Link Building Guide
Update March 27, 2009:
This article was written by me almost 3 years ago in june 2006. It needs to be updated to correctly reflect the current search engines guide lines and new methods for link building.
/ Jim Westergren
Introduction
I have been providing many thousands of links to my SEO clients and I have myself established a number of PR6 sites and almost won the biggest SEO contest ever with the means of huge link power.
The purpose of this article is to help you in your link building using 5 steps.
- Study and understand the guidelines for a natural simulation.
- Study and understand your link profile.
- Study and understand the effective ways to get links.
- Work out your own link building program.
- Get the links!
This article is based on my opinion and what I believe. (use at your own risk).
Guidelines for a Natural Simulation
The majority of your backlinks you acquire should:
Have a varied anchor text
Target your keywords but make very sure to vary the anchor a lot. Even a few “click here” is good to get.
Come from related pages
This is probably the most important, especially for english web sites. It is commonly believed that links from related pages carries more “weight” (not PR).
Come from different locations on the linking pages.
Don’t have all the backlinks from footers or any other specific place. Have them on the top of the page, inside the body text, navigation, footer etc.
Placed with a gradual natural increase
Don’t place hundreds or thousands of links to a new site the first days … I have tested that and gotten the site banned in Google. You need to gradually place the links and the quantity all relates to how much links the site is usually getting. So if a site usually gets 10 new links per week then don’t place 100 suddenly one day.
Placed from pages with a varied PR value
In my opinion not more than 15-20% of your backlinks to a site should be from PR 5+ pages.
Come from good neighbourhood
Don’t have a majority of your backlinks from adult, pharmacy, and poker/casino sites. Such sites are known to spam and I am pretty sure Google frowns upon them.
Come from different C-class IPs
Google sees this. Have your links coming from total different sites.
Come from both old trusted as well as new sites
It is also good to mix this up.
Come from reciprocal linking
Reciprocal links are still good but don’t have them as a majority of your backlinks. 3-way-linking is a good alternative but don’t use any patter.
Point to internal pages as well as your home page
Never underestimate backlinks pointing to your internal pages. As you have your internal pages SEO’d as well, get backlinks to these as well with varied anchor. It is been speculating that the value of these has increased during the BigDaddy update.
Come from non-directories
A selected few directories such as ODP and Yahoo carries trust in Google from the editorial vote. However, many directories does not give that and I even suspect that having a majority of your backlinks from 200 free general directories even can do harm to your link profile. They can still be good but should just be something extra to the links you already have.
Not be temporary
The age of your backlinks is important. It has even been speculated that this is a factor of the Google Sandbox filter. Strive to get permanent links. When renting links, rent for as long as possible.
Not have paid linking footprints around them
Words such as sponsors, advertisement and the like are spotted by Google and are devalued. If the majority of your backlinks come from such links it could maybe even do you harm.
Not come from pages that links to bad neighbourhood
You should not place your links on pages that are in bad neighbourhood, but you should also not place them on sites that themself link to these kind of sites. Google uses advanced relation and co-citation systems in their algo.
Come from pages with the same language
Seem to be obvious but is very important to show up properly in the Google country specific searches. It seems to be from my recent observations that this is the most important factor in determining the language of the site for Google (other factors is IP, Domain name TLD and actual written language of the site).
Your Link Profile
Study the above Guidelines for a Natural Simulation and write down the points your site is in danger for to get a potential unnatural flag warning from search engines. Those are the points that you should not continue with.
Effective ways to get links
Link Baiting
This is the single most important method. It has mainly to do with good content that gets links the natural way. To keep things simple in this guide I have decided that everything that makes people link to you because of the content on the page/site falls under this category of link baiting. You need to read this post I wrote on link baiting.
Comments: Pure white hat, recommended but sadly not very effective if not something real major.
Directory submissions/Link Building using directories
There are specialized SEOs and Link Builders that are doing directory submissions. There are 4 kinds of directories here: pay-for-inclusion, reciprocal required, free and niche directories. And there are of course specialists in each one of these. There are almost one thousand free SEO friendly general directories, a list of these and a submission service can be seen here. As for placement in reciprocal directories there are both brokers and non-brokers.
Comments: Cheap way to get many low quality links. Can take months before effect is seen. Deep links usually not possible. New edit and comment on this: since BigDaddy Google has been smashing and deindexed internal pages on a lot of directories, but the indexed pages still show a PR value even though they are deindexed. Keep this in mind and run a site: command or type the URL of the internal page in Google to see if the directory/page has been hit.
Link Exchange, 2 and 3 ways
The good old way. I link to you and you link to me. This is more useful if you have 30 or more sites as you can get and provide relevant links. Rule of thumb: you contact people, not the opposite. There are also Reciprocal Link Programs but I don’t recommend that.
Comments: Don’t overdue it …
High PR-subscriptions (Grey Hat?)
You can rent PR 5-9 text links at various places for various prices. Cheap places I had some very good success with: here, here and here.
Comments: Don’t get too many high PR links too fast, get relevant if possible.
Link-Vault
I am myself getting 200 permanent links a day from this program to 40 URLs, all with varied anchor. The links you get from this program are mostly footer links and other low quality links but the program is extremely powerful. Do not, I repeat, do not display Link-Vault ads on your most valuable web sites – that is a red flag, especially since BigDaddy.
Comments: Only negative is that the links are mostly footer and the relevancy is not that good, other than that it is great.
DP Coop Ads (Grey Hat)
This program gives you a lot of rotating temporary backlinks from mostly footers of sites. I have been using this program successfully to boost SERP ranks in Google, especially at the V7N SEO contest. This program is extremely powerful as well as dangerous and can have your site banned or harmed if you are not careful. My rule of thumb: maximum 5K weight on a single ad. At one moment I had 120K weight and I was getting many many thousands of links to more than 40 ads that I had.
Comments: Remember that these are all footer, irrelevant, temporary and with fast growth.
Linking from your own web sites
This is an excellent way if you have many relevant pages in the same niche.
Comments: Don’t interlink all, keep sites on different C-class IPs and avoid patterns.
Pay bloggers
You can post on the business section of webmaster forums stating that you will pay to get the blogger to blog about and link to your site. Example.
Comment: Good to get the word out. The blog post will over time be buried down in the blog structure.
Article submission
Write an article with links in the article and/or in the resource section to your site. Or pay somone to write these for you. Use specialist (example) to have these submitted to article directories such as this one.
Comment: Long term strategy, takes time to see effects. Can be good for traffic.
Search the SERPS and make offers. (Jim Boykins speciality)
Yahoo and MSN both gives some extremely valuable information in regards to backlinks. Both of the engines tend to list the site with the most link power first in a backlink query.
Study and understand the following queries:
- seo linkdomain:seobook.com -site:seobook.com linkdomain:seomoz.org -site:seomoz.org -link:jimwestergren.com (MSN or Yahoo)
= Sites containing SEO, that link to both seobook.com and seomoz.org but not to jimwestergren.com. - site:jimwestergren.com link building (Google)
= Which page on the domain jimwestergren.com is most relevant and has the most power for the query link building? - site:jimwestergren.com (Yahoo)
= Which page on the domain jimwestergren.com has the most power? Not always the home page and the list is interesting to see. You can do the same in Google if you find the right query, valid example.
Use both of the above examples in this technique and send off a nice e-mail on your link offer to the ones you choose.
Comment: Expensive …
Make directories and make the link submitter reciprocal to a site of your choice.
I use this on 2 general directories of mine. My directories are free but the link submitter gets his link featured if he reciprocal with my other site. I get about 10 links per week using this.
Comments: Irrelevant, certain percantage come from bad neighbourhood and not always from same language.
Write testimonials and reviews
Write and send a testimonial to your web host, web designer, web developer and SEO. They probably publish it at their site and if you are lucky they link to you as well. Send a review to your favorite sites and have your name and link at the bottom of it.
Comments: Time consuming …
Links under articles
This is a new method I developed myself, here. In the future I think more will start to use this as well. It enables to link builder to exactly specify which articles, the anchor and the URL of each link. Good for deep pages.
Comments: All same IP. Permanent.
There are more ways but the ones above are the ones that I deem effective,
My Recommendation
Use a mix of all the above ways to get links but follow what you wrote down when you studied your link profile.
Good luck!
Let me know if you had use of it.
Technorati Tags: link building tips, backlinks, link-vault
Jim Westergren is a company owner from Sweden who lives together with his wife and son. Some of his interests are SEO, web development, writing and
Thank you for that very informative SEO tips.
SEOBook is good one too..
Thanks for the great insights of link building. Nice Article. Im your no1 fan now!
very nice Jim
Yes very handy manual. Will use those tactucs in future sure. Thank you for your time to write this.
I like the concept of “Guidelines for a Natural Simulation”. If you go one step further you reach the true Zen aspect of SEO. That’s when you just let it happen naturally.
“Zen aspect of SEO” Wow! I feel like starting a yoga class..:)
Thanks for feedback.
Hehe. Well, web sites often needs a push in the right direction
(if you are not a major player already).
Well done Jim W
Great as usual.
Great guide
Nice article Jim!
I must say this is one of your better articles I think!
Short and informative but not to forget that all info is also really valuable for those who doesn´t know yet…
Keep up the good work! / Maccan!
Exactly my words, as usual a great read Jim!
Abhishek
Your recomendation to use Link Vault is dangerous. Participation in any automated link exchange programs should be considered black hat and subject penalization.
Hey Quasi,
I guess Jim already states this,
Clears it all up actually ? Doesn’t it ?
Abhishek
I suggest you try also Links Dealing at http://www.LinksDealing.com, LinksDealing is an automated system that enables you to promote URLs by almost instantly receiving many text links (no spam) pointing to your promoted URLs. The text links are placed on quality sites, most of which are related to the same subject category as your promoted URLs, and these text links to your promoted URLs stay on those sites for a long time
Nice Post Jim Westergren.
I am trying to refrain from link simulation and use the Zen Method, for those who have “clients” you have no choice but to link build, in my situation I am willing to wait for years.
Content build.
Thanks for these extremely geeky tips, Jim. I knew a few of the basic principles but you’ve filled my head with a lot of new ideas about more advanced techniques.
Some of the best advice I have seen in a while!
Thanks Jim
Thanks a lot for the feedback!
I just made a new revision on the entry under directory submission/Link Building using directories:
That’s a good overall round-up – I think the two things that really need emphasising with link building, present here, is to vary your link strategies and anchor text.
HELP!
We have NEVER paid for in inbound link (IBL, in-link, back-link) to our website or ’swapped’ a link (we have NO reciprocal links – it’s company policy – we made some mistakes off-line with affiliates) or sold a link.
We have links from:
• Google (through posting a video)
• A .gov site (Hampshire County Council – http://www3.hants.gov.uk)
• DMOZ (Open Directory Project)
• British Telecom’s RedCare site (www.redcare.bt.com)
• NSI (The National Security Inspectorate – http://www.nsi.org.uk)
• NHW (The Neighbourhood Watch – http://www.eastleighnwa.org.uk)
• Buy With Confidence (www.buywithconfidence.info)
And 30 or so more; however,
Despite appearing at the number 1 position in the Google SERP’s for months, we only had a PageRank of 2/10 and therefore felt I should work on improving that.
Our site is a promotional site for a security (intruder alarm/CCTV) company.
There are no security alarms enthusiasts, we do not have any affiliates (Management won’t allow this because few companies work to our standards) and as I have already mentioned we don’t pay for IBL’s (I understand it’s not seen as good Google practise).
Therefore (as I was sure I’d read somewhere that Matt Cutts had recognized and encouraged writing articles), I wrote and posted some articles, and persistently nagged my boss for him to order our sales staff to write some articles (this was like getting blood out of a stone), I improved those articles and made sure they would really benefit the reader, I had them professionally edited and enhanced, and I’m waiting to post them, however, I haven’t posted them (to my bosses dismay) because, suddenly all of my Google links have disappeared.
I have used a article distribution service and my link popularity has grown to quickly and that the algorithm believe that I have been buying links or they (isnare/articlemarketer) have posted them on irrelevant sites.
I’m pretty sure this is the problem,
Please help what should I do?
How long b4 Google forgive me?
Is it likely I get completely dropped (or banned) by Google if I post the remainder of my articles?
Please explain:
“In my opinion not more than 15-20% of your backlinks to a site should be from PR 5+ pages.”
?
Awesome guide. I saw it featured on Jim Boykin’s blog and he was right to mention it. We tell clients to get more links, but you have just opened it up and told them what links they can get and what the effect will be. Superb.
Antony Christie I suggest asking this at forums.digitalpoint.com as well. Google often stops showing links – it doesn’t mean they are not there.
Antony Christie!
Well that’s good and you have some nice backlinks. PageRank is nothing you should really worry about, the important thing is the rank and that you get traffic from the search engines.
What do you mean by this? You should not check backlinks with Google as you don’t get accurate data. Use Yahoo or MSN instead.
I am sorry but I don’t understand the problem
What I mean by this is that most of the links you get should be from PR 0-5 pages as that is the most natural scenario. To only have PR 5-9 links pointing to your site is a bit suspicious in my opinion.
Thanks!
Yeah, sorry Jim, I should have mentioned that at the same time as the link: command stopped showing my IBLs I also fell to page 2, 3 and right out of Google for my keywords.
Ok, quite a different picture
Well, this is too complex to answer on a blog post. Contact me if you want paid consultancy on this matter. Or try to get help in this or this forum.
This article is indeed very helpful, thank you very much
Nice Work Jim as always
Jim check your mail !!
Nice one Jim,
Looking forward for more reading about this subject.
Really good text! Now I´m going to start doing all this…
This is a really nice article!.
I already put it in my bookmarks, interesting guide for our work.
Yeah, sorry Jim, I should have mentioned that at the same time as the link: command stopped showing my IBLs I also fell to page 2, 3 and right out of Google for my keywords
wonderful guide! im looking forward in reading your other articles.
great
Thanks for the info’s…its a great help for me right now…:D
Superb Article Jim! Thanks for taking the time to help us all!
AWESOME GUIDE – this is must have information for anybody serious about long term results on the internet!
Jack
Jim Mail!
wat a good article
Nice post, give me a few new things to work on. Thanks!
Good points made. Some people rank without guildlines … naturally. Calling your strategy “simulation” thereof was a good choice of words.
Mike Dammann
definitely a good choice of words.
Thanks for the great tips, especially for listing Link Vault and Article Hub. I find it very difficult to find new article syndication sites, so thanks for the AH link!
- Jacob
Damn, are you people over here still talking about “link building”? LOL!
yeah how uncreative of us
Good Morning Aaron!
I am being spammed by notifications to the core…lol! See the number of “Isulong SEOPH” hehe
Mornin’ dOOd, I think I will blog this and link ya’ thanks, seen many people complain about being .htaccess hacked.
Gheeesh, I better check that mine aren’t 666 hehehe ;-(
This is turning into a forum thread.
wos tha difference?
this is fun reading all the replies.
I think it’s safe to say this Link Building Guide changed a lot of people’s lives.
Excellent Article i ever read.. i am soon starting Link building service and the article is helpful for me
Thanks jim
Thanks for the great link building guide. I picked up a few methods i havent tried yet. Thanks.
A lot of useful information, thanks. I’m not clear on one thing, is using Link-Vault a good idea or a bad one? If it’s so bad for SEO, why does it exist?
Steve,
in my opinion Link-Vault is very good for SEO – when used right. My recommendation is to display Link-Vault on low quality sites and give the weight gained to provide links for your high quality sites.
Nice…i got some strategies which i havent tried yet..ill be utlizing them for the isulong contest…thanks…by the way…the blog was down yesterday..what happened?
You’ve got a real nice discussion there about link building. Your items under Link Profile is a must for newbies who had just created a new site. It should be considered the next steps after website creation.
Hey, can i make a poster out of it?
Great post, I already use some of your info on my new site and I got it listed fast! http://www.articles-free.ca
Thanks!
Thank you so much for detailed article, very helpfull to newbie like me!
best regards.
Excellent information for starters and people who do not know much about link building or SEO.
Regards.
SEO doesn’t work. This is all propoganda BS. Linkbuilding is a waste of time. Go see Superman Returns.
Getting traffic to your web site is every webmasters ultimate goal. There are many tactics. Link building is one of them. What you have outlined here is an excellent game plan. It really works. It won’t result in a million new visitors in a day, a week, or a month…but it really works. I have had great results with article submissions and reciprocal links. Great job Jim.
Superman Returns was entirely too long. Stay home and link build.
I already knew this, but I think it is a pretty good guide for noobs
oh, i accidentally pressed enter :s
I also wanted to say that it is good for people with a bit of knowledge on seo like me
You refer to specialist link builders that focus on niche directories. How can you find these people?
on forums such as http://forums.digitalpoint.com
as what i’ve observed on this Isulong Seoph contest, it looks like link building is tantamount to link spamming. and sad to say, i think i should be applying such dirty trick just to hold onto SERPs… any laying low option is a big no-no.
I’ve read your article with a pretty interest. I wonder if you ever had any of you sites banned for using autolinking schemes such as Link-Vault, or DP Coop Ads.
Any feedback is welcome.
I would want to come back and discuss a few link building issues with you Jim. Thanks for the primary information provided. Will try out a few things mentioned.
I disagree with the poster above. LinkBuilding definitely works. However, as of this point in time, it’s a very frustrating process that seems to take years.
Even with good, hard earned linkbacks, you can often still see the more unscrupulous competition way ahead.
PR is vital. Keyword and Page optimization too, but that’s much easier. Thank God thank Google relies a little less on PR these days.
LinkBuilding is hard and I wish there was an easier or a fairer way.
My 2 cents.
Excellent Idea
Thank You for the Great link building guide, it’s been really helpful to my Hosting website. Already built 249 backlinks in 2 weeks using your guide.
Thanks for the SEO master Jim Westergren
Anthony
Here’s a decent eBook I found on IBLs – a Must Read!
http://www.ambonieum.com/Google.pdf
(Right Click and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As”)
Hi John,
I use 2 tools to build links:
1. Zeus
2. Linkmachine
Both are working well for me with Zeus being computer based and LinkMachine being server based. This means that some sites I can work on anywhere but the others I need to work from home.
Zeus has a really good book they give away around link building but I found the best material I have found is from Brad Callon. I give it away with my free package at http://www.lazy-internet-marketing.com. You can listen to some great marketers like Jeff Paul, Jim Fleck and Mal Emery for free as I stream them on the site and at the same time pick up the ebook from Brad Callon which is great value.
Regards
Justin Bryce
Thanks again jim for making such a informative article here.
)
Iam going to work on the steps you have given to rank in the top for the contest iam working on.
I was doing a mistake by getting hundreds of links with a few days for my new contest site, but after reading this article i have stopped it so i dont get it banned from google.
Thanks for alerting me, i will rather try to get links from content pages.
Amit patel -(amitpatel_3001
Excellent guide for link building. It’s great to see others willing to offer their insight and knowledge in search engine optimization. A lot of valuable tips and advice; a great resource for webmasters to take advantage of.
What do you guys think of SEO elite and keywords elite? are these good software to get? I found out there is a new free ebook made by the owner and creator of both software, I am not sure if I am allowed to give the link here, if someone is interested send me a message or please let me know if I can post the down load link here, it is a free reports.
Thanks
There is a software also that competes with Keyword elite, it is called adwords accelerator. any one here uses these?
Thanks
Good Article, thanks you Jim.
Now I use this software (IBP: http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/2besuccess ) for building my Links
Best Regard,
Dudung
You article is good and I certainly like your way of explaining the things. Well I saw another article talking about Yahoo SEO
http://www.yahoofanclub.com/about418.html
It helped me with Yahoo SEO. I hope it will help you as well.
thanks a lot jim, your clues are probably a good way of thinking for both an expert and a beginner like me. will keep these in mind when building my sites.
Man, this is great.
Thanks a lot for sharing this with us.
It will help me a lot in my future projects
Thanks Jim!
OK, dudes. 123 comments of thank you, you’re wonderful and I agree’s later … it’s time for a joke:
Blonde paint job
A blonde, wanting to earn some money, decided to hire herself out as a handyman-type and started canvassing a wealthy neighborhood. She went to the front door of the first house and asked the owner if he had any jobs for her to do.
“Well, you can paint my porch. How much will you charge?”
The blonde said, “How about 50 dollars?” The man agreed and told her that the paint and ladders that she might need were in the garage. The man’s wife, inside the house, heard the conversation and said to her husband, “Does she realize that the porch goes all the way around the house?”
The man replied, “She should. She was standing on the porch.”
A short time later, the blonde came to the door to collect her money.
“You’re finished already?” he asked. “Yes,” the blonde answered, “and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats. “Impressed, the man reached in his pocket for the $50. “And by the way,” the blonde added, “that’s not a Porch, it’s a Ferrari.”
My name is Mike Dammann and I was here
Giving credit for the joke
Thanks for the article Jim. Link building has been one of my weakest point and is especially difficult when trying to get links for business websites.
I have a question – if I own a network of websites which sit on the same dedicated server, naturally I would link all of them up to pass traffic. Will search engines see this as spam?
Also, what is your best advice to getting links for business websites apart from buying a listing on Yahoo Directory and Business.com? The problem is real companies (especially in Asia) are not really IT-literate and thus, can be bothered with link exchanges.
Hi Mike,
I had to look up the word Porch but then I got the joke
It can do if done excessively. My advice is to be on the safe side and place your sites on different c-class IPs.
Wow… So much to learn
This is extremely helpful to the novice just starting out. If I had the chance I would pull this page as it leaks too many secrets.
“It can do if done excessively. My advice is to be on the safe side and place your sites on different c-class IPs.”
What do you recommend for this, setting up a hosting account for each account.
Thanks for the content rich guide, nice comments too ( just a bit long
Because of comment from “nonBot SEO Blog » Link Building Guide – nonBot.com” with link to this domain:
The domain http://www.nonbot.com is expired. All Tools on this site aren’t still alive.
http://eecsatri.blogspot.com
I found this webpage useful
would like to know a small google query
WHY DOES GOOGLE RRETURN YAHOO.COM when searched for “EXIT ” in google.
thanx
http://eecsatri.blogspot.com
Excellent guide many thanks. This has opened up my mind as to how to get better ranked on google and increase popularity. Perfect example of the kind of gem you might find on the internet.
Although the domain http://www.nonbot.com was expired this domain is alive again
Excellent guide – Your article has given me a lot of food for thought. Looks like I have a lot of work to do…
thanku for the very informative strategies sir
they are helpful
http://eecsatri.blogspot.com
THANKS MUCH !!! yout gyuide on web sites promotion by getting links made my day
Jeff ( http://www.leadinglinksdirectory.com/ )
Hi a very interesting article, there is another here which i would also recommend to your readers to take a peak at http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3100291
Upon finishing my website, I submitted to a number of directories (both free and paid), and added links from my own high PR sites (same C-class IP).
After 1 week, my site ranks #1 on MSN and top 10 on Yahoo for the targetted keyword term. Unfortunately, my site’s no where to be found on Google although it has been indexed.
What gives?
Posta dina artiklar på sokmotorplacering.se
Bra site dehär
Great article, thanks for all the tips.
Tried this one? http://www.rank1.info It uses msn, yahoo and google to calculate weight
Heavely good article! I had a lot of use for it! I xome back and read it over again.
Hi a very interesting article. Very great strategy. I totally agree with you Jim! Give us some more facts!
SEO Specialist,
Thank you. More is coming! But it will take some time. Sign up to my RSS and you won’t miss it.
It is finally very refreshing to find someone who is giving quality information about link building strategies. I will be actively implementing many of the ideas you mention above into our marketing campaign especially in the area of article submission. Please keep the good information flowing as I certainly will be back for more.
Thanks for posting this. I found your insight very helpful!
Jim has always been providing his insights to a lot of beginners on different forums as well. Most of them carry a lot of vital information.
I periodically check this page for updates on it – extremely useful comments !!
Thanks a lot!!!!!
Very good article
with best regards
Стоматолог
i found this site very very usefull thanks
thanx for the seo tips sir !
Wow this was a great article. I actually got the testimonial thing to work…a win-win for everyone.
Thanks for the tips, i will definitly implement some of these on our new sites.
Jim,
A bit confused,
Older sites are always trusted? Why you still advice to mixup with newer? I mean it it affect if you’re linked from only older domains?
I meant more to not only get from new sites but also old trusted sites.
ya, i think if a website is old, then there have some reputation in search engines, that’s why may people buying old website.
older site is NOT always trusted but always has its value that’s why can stay for so long.
Great guide Jim!
Even reading it now i was able to find lots if new and valuable information
keep up the good work!
- Mike
good advices
Very good info, thanks for sharing
I am actually participating in the cpayscom2 online casino seo contest, and I plan on getting only “free” links i.e renting and buying links is not to be considered, so far I have written 3 articles, not top ones but they can still bring me links.. hmm seems links I took the most long term link building strategy and seo contests are short term…
Anyway you really provide great tips Jim, thank you very much.
your article reminds me a famous article called “101 ways to build links”. but you article seems goes more details expecially on the “grey hat” tactics.
good job
Jim, this is a great resource but would you use this list in the same order of preference for an SEO contest?
thanks for the seo tips sir !
Wow. Really well developed resource. Bookmarked.
Thanks for this very great guide:-)
thanks for the informative guide.
I was looking around for a good link building guide and found this. Nice article. Hope I have gotten this earlier. Looking forward to more great info from this site. Bookmarked!
Good job Jim, it is a very useful information, especially your gray hat tactics
This is by far the best article on the site! Very useful! A must read for anyone looking to get traffic to their site. I’m going to MySpace Bulletin a link to this.
Ya excellent knowledge thanks
Another great article Jim
I’ll be trying the “Make directories and make the link submitter reciprocal to a site of your choice.” for one of my sites. The key here is a niche directory so you get more relevant back links.
Very good tip.
very nice guide , 10x
Cool – great as usual
Hi Jim,
Will you be supporting the 2nd Philippine SEO Contest again?
Great Information. Just what i was searching for months.
Thankyou very much and keep up the good work.
In other words, try to make your backlinks look as natural as possible, even if you’ve attained them unnaturally;)
Great tips, BTW.
it is a good information about the link building, especially on the gray hat approach… will it be turn to black hat or white hat one day ?
very unqiue decription on “grey hat”. good job !
Great Information.
thanks..
it is the first time i heard about gray hat. thanks for the information
Really amazing Mr.Jim, i had taken printout of it and kept on my table and sorted out what do’s and what don’ts.. i am happy to thanks you on a great tutorial for link building and its stratagies.
really we did some mistakes but we clear it off atleast by next google updation.
it is a nice tips and strategies. you wrote better than John Scott
one word… ” Great ! “
The tips are very good especially that you mention the quality and the risk of each kind of links.
very nice article, definitely a link to relevant content carries more weight and it carries more if the site you are linking to has a PR
Thanks for the wonderful article.
If one follows the steps carefully certainly there will be no shortage of backlinks for the webpage. I have read the article once and in order to get a better and improved idea regarding these concepts. I have bookmarked this page and will do some good detail study of this to benefit from it.
Cheers !!!
Thank you for this article!
really nice tips
A backlink with different title tags is a good point.
Excellent piece of work, Jimmy.
It is very good tips, you implemented it all ?
This guide lines will help all the beginers in link building. Fabulous tips to have.
Some tips & techniques are expensive, mostly webmasters look for free stuff …… but the article is worths $$$$$$$$$ cheers….
this article is better than those who charge for $$$ of “SEO experts”’s books.
Thank you for this list, it is the best one I have seen on line, I will follow it and let you know of my success on my link building effords, I will use it for my site:
gloss meter
and to try to get a site out of the sand box here:
pain gloss meter
Today is January 23 and I will try to report back in 1 month.
Thanks!
Manuel
Thanks a lot for your guide…
I have used some of your advices and is helping me big time…
I never knew you can have backlnks fro free !!
One of the more useful link building guide on the net.
Commenting on web-hosting and directory submission was unknown to me, I am also exploring into the signature link building gets me about 700 links, a little expensive but working, and I should try get into the directory submission and see how it works. Nice tips by the way. Thanks.
this is first time i heard “grey hat” , do you implement it as well ?
i this your link building guide is worth more than $$$ , you can actually make money by dig it more details and come out a book
Very useful tips. Thanks for them.
One of the most useful link building guide on the SEO industry
Very useful article Jim…
I need this to improve my SEO skill.
Thank you so much,
MES –
Globalwarming Awareness2007
Great stuff. Thanks.
Thanks for the content rich guide, nice comments too ( just a bit long
Thank you for sharing your SEO knowledge with us here. Again, thanks a lot!
this tutorial is better than other paid SEO book, good job !
Very useful article Jim… Thank you so much
Thank you for sharing your SEO knowledge with us here…
Thanks a lot for your guide…I have used some of your advices and is proven useful ! thanks again!
your guide give me a lot of idea to improve links building, thanks a lot !
Great information given in here….
Thanks a lot for this ….but hey i was unable to view your directory list in your site addurl.nu on 12th march…any probs ?
and yeah can u provide some articles on alexa ranking ?
Regards
Puneet M
great article, thanks
Great article on link building… thank for the tools too!
this is a very useful and straight to the point article i read so far, thanks a lot !
ok this is an interesting article. I tried doing some of the thing as u said but somehow still can’t get any results in google
i follow your guide, and it did help me to improve the ranking, thanks a lot !
well, although i am not very good in english, but your tutorial is very easy to understand. thanks !
Are you still upbeat about Link Vault in April 2007? I got cold feet about LV after some posts on Matt Cutts blog. Do you still feel there is value in LV?
Great article BTW!
These linkbuilding methods are really good. What I mostly use are blogs and forums. Most of my backlinks are from them. I just want to add, that one high quality backlink worth more than 100 simple backlink. What is a high quality backlink: High PR and as few other external links as possible!
thanks for your tutorial
Does Google really consider link from forums or revies or comments from a blog as apart of their algo to rank pages?
Hi! Very informative article. Thanks for it.
Can anybody help me with link -building?
Please send your offers to timzar@yahoo.com or liu@projectmaker.info.
Love your articles jim, really helpfull
Hello!
Thank you very much for your tips on linking and back linking. Since My page is not exactly family orientated, it is very difficult to get quality backlinks. Writing a thank you note to websites like this one that gave Me valuable information is indeed a great way of accumulating backlinks.
Thanks again.
Feel free to stop by My website and take a peek.
Mistress Maxima,
Netherlands
Like your sincere effort to help others. It’s a great article for me to learn link building techincs.
Now, I shall try also backlinks from other then directories such as a blog or forum.
thank you
No Doubt link baiting can provide us alot of links in no time but shouldnt we have to do it daily.
As on digg.com every second home page stories are shifted down.
Whats future of this social bookmarking thing ?
Cant we see 1000 of sites like digg.com – like i just saw one of indian guys site http://www.Tagza.com
Where this storm will end by the way ?
your guide is easy to understand, thanks a lot !
this is the general guide for link building….nothing very special but still a good guide for beginner !
Absolutely Great ways to promote a website, if anyone follow these guidelines
Really useful guidelines for Search Engine Optimizers. Even any bode who is a layman in the field of SEO can manage to optimize the site.
Thanks for such guidelines.
does anyone know when the next google pagerank is coming up? some say every 3 months while others say every 6 months?
although I am not good in english, but your tutorial is easy to understand, thanks !
your tutorial is very easy to understand, thanks a lot
Your tuitorial is very easy to understand, i really like it. Keep up the good work, we are also doing seo, our company is http://www.coderaiders.com, we will try what we have learned from your site. thanks
this is a great seo check book and before starting link building one should read this
bookmarking it now
Wow .. this guide is absolutely amazing!!!
I wish I would have came across this along time ago!
Super Information! your information is very useful even for an ole guy like myself. I really think more people could use this info to help build up their site linking.
Thanks for the comprehensive checklist. I’ve used it with my website, http://presentationtek.com and have been pleased with the results.
like old words say, the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know
thanks for your information
Absolutely nice guide jim.
thanks for your information
Nice post…and comments.
Some comments suggest automatic submission tools. What’s your opinion? Does it exist good submission tools or may those tools harm our ratings?
Jim: You get a link from me for this one!
Min blogg om markedsføring på internett
Your site is very informative. You are truly a big help to us.
is the SEO-fusion belongs to you ?
Thank you for very useful informations on your sites.
great guide! i’ve translated one from seomoz in italian, on my blog … if you mind …
Excellent information for starters and people who do not know much about link building or SEO.
Regards.
this link building guide is comprehensive, you can consider come out an ebook and sell it
Thanks for the info, the gray hat technique of using the program to run footer links across a network is something i had never heard of before, but might be worth a look.
Your site is really amazing Jim.
It’s been more than a year now since i last visited this site and i still find it very useful especially when i restructured my site and do some stuffs all over again.
I’ve always had a problem with building links and I haven’t been able to get people to visit my site as often as I would like to get people there. I’m of course, talking about my personal portfolio. I’d like to be closer to the Top 100 of Google than the top 10,000 in terms of hits relating to the name of my business. It’s really getting frustrating. No one is going to go through 10,000 names, find mine and actually give a hoot. How did you come up with all this information? Did you just try and fail at many of these different methods? How long does it take for link building to actually begin to make a difference for a small web site like mine? I read your point about not allowing yourself to start generating too many links in a short amount of time. What if you can’t generate any??? Where do you even begin to understand how this process works and how to make it work better for your business?
Super article
very good a detailed explanation. i wish i found it earlier.
good article ! what do you think about recent google doesn’t like paid directory ? is it affect link building
Great guide. In other word, try to make your incoming links look as natural as possible.
super site thnak you very much
Very useful article, printed and bookmarked.
Hi Jim, thanks a lot for this worthy article.
I also have a good free ebook for you and friends here.
I offer you a special book title “IM-Myth”, written by Russell Brunson.
It’s free, but has a limited time: valid only from 3 – 9 October 2007.
If you like you can download here:
http://www.mes-seomaster.com/im-myth.php
You will get $1 too as a bonus
.
Jim, I also has sent you this offer a few days ago. Please check your email.
thanks
I will try your directory link now, thanks!
Hi to all,
As per me I suggest we have to link building with only this people they have good class server and with good Google PR 3 or plus sites..
Google is also see the class of ip’s and Page Ranks..
We are also doing a link building… at SoftwebSolutions.com
Regards
Arpit Kothari
Your information is very useful especially the grey hat ! I will not hesitate to try, thanks a lot !
Great article Jim. Im really enjoying your site and plan to check out a lot more if it in the coming weeks. Thanks.
Rob
Very extensive… and complicated, in a way. It seems that everyone does have their own opinion here, and things are certainly changing as the search engines evolve and morph and make their algorithms even more complex. Google’s new LSI is definatey more complex, and will add something new to the mix : quality writing. I think it’s about time, personally. Links will help, of course, but Google will also check for relevancy. Interested to see where this now takes us, and how soon the other search engines are going to jump on that wagon.
Thanks some of these are new to me and i never tried others im saving this page for sure
Master Jim. You Rock My World.
Thank you for teaching me how to be a genius. (I can only hope. lol.)
Your work is surely the most informative, practical and immediately useable the SEO Universe has to offer. I appreciate learning from you and thank you.
very good a detailed explanation. i wish i found it earlier.
I am trying to refrain from link simulation and use the Zen Method, for those who have “clients” you have no choice but to link build, in my situation I am willing to wait for years.
Nice article, but nobody has mentioned online press releases… Don’t these work in the same way as submitting articles – except giving you a new group of sites to get your content and links on?
We usually make a log of the tutorial and post it up afterwards, just in case people miss them.
very good a detailed explanation. i wish i found it earlier.
This is by far the BEST article on link building. Very thorough yet easy to understand for beginners like me. Thanks a lot for sharing!
I’d like to open up the discussion about Link Vault again as this excellent article is 19 months old now.
Under what conditions is it safe to use Link Vault?
If you have only one website, is it safe to use Link Vault?
Are there other automated tools that you would recommend for link building?
Thank you!
This is by far the BEST article on link building. Very thorough yet easy to understand for beginners like me. Thanks a lot for sharing! Thank You .
this is a good article for link building for all beginner !
This is a really solid article. We’re going through for our real estate marketing website and applying all the various techniques we find floating around out there to our niche, and it’s been a very rewarding experience so far. We’ll add these ideas to the list that we expound upon. Thanks again for helping us out
-John
Thanks and great help in my link building process. Very informative and valuable links you have there.
Hi
I need help urgently, I have installed WP 2.3 and I want to modify Default Kubric theme according to my needs.
Can you plz guide me through this?? Can you plz tell me how to do it.?? I am really confused.. I have html and CSS knowledge. Do I have to have PHP knowledge too.. in order to work with WP.???
Plz point me to right direction.. where I can find easy to understand tutorial about customizing Default Kubric theme to match with my website.
This is also something that I really want to master. For two years in a row I’ve worked as a link builder yet I admit I wasn’t that effective. When I checked the 5 items you mentioned, I realized I wasn’t employing them when I did my job. Probably that was the reason why I had to do away with such task and outsource it someone who is more capable rather than wasting my time doing it. Thank you for this information. I’ve bookmarked your blog and will study this one step at a time.
This information provided by Jim is Excellent. Actually I learned new techniques from this article.
It’s my pleasure to read this information it is very great you give the exact details which I wanted to do. Thank you very much! Good luck and more power.
Really useful to me, I will begin my link building according ur guideline, thanks.
Hi:
There is a lot of link building articles with resources in english, but we are looking for german resources and manuals about link building, could you provide some help ?
Thank You
Jim, why don’t you join SEOcontest2008 ?
love your site jim and the hints and tips you can get from it. im going to link to you as your so right with what you say. check it out it will be a cool little graphic link.
although i am not good in english…but you teaching is very easy to understand..thanks a lot.
I have a question regarding anchor texts. How would you make use of your list of anchor texts? In using it to get backlinks, how should you rotate it?
About article submission, do you have any idea about duplicate content? Is it OK to submit one article to various article directories?
thanks, very useful information for me..
Jim, excellent! Found this article on link building very interesting. Also the hints and tips. Thank you!
Thanks and great help in my link building process. Very informative and valuable links you have there.
Thank you for that very informative SEO tips.
SEOBook is good one too..
nice tips and a valuable guide
thanx
Thanks for a very useful article. I hadn’t thought about internal links so am off to look into doing that now.
Excellent post Jim…
I too wrote an article regarding linkbuilding..
http://elechub.com/how-to-build-links/
but your article is far better than mine:)
very nive tips and useful article thinks a lot
You have done a great job. This is really very informative.Keep it up…
Thanks Jim,
These are very useful informations, I follow..
thanks, very useful information for me..
Thanks Jim,
Wonder google Adwords is consider a link? Or just an ads that doesn’t help in SEO?
Hmm.. Each and every point should be noted..
I stated linkbuilding for my blog.
Thank you JIM.
Hey Abdul( commenter ).. I have seen your linkbuilding techniques..
Really really really Extraordinary..
Tricks are very tricky:)
Very helpful advice. Still struggling to get off the ground, so hopefully your tips will be useful. Thanks and take care, Shannon
Thanks for the helpful article.
Thanks for the information. You are savvy !!
This is very helpful article for webmasters.
This is very helpful article for webmasters i will do your steps and make links from this usiful web sites here in comments
Jaxter webmaster of gamesms.org
———————–
Thanks for great information.
The article is useful and helpful, thanks for sharing!
YES THIS ARTICLE IS MOST USEFUL AND HELPFUL TO SEO EXECUTIVE
This is very helpful article for webmasters i will do your steps and make links from this usiful web sites here in comments
Thanks for sharing this post… Very helpful..
Thank you for writing such a well thought out article. Though some of the suggestions here require some coding skills (creating a directory) which isn’t that relevant for those of us not that skilled!
Worth the read, my sites has no traffic will have to use your ideas
a lot people said pagerank is dead. too many webmasters are doing linkexchanges, tried to manipulate pagerank, rather than improve the quality of content on the site. It appeas that google has made some algoritham changes that had less weight on pagerank, rather focus more on the freshness, uniqueness, and relevancy of content.
A good article on link Building types. Worth reading for increasing the website traffic. Thanks.
Thank you for the help Jim!
Great Article Jim, very helpful!
I have a question about link-vault, do you create an extra page or do the links show up on a page in the site?
Thank you for this wonderful article!
Very useful resource. Thanks for sharing.
I am completely new to link building. i was really searching for such Seo Link Building Guide. Thank you so much for it.
Thanks for the wonderful information!
Wow Jim,
I am glad I ran into your site and this VERY useful article!
Thank you so much for the valuable information you have provided me and all of us to help improve our SEO.
Best Regards,
Tommy
Thanks for the great guide – the only point I have issue with is the comment regarding ‘High PR-subscriptions (Grey Hat?)” – renting links purely for the search engine value is definitely black hack, not Grey hat –
Google outlines in their webmaster guidelines pretty clearly that paying for links strictly for search engine value is a no-no.
Lots of good ideas here.
@James,
You are perfectly correct. This guide was written in june 2006 before Google had made clear clarifications that doing that was a violation of their guidelines.
This article needs to be revised and updated.
Thank you for this Jim… Nice tips
Wow, this is definetly something that I needed as I am just starting up to earn online. Can’t wait to read more, thanks for your help, and keep up the good work.
Hi Jim, good post! When you said
Do you mean we should have various phrases of anchor text to the a same page?
Very good info.
Overall very good. Of course you note the updates needed, but most are tried and true.
Thanks
very informative jim..
thanx a lot..
Thanks Jim!
Nice one, just learning the ropes of SEO and this article has helped a lot, cheers!
Matt
Jim, do let us know when you do update this. Like you mentioned before, a lot has changed over the past three years.
Keep up the good work!
the ropes of SEO and this article has helped a lot, cheers!
Matt
Jim, do let us know when you do update this. Like you mentioned before, a lot has changed over the past
very informative jim..
thanx a lot..
Thanks Jim,
Lot of good information about link building. Looking forward to try the same on my websites.
I’ve only recently been learning some important SEO information. This has helped so much. I will try it out asap!
Thanks so much
T
Razorstorm
Hi Great post all the info is still relevant and quite useful!
Thanks for this wonderful information! it will really helps a lot! cheers!
Link building is good. But make sure the link you got are not from gambling or adult websites.
@anti why do you think itmatters where the links are from? If those sites would hurt, it could be too easily abused to punish competitors, dont you think?
Nice post Jim, you’re good seo tutor. Don’t be shy to share your knowledge
excellent information. thanks
the information was excellent. it will be an asset almost all of the persons who are dealing with search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Thanks for your time and work.
Great article. This is good for advanced and novice players. Thanks
Excellent post for SEO
Thanks a million!!!
Excellent Post!!!!!
Admin
novosoftwares.com
This is really great. I really like you guides and i have learned so much. Thanks Jim! Lycka till med fru och bebis.
Check out some useful benefits of Link Building
http://tinyurl.com/ydz3lv9
Thanks for your very important and precious Seo link building tips.
All is true, but why note simply buy some links to enhance your natural links profile ? check out the Links S.W.A.T. service at http://www.links-swat.com/ ( and Buy Links there )
@Buy Links, buying links is a SEO Black hat method. A website may get banned by Search Engine if you do that!
Hi ther,
a nice article indeed and yes all the techniques are very well and perfectly illustrated can you tell me something more about adult link building..??? and how can i boast ma websites instantly for the same.
2 automated link building tools that work well are three way links services like ALB and using RSS submissions software that get links from the RSS aggregators to individual urls. There’s a blog post here that explains what the RSS software does and how to get it
http://linkvanareviews.com/rss-feed-submission-software-period
BTW, a very interesting and thought-provoking post you wrote here that stands the test of time, good work!
Thank you for that very informative SEO tips.
SEOBook is good one too..
Jim,
three years later and I am still getting updated emails of people responding to this thread, I am on to new projects but this one is for the record books!
Very useful information. Some of these techniques I have used in the past, but now I have a few more to add to my excel sheet. Thanks.Cheers
ya
its too great to get the post on it and also i would like thanks
as the theme of the blog
sound off.
Great! Well written and very useful, I’ll keep the article.
Thanks for sharing
Is this guide up to standart with changes in Google?
Great guide and usefull in building links.
I have this linkkatalog is this of any use??
I have this sushi takeaway site is this of any use??
We are full time link builders and we provide affordable link building service. Now a days one way links plays an important role in search engine visibility and helps in increase ranking in all search engines.
thank you for the brief introduction
good useful stuff…
Thankz.
Despite being an older guide this content is timeless. I’m going to share this post with my staff and clients.
Great content, useful information indeed. I’ll share your post with my friend who’s more interested in link building. I’ll try to use your tips for Marok-vacancy