Have you started your link building campaign? Are you afraid you might post your link in the wrong place? Read on to find out how taking simple steps can help you avoid being labeled a link spammer.
 
It's just as important to know what not to do when executing a website linking strategy as it is to know what to do. With inexpensive linking software and services so readily available, there's a strong temptation to take shortcuts when it comes to getting quality links. Avoiding these traps will help your search engine placements rise naturally and stay that way for a long time. In this article, I describe two ways that you can help yourself avoid being labeled a link spammer.

Link Farms

What is a link farm?  A link farm is any website designed and set up for the sole purpose of getting search engine spiders to crawl and index web pages. These websites provide absolutely no end user utility or benefit.

So how do you recognize a link farm?  First, you need to ask yourself, is this site heavy laden with links? Most link farms will have a "farm" of links with little to no content. As for an explanation of the site's existence, it's usually missing too.

The next question you need to ask is, what does the URL of the site itself look like?  Most of the time, link farms will have long, hyphenated URLs (i.e. our-great-linking-directo ry.com). This is a generalization so not all link farms will have these types of URLs.  Many of these link farms are generated using software. The software will go out and find a domain name that contains specific keywords even if it settles on something with several hyphens and numbers. You may still consider a long, hyphenated site for linking purposes but make certain you conduct more research before you submit a link.

Next, look at the domain name extension and note if it's .info or .biz.  In order to sell these extensions, many domain name registrars offer a one-time, deep discount.  I know of several registrars that sell .info domains for 89 cents per year.  These cheap domain names allow spammers to generate thousands of sites at a huge discount.

The next criteria I use to help identify a link farm is what I call the "cheese factor".  Although some link farms will look professionally designed, most are either 1) generated with software or 2) are designed with the same cookie-cutter, non-altered templates that fill search engine results.  This is especially true with blogs.  Spammers and Internet newbies will not take the time to brand their websites or blogs. These are commonly referred to as "pump and dump" websites.

Another question you should ask is, does it look human?  That is, does it look like someone hangs around and takes care of things? You should also be able to contact the webmaster either via web form or e-mail.  If there's no contact information available anywhere on the website, be very afraid.

If it's a directory site, check out the links in a few of the main directory headings.  Are the URLs hyphenated just like the main URL? If you visit one of these sites, does it look the same as the site you just came from?  Are there more URLs crammed onto one page than anyone could possibly visit in a lifetime?

Last but not least, if you have your suspicions that a site might be a link farm, for any reason, stay away.  It's better to miss a great linking opportunity than to post your link and get downgraded in your search engine placements.

Non-relevant Links

When you're placing your links, you want to make sure that the site you're linking to has something to do with your own site and, vice versa.

A non-relevant link is defined as a hypertext link placed on a website, or in a directory, that has little to no relevance to the linking site or directory.  These links are placed for the sole purpose of 1) increasing page rank  or 2) getting a website crawled and indexed or a combination of the two.

The most obvious way to combat not-relevant links, over which you have complete control, is the placement of links on your own site.  Avoid placing links on your own site to another that has no relevance to your content; even if it's a legitimate.  Why?  The link doesn't do anything for you or the person whose link you placed.  On the other hand, don't ask someone to place a link on their site which doesn't relate to yours.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN all look closely at whom you're linking to and who's linking to you.  In fact, Google's PageRank definition specifically states that link relevance (quality) is looked at more than just the link itself.

So what's the solution?  As in researching a potential link farm, you need to check out the sites that are you're linking to.  If you're submitting your site to directories or article directories, make sure that you're submitting your content and links to the most relevant topics and sections.

Don't worry about getting an exact match in terms of relevance between your site and the linking site; just make sure that each site complements the other.

Know the Linking Pitfalls

In summary, you can be accused of being a link spammer even if you think you haven't done anything wrong.  To keep your linking strategy clean, I've outlined two specific techniques that will keep your site safe with the search engines.

First, watch out for unscrupulous link directories and sites (i.e. link farms).  Use the techniques and ask yourself the questions I've outlined to recognize and avoid these harmful sites.

Second, make sure you're posting to relevant sites/directories/article s/blogs or wherever you choose to submit your content and links.

Most importantly, if you think you might get accused of being a spammer, by attempting to use a linking technique you just read about or software you just bought, trust your gut and don't do it.  Linking software creators claim that you can get thousands of back links with the press of a button or for only "$49".  The only way to get good quality back links is to do the research yourself and hand-submit every single link.

If you avoid these two traps, you'll be well on your way to getting the links you need to get your website placed higher in search results and, as a result, generate more sales.

Many webmasters believe that link harvesting is all about gaining as many links to the home page as possible, with the primary keyword as the anchor text. They give no thought to how the search engines perceive this activity and fail to understand why their rankings don't improve. This article describes tactics to employ and avoid when working on your link building campaign.

Effective link building is a complex affair and can be an extremely time consuming and laborious task. However quality links are extremely powerful and a constant flow of incoming links is essential for any website hoping to compete in the search engine marketplace. When building links you should always be careful not to represent unnatural link behaviour. Failure to do so may see you link building efforts wasted.

So how do you avoid being flagged as a site that participates in unnatural linking behaviour? Here are a few key pointers you should keep at the forefront of your mind when building links:

Deep Linking

Google will give more weight to a site with 500 links all pointing to different pages on a site than it will a site with 750 links all pointing to the homepage.

Link exchange programs can be used to acquire high volumes of links in an effort to boost rankings. The traits of a website that participates in such a program are a high percentage of inbound links all pointing to the same destination URL.

Just like any other tactic that becomes popular it often finds itself being abused by unethical SEO’s. And just like with previous tactics, such as stuffing the meta keywords tag, the major search engines adjust their algorithms to filter out websites that employ these tactics from their results.

Even if you don’t participate in such a program, you should be mindful that your inbound links don’t all point to the homepage if you want to avoid triggering such filters.Another point to consider is that, with natural links, a website has little control over where an external site links to. Natural links will often link to a page deep in the websites structure.

Varying Anchor Text

Many webmasters believe that the more keyword rich anchor text links to the target page the better. Wrong! As discussed, when a site acquires links naturally they have little control over where the external site links to. This is the same for the anchor text of natural links i.e. the webmaster has little control of the anchor text of natural inbound links.

If you build high volumes of inbound links with duplicated anchor text you may be signalling to the search engines that there is unnatural linking activity. A high percentage of duplicated anchor text is also another trait of websites that participate in link exchange programs.

Of course it would be madness not to use your keywords in the anchor text of inbound links but to avoid triggering filters you should use variations of your keywords. If your site is about Link Building then, by all means, build links with that phrase in the anchor text, but also build links with the terms "Links", "Building Links", "Linking Services", "Linking Strategies", "One-way links" and "Inbound Links" in the anchor text.

Balancing the Equation

There are many ways you can acquire links including Blogs, forum signatures, reciprocal links, articles, directories, press releases, link worthy content, site-wides, buying links and social media marketing, to name but a few. It is highly likely that a website with compelling content will also acquire links from a variety of these sources. It will have press releases announcing new content, articles reviewing the site, listings in trusted directories and communities will be discussing the site in Blogs and forums.

A site that acquires links unnaturally may have a high percentage of links from article resource boxes or reciprocating sites. To avoid being picked out as a site that participates in unnatural linking behavior you should ensure your site has inbound links from as many of these different types of source as possible.

Summary

Always ensure you have inbound links from a wide variety of sources to avoid triggering unnatural linking filters. Constantly analysis your back links and compare the types of links against each other. If you find you have no links from Blogs, then go off and start participating in a relevant Blog discussion. If you notice there has been no recent news about your site then write a press release announcing the great new feature you have just added for your users. And if you notice that all of your links are from the same source i.e. reciprocal, then build more links from other sources to balance the equation. In all cases vary the anchor text and the destination URL of inbound links.