Advance Web Promotions Analyzing Your Backlinks How to avoid trouble Harold Compton Austin Account Manager

Advance Web Promotions From Christian Greiner’s SEO Audit presentation last month

Advance Web Promotions Search engine marketing that works! Why do a Backlink Analysis To ensure that a website’s backlink profile does not result in a penalty, manual or algorithmic from search engines. Keep in mind that: Links should be to attract visitors, not to increase pagerank! Backlinks, for the most part should not be created by you, although there are exceptions. You are responsible for your backlink profile!

Advance Web Promotions Search Engine Penalties Google, as the largest search engine, has published guidelines for Webmasters to follow. The most important portion of their guidelines with respect to backlinks is the following: “Any links intended to manipulate Pagerank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.” Any backlink to your site that is considered a violation of this guideline can result in a penalty. Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Tools for Analyzing Backlinks Search engine marketing that works! 1. Link Research Tools Quick Backlink Tool DTOX Tool 2. SEO Profiler Link Profiler Link Influence 3. SEM Rush Anchor text Referring domains Most Linked Sites

Advance Web Promotions 4. Opensite Explorer Anchor text Linking domains Give indication on spam links 5. Webmaster Tools Most linked sites Use multiple tools as each provides a somewhat different list. Gather as much information as you can. Tools for Analyzing Backlinks

Advance Web Promotions Tips When Evaluating Links Don’t worry about nofollow links. If you think it may be a problem, many times you are right. Use your own judgement, don’t let a tool make the decision. Check your referrals to see if a link generated any visits over the last year. If in doubt, take it out! Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions What Backlinks Can Get a Penalty? 1.Over optimized anchor text links 2.Too many links from low quality or high quality sources 3.Paid links 4.Link exchanges 5.Links from irrelevant sources 6.Outbound spam links 7.Foreign links for local businesses 8.Blogroll links, forum comments and anonymous profiles. Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Over Optimized Anchor Text Links Search engine marketing that works! * Website had over 120 links with the same anchor text, which was a highly competitive search term.

Advance Web Promotions Links from Low/High Quality Sites Although a natural backlink profile should have a variety of high, medium and low quality sites it should not have all low quality backlinks. In a natural profile the bulk of sites are medium and lower quality with some high quality sites. This may vary depending on the type of site, for example a major university may have a much higher percentage of high quality sites than an ecommerce site. Check to make sure that low quality links are coming from relevant websites. Finally remember that low quality links that draw visitors to your site are good links. Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Paid Links This is the type link that you should avoid at all cost. Paid links are a direct violation of webmaster guidelines. Check the address of the registered owner of the site. Get rid of any from owners such as the Never engage in buying links! Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Link Exchanges Search engine marketing that works! Typically any situation where two sites have agreed to link to each other should be viewed cautiously. Once again the purpose of a link is to attract visitors so if wish to exchange links for that purpose, make them nofollow.

Advance Web Promotions Irrelevant Sources Search engine marketing that works! Examples: The following were linked sites to a local upholstery fabric supplier in Florida

Advance Web Promotions Outbound Spam Links Most often these are found in sites with a blog or forum within the site that contain numerous follow links in posts and comments. Ensure that blog and forum posts and comments are moderated and should contain nofollow links. Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Foreign Links to Local Businesses If a website is for a local business and contains numerous links from foreign websites this can be viewed as a violation of webmaster guidelines. Ask yourself if you expect to get customers from those links. Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Blogs and Forums Search engine marketing that works! This is probably one of the biggest areas you will find problem backlinks. The big areas are: Comments with follow links Blog articles with numerous follow links Links from blogs that are irrelevant to your site Subscriber profiles with follow links Article marketing Blog problems are easy to spot: Title unrelated Lack of ads No contact Random subjects

Advance Web Promotions Closing Backlinks can cause a site to receive a penalty or even get a site deindexed which can lead to a serious loss of organic search traffic. If you can afford to lose most or all organic traffic then don’t worry about them. Your backlink profile should be evaluated at least every 6 months after you have cleaned it up. If you have any questions about your backlink profile feel free to contact me by . Search engine marketing that works!

Advance Web Promotions Search engine marketing that works! Contact Harry Lennard – Owner and President Harold Compton – Director, Austin TX Office (512)