from irrelevant sites puts your website at risk as in most cases, Google might consider such links as paid, and that is against the webmaster quality guidelines.

Therefore, always try to obtain links from relevant sites because links from irrelevant sites don’t help you rather do more bad to your site.

What do you mean by irrelevant links?

If you have a technology website, then getting links from dating sites is irrelevant and unnatural.

2. Links from sites with the same C-class IP

Backlinks from the sites that have identical IP addresses can do more bad than good because Google considers that these links are obtained from some link network which is a red flag. Your site might get a penalty, or even banned forever.

Therefore, while running your link building campaign, be sure to get links from sites having different C-Class IP addresses to stay safe.

3. Using Same Anchor Text

When SEO was new, building hundreds of links using same anchor text was the best way to rank fast in search engines, but Penguin changed the game entirely by labeling this strategy as link spam.

If you use same anchor text while building links, you are doing blunder mistake, and you may receive a manual penalty from Google.

Therefore, use semantic keywords as anchor texts while building links for your website. Don’t use exact anchors everywhere.

4. Getting links from the pages which have tons of outbound links

When a web page link out to tons of websites (say hundreds or thousands) then the SEO value flows to each link drops badly. And most importantly, those web pages look spammy and low-quality. Google might consider them as link farms. Thus, getting links from such web pages are of no use. So avoid them!

5. Link Velocity

I have seen many SEO experts are making the mistake by building tons of links so fast. Link Velocity should be maintained by building links in a slow and steady manner.

Just think, if you have a new blog and you have built 500 backlinks for it in one day while having only a few blog posts.

Doesn’t it look suspicious to Google?

– It surely does!

 According to Google, backlinks should come naturally which is not possible indeed, but you can always build links in the slow and gradual manner that look natural.

You can do something like, in the very first month, you build 30 links while having 10 blog posts. Then you can try building 50 links in the next month while having 20-25 blog posts. It might look natural, but when you create 100 links in the very first month while having very few number posts, then it may alert Google to suspect your site. [There are no fixed numbers; it’s just an example to make the concept clear].

– Image credit: gobloggingtips.com

Therefore, you must maintain the link velocity as per the content growth.

6. Links from the pages that not indexed or de-indexed in Google

Getting links from the pages that are not in the index of Google is not going to help you because they are not crawl-able. Thus, no link value will flow to the those links.

If you have links from the pages that are de-indexed sites (they might have been de-indexed because of some penalty), then it might be a red flag.

Therefore, always check the pages whether they are indexed or not before getting links from them.

7. Huge number of Sitewide links

Sitewide links are fine if they are few in numbers and from relevant sites, but if you are having tons of sitewide links, your site may receive unnatural inbound link penalty from Google.

Therefore, try not to get sitewide links heavily. A few from relevant sites are fine.

8. Getting Only Nofollow links

This can be the biggest link building mistake if you are not checking the links to know whether they are dofollow or Nofollow. Nofollow links don’t pass any link value, so they don’t help you improve ranking of your site. So, while building links make sure that majority of your backlinks are dofollow.

9. Getting links only for Homepage

This is one of the biggest mistakes I have noticed while I was working for a firm. Most of the SEOs there used to build links for home page only. Google can apparently find that you are building links to manipulate page rank because this kind of backlink profile looks unnatural.

Therefore, you must focus on the overall site, and build links to internal pages as well. Always remember that your backlink profile must look natural.

10. Underestimating or avoiding Interlinking

I am happy that bloggers are doing well when it comes to Interlinking, but if you see business websites, you will find they either have not done interlinking or done poorly. This is one of the biggest link building mistakes in my opinion because when you cross-link your pages, they pass link value.

Suppose one of your web pages has got so many links from quality sites, then you can make use of it, and link out to other pages from this particular web page to pass some link value to them as well. Therefore, don’t avoid doing interlinking on your site.

[color-box color=”white”]Pro Advice: Monitor your site’s backlink profile time to time! Make use of backlink checker tools for monitoring.[/color-box]

Final Words

Links are very important for getting ranking in search engines, and you must know the best ways to do it in order to stay safe from Google penalties.

In this blog post, I have mentioned 10 link building mistakes that you must not commit. One mistake can put your website in danger, so stay safe while you build links.

Thank you for reading my post! Share your views in comments.