Backlink

While on-page optimizations in the form of content, metadata, etc. also contribute significantly to the success of a website, these are ideally supported by off-page measures such as backlink building. These have an influence on the following areas:

Ranking

Google uses the number and quality of backlinks that lead to a specific domain as an indicator of its authority. A website with many, but high-quality, external links is classified as relevant and important by the algorithm and has a better chance of a higher ranking.

Referral traffic

Users who come to your site via external links provide you with additional traffic. This traffic is beneficial if it is links from pages with a certain value. The additional visitors you receive via the link are then potential customers and can ultimately have a positive effect on your turnover.

Indexing

Is your site new and not yet indexed? It can take some time for backlinks to show their effect. Pages that are already indexed but do not rank are also crawled less frequently by Google than popular pages in the top 3, as crawling is very resource-intensive for Google and therefore initially focuses on pages that are perceived as relevant. To speed up indexing in the future, Google has announced that it is testing IndexNow.

Since October 2021, IndexNow has been offering website operators an interface with which website operators can independently report new pages and content to the search engine. The aim is to speed up indexing. IndexNow is currently only used by Bing and Yandex. Google announced in fall 2021 that it would launch a trial with IndexNow in 2022. No further information has yet been published.

The backlinks on a website can be divided into two groups. The URL can lead to a subpage of the current domain and can therefore be considered an internal link. External links, as the name suggests, lead to an external website.

External links that lead to another domain as a text link, image link or via social signal or similar usually refer to sources or more in-depth information. This creates added value for the user and is included in the evaluation by the search engine crawlers. In particular, linked domains that are considered trustworthy and have a high domain trust are seen as a sign of quality. This usually includes Wikipedia on a regular basis. The search engine algorithm then assumes that relevant, high-quality information is provided on the linking website. This often also has an indirect positive effect on the ranking of the linking site.

Dofollow, Nofollow, sponsored and UGC: What has changed compared to Dofollow/Nofollow

If different websites refer to each other via external links, the links in the source text are marked with a rel attribute. Rel stands for relationship. The designation helps search engine bots, browsers or other software to place the link in context.

If you want to place an external link on a website but mark it as untrustworthy, the link must be marked with rel="nofollow" in the source text. For a long time, this attribute caused the search engine bot to ignore the link and not follow it.

Sponsored and UGC backlinks

As part of the changes to the nofollow attribute, Google also announced two new backlink labels. From now on, paid backlinks that serve as advertising, for example, must be marked with the sponsored attribute.

What do the new rel attributes mean for website operators?

Because the changes are backwards-compatible, existing backlinks do not necessarily have to be changed. Because Google crawlers will also follow nofollow links from March 2020, it is worth checking the entire link profile - e.g. with a good SEO agency.

External links are stored in the HTML source code of a website. With https://www.dreikon.de/ as an example page, they are displayed as follows:

<a href="/en/" target="_self" title="Online Marketing Agency" rel="nofollow">Online Marketing</a>

<a ...> marks the beginning of the anchor element. The abbreviation href stands for hypertext-reference and refers to the URL where the document can be found.

The target instruction does not necessarily have to be present. It determines where the link is opened in the browser:

• target="_self" opens the URL in the current browser tab. This also happens if no target has been defined.
• target="_blank" causes the target page to be opened in a new tab or window.

The title attribute can optionally be used to display a text when the mouse cursor is moved over the link on the website.

The rel attribute (relationship) can mark a URL as a nofollow link. If a Google bot encounters a nofollow link, it will not follow it to the linked page. The content manager signals that the website does not want to be associated with the link target. This prevents linkjuice from being transmitted. This describes the strength and reputation of a link (PageRank).

If no rel attribute is set, the link is automatically considered a dofollow link. The Google bot follows the link and indexes it. This is considered a trust signal and has a positive effect on the ranking of the target page.

After the closed a tag, the anchor or anchor text is set. It can be clicked in the browser on the website as a link. In the example above, this is the term "Online Marketing". </a> closes the element.

In the early years of search engines, it was pretty simple: the more backlinks referred to a website, the higher its value and quality was considered to be. Accordingly, it was popular to trade in links to pages that met the requirements of the search engine bots but not the interests of the user.

Google is not the only one to have learned. The focus is now on the benefit of the content for the user. Today, numerous factors are important for the value and credibility of a backlink. The number of links to a page now only plays a minor role in the ranking.

What are bad backlinks?

In addition to the numerous positive signals that confirm the value of an external link, Google takes into account other factors with a negative effect on the ranking.

These characteristics can affect the value of a backlink:

• No accessibility of the linking website
• The referring domain is not indexed
• The referring domain contains low-quality content
• Keyword stuffing on the referring website
• Unnatural money anchor texts
• Exchanged and sometimes paid for
• Links from link networks
• Many links from one source

Evaluate backlinks using a link audit

Regularly checking the link profile of a website is worthwhile because backlinks are important ranking factors. Bad links can cause considerable damage to the ranking and should be devalued. Backlinks can be easily viewed using the Google Search Console. Under the menu item "Security and manual measures", you can see whether manual penalties have been imposed. An algorithmic penalty is a sanction automatically assigned by a Google algorithm. You will NOT find this type of penalty in the Search Console.

Link building and link removal (manual removal, disavow) etc.

Since backlinks are currently among the top 3 ranking factors alongside content and Google's RankBrain, consistent, sensible backlink purchasing and, if necessary, the removal of bad links brings clear advantages.

Especially if you want to make your own website better known or are just starting out, search engine optimizers should ensure the generation of high-quality backlinks in addition to on-page optimization. While the ranking used to depend heavily on the number of external links, today it is all about quality and a balanced link mix. Among other things, good links must come from trustworthy websites that Google considers to be reputable and relevant to the respective niche, but must not come exclusively from sites with a high PageRank.

If there are also far too many backlinks from websites with low authority and an unnatural link profile, your own site may be penalized. This was particularly evident after Google's Penguin updates. Even if links come from sites that are no longer accessible or are full of spam, this has negative consequences.

Link removal: how it works!

After carrying out a link audit, you have two options to reduce the number of bad backlinks:

• Contacting the webmaster of the link-providing website
• Devaluing the backlink with the Google Disavow tool

Removing links by contacting the webmaster of the linking website is very time-consuming. A request for deletion is often ignored due to the amount of work involved or a lack of interest.

In the Google Search Console, backlinks can be declared invalid using the disavow tool. The link remains on the source page but is ignored by the Google crawlers. Absolute caution is required when using this tool, as invalidating too many or the wrong links can lead to heavy losses in the ranking.

Caution: Before invalidation, a detailed audit of the links should be carried out to ensure that only inferior links are removed. Otherwise the ranking can be negatively affected.

Whether link removal makes sense must be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, it is important to note that any removal should also be accompanied by a build-up of high-quality backlinks. Deleting or devaluing external links will always weaken the link profile. In the long term, link building is effective.

Link building - what options are there for Google-compliant link building?

Google's quality guidelines for link exchange programs contain a long list of link building measures that can have a negative impact on the ranking of a website. In addition to purchased backlinks, this also includes the exchange or automated distribution of links. In addition, tools such as SEMRush or Ahrefs can help to view important metrics and the external links of the competition and take these into account when building your own backlink structure.

As an alternative, Google suggests creating a website that is as relevant to the topic as possible with high-quality, helpful content, with linkable assets that offer added value for users. In this way, visibility, awareness and external links are generated automatically. The higher the usefulness of the content, the higher the probability that other sites will link to a website.

Buying backlinks - is that dangerous?

If building valuable links is the goal, the question remains as to how best to obtain them. Ideally, links to your own website are created without any action on your part. Users link to the website because they want to make recommendations or make the content available to other users and share it. Normally, a page must first be made visible so that it can be found at all. Buying links is therefore often the obvious choice. But is this still appropriate or even dangerous?

The risks of buying backlinks

Google itself explicitly points out in its guidelines that buying or exchanging backlinks can have a negative impact on rankings (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=de). There is a risk of a penalty. Backlinks with the sponsored or nofollow attribute are an exception. However, the value of such links for search engine optimization is low.

Backlinks from the content of a topic-relevant website with high authority and visibility, on the other hand, are among the particularly high-quality links. Here, however, you are dependent on the webmaster. The webmaster must enter the link "voluntarily"; if this is not the case, you would risk a Google penalty if there is no labeling.

Buy backlinks: Yes or no?

When buying external links, you should always keep the risks in mind and weigh up whether such a link actually adds value to the website or the rankings and justifies the risk of a possible penalty. Google is constantly developing its algorithms for recognizing purchased backlinks, so even after months or years they can be recognized and influence the rankings.