5 Common Backlink Misconceptions

Backlinks are one of the most crucial key ranking aspects of a website or a blog. Although backlink takes some time before it starts ranking on Google SERP, this is the very thing that will attract your target audience over to your website/blog. However, because Google tends to shroud their algorithms in secrecy, various businesses have a hard time figuring out what the right strategy of link-building really is. As such, many link-building myths instead of facts are passed around and we will name some common backlink misconceptions your should be aware of.

Here are five of the most recurring myths surrounding backlink strategies:

1.   “Domain Authority is What it’s All About”

Some of the most useful tools that week can use to our advantage when it comes to backlink include Trust Flow from Majestic and Domain Authority from Moz. These tools bestow users with a number that can vary between 1 and 100, that tries to convince Google how authoritative one’s site may be.

But even though there’s plenty of importance within these metrics, it’s also worth noting that the scores are estimated and not completely guaranteed. They can only give you a good grasp of how authoritative a website can be. However, if you constantly follow Domain Authority, you’ll always come across problems. You can use the tool for some inside, and see whether it has any value of increasing authority on your website.

In other words, these metrics only provide indications – that’s why you need to make sure whether they fit within the context of your link-building goals. For instance, you need to look into Domain Authority and Trust Flow together along with other measures like:

• How many referring backlinks and domains there are (gained and lost over time)
• How a website appears and feels spammy
• How many follow against nofollow links go into your backlink profile
• Your backlinks and scores vs. competitors after a passage of time
• How many high domain relevant and authority links are linked to your backlink profile
• Potential changes in search rankings

2.   “There’s No Point and Nofollow Links”

Nofollow links are links that cite authors put up. This is when the author makes a ‘no follow’ tag in an HTML link. In other words, a no-follow link is a way of getting Google to ignore a link from the basis of SEO. So if Google doesn’t detect the links, they won’t be able to rank your site, which can only mean that they’re worthless to our SEO strategy, correct? Not exactly and we’ll show you why.

Although it is true that ‘follow’ links have a lot of ‘SEO weight’ to them, allowing them to make more tangible movements in traffic and rankings, it doesn’t really establish nofollow links as worthless. In 2019, Google made an announcement that they were going to be changing the way they view nofollow links. What this means is that Google will decide whether or not a nofollow link is worth carrying extra weight on its own, instead of simply ignoring a nofollow tag. As such, any nofollow link you’ve placed in a high-quality website may have sufficient SEO-ranking value.

Besides that, nofollow links may even have some indirect value as well. If such a link is placed within a high authority website, there’s a very good possibility that it may drive direct referral traffic over your website. Sometimes, if your website’s content is linked to a high-traffic website, then there’s a very good chance that it’ll be discovered by third-parties and thus, linked to naturally from other third-party websites.

Apart from that, you’d also want nofollow links to be part of your backlink profile as a whole. We say this because any source that is completely composed of follow links may appear ‘unnatural,’ or even suspicious to Google’s or other search engines’ algorithms.

3.   “Link-Building is a Cinch”

Once again, wrong! This may refer to a time when placing links in directories, guess blogs and forums came at the expensive ‘link building’ – which can, surprisingly, be a recurring misconception among SEOs and marketers until they eventually realize that they need to actually try and ‘build’ the links by themselves.

The reality is that when it comes to whether or not how easy ‘link building’ is for you, context is highly pivotal. It could be that you’re lucky that your company is well-renowned (where people are likely to link to naturally), and that it functions in a whole sea of media that links out often. Or you may be unfortunate, wherein your company doesn’t have a single bit of essential presence and operates in a sea of media that doesn’t ever link back.

Whatever the case may be, Google focuses more on naturally placed links, that brings you all the more closer to achieving top-quality links. However, there’s no denying one glaring fact regarding backlink using digital PR; the links aren’t easy to get. As a matter of fact, they have to be earned. To acquire the link, we need to think and act in the same manner as a PR along with a bit of SEO know-how. This means being skilled and knowledgeable on how we’re going to pitch to the media, as well as having a powerful story like that of a good journalist. And as most are well aware, journalists act as gatekeepers for the link and media placement.

4.   “There’s No Point to Link Building Unless You Acquire Hundreds of Backlinks for Each Campaign”

It is inarguable that good backlinks are the key to building authority for your website. However, recently established companies or businesses shouldn’t go out of their way to assume that they can place hundreds if not thousands of those links to generate interest or visibility for their website. This is an old-school approach, echoing to a time where there were less penalties, stipulations and restrictions placed by Google’s algorithms and were seen by the search engine as a good link and also site owners and journalists were handing out links on a silver platter.

Now, much has changed from the times that have gone by and it’s all about quality instead of quantity. Everything about the website and anchor text that surrounds the backlink to how we’ve acquired the link, whether it’s a follow or no follow, or editorially placed matters now more than ever before. We’ve also come a long way since simply placing links on directories and forums and expecting dramatic movements on our site authority.

With that in mind, site authors and journalists have also wizened up and will only link out more strategically to protect their own websites. Plus, many are now aware how valuable links are and why you would ask for one – which makes link reclamation, among other tasks, more difficult. Long story short, it’s quality that drives link building more so than quantity. It’s another way of saying that hundreds or thousands of follow or nofollow links from spammy websites are not going to do it for you.

5.   “Good Content is What’s Good For You and Not Digital PR”

It pretty much goes without saying nowadays that great content constitutes high search engine rankings. In fact, great, or even average, content can naturally acquire backlinks. This is mostly the case whenever site owners perform research on a particular topic that they want to write about. If your web content provides site owners with just the right amount of information during their results, then there’s a very good chance that they’ll link back to your content.

But, this isn’t exactly a 100% tried-and-tested method that will result in quality backlinks being built, which as a result, can positively impact your site’s ranking and authority. When it comes to an organic approach, acquiring the best backlinks naturally is both a slow and risky process. Third-party site authors first need to decide whether they wish to write regarding your topic, then they’ll need a source to agree whether your content is exactly what they’re looking for – and upon searching, it will be your content that will first show up in the results.

But before you get approved, you’re going to have to wait for a while. Furthermore, the odds of site authors finding and then using your content instead of others depends on how high you currently rank for certain keywords and how authoritative in relevant your content really is.

It’s also possible that most top-quality journalists that construct content for top-ranking publications that you were seeking links from are not going to work in this manner. Generally speaking, those journalists are well aware of information in their sector or may reach out to only trusted and known digital PRs or contacts if they are seeking any third party content to add to their website. So, if you want to build links that are better and quickly, you need to reach out to those journalists and create stories that they are looking to publish.