Gaining high PR links is the Holy Grail of SEO, there’s nothing more important SEO wise than those high PR backlinks, they drive a sites SEO success and one way to generate backlinks is linkbait.
I own over 100 domains and have had webpages as high as PR6 without doing any of the following link building techniques:
Comment link spamming
Forum link spamming
Submitting to directories
Article submission
Reciprocal linking
Buying text links
Guest posting
I do have a small number of reciprocal link partners, mainly helping out friends with websites as I don’t need the backlinks and the SEO benefit of reciprocal linking relative to the time it takes to maintain is minimal. Pretty much irrelevant to my link building.
I occasionally post on forums and comment on others blogs, but not for backlinks, most links from forums and blog comments are nofollow anyway which have no direct SEO link benefit value (pass no PR or anchor text benefit). Irrelevant to my link building.
The vast majority of my network of websites PageRank is derived via creating something that acts as link bait.
What is Link Bait
What I do is create content webmasters might link to and offer free products (AdSense WordPress themes and BlogSpot AdSense Templates for example) that generate backlinks.
A lot of my networks link benefit comes from natural backlinks to parts of my network specifically created to generate linking.
It’s not rocket science, the majority of users online don’t care about or understand SEO, when they see something they like they link to it. The problem is how do you persuade a webmaster to link to your content when your content isn’t something someone would naturally link to?
Answer is you don’t! Instead you create additional content webmasters will link to AKA link bait.
SEO Moz Link Bait Example
Since explaining the SEOMoz link bait example below, SEOMoz has since rebranded to Moz and moved domains. Which means my Google link:domain searches no longer show the results I use below: seomoz.org 301 redirects to moz.com and they’ve renamed some the article names I used as examples as well.
Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, the SEO Moz linkbait example was a good one :-0
There’s an SEO services site seomoz.org (you’ll note I’m not linking to it because I understand SEO), there’s a section on their website “Pricing and Plans” where they try to sell their “SEOmoz PRO – SEO & Social Monitoring Software In One”. No idea what it is as not tried it.
If you check the Google backlinks for the plans page-
link:http://www.seomoz.org/plans
You will find around 25 backlinks. There’s a sitewide backlink to this page, hence the PR5, most link benefit is probably from the sitewide link.
They have some interesting search engine optimization articles on the website that make for great link bait-
SEO Industry Survey link
link:http://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey
You will find around 41 backlinks. No sitewide backlink, hence the PR4, but it’s pulling links into the site and the PR/link benefit feeds via the sitewide link to the services they want you to buy.
Then there’s the 2011 edition of the Search Engine Ranking Factors article
link:http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
You will find almost 300 backlinks. No sitewide backlink, but it’s pulling in so many organic links into the site it’s PR6 and the PR/link benefit feeds via the sitewide link to the services they want you to buy.
Pretty cool SEO link bait hey.
Good Link Bait Ideas Work
You might be interested to know when I wrote the above three page examples above I wrote them in that order as I checked them. I knew what the SEO result would be before looking, I didn’t check all three URLs in advance and determine they are good examples to illustrate my link baiting point, it was obvious in advance it would be as it is.
Remember the Google link:http://www.domain.com/ search doesn’t show all backlinks, only gives a small number, but you’ll tend to get an idea of the number of organic backlinks some link bait is generating compared to the content no one really wants to link to.
If you have a website selling boring widgets it’s not going to generate organic backlinks, just like SEOmoz is going to struggle to generate organic links to their “SEOmoz PRO – SEO & Social Monitoring Software In One page” that’s trying to sell an SEO service. Which is why they generate a lot of free content in the SEO niche that webmasters will link to, and getting organic backlinks from webmasters who are in the SEO niche (like me) is HARD, we don’t like to link out!
David Law
Website - SEO Gold
Help with Backlinks
We need help with backlinks to our web-site, and reciprocal links. Been through much frustration trying to place these links on are web-site, need step by step explanation. Thanks :
Sincerely & Best Regards :
Joe J. Leclair
WordPress Backlinks Plugins
hey there,
as far as wordpress plugins that are supported and compatible with the latest talian theme, what are the best plugins for gaining backlinks for seo. Thanks.
Generate Backlinks WordPress Plugins
I’m not aware of any safe WordPress plugins that will automatically generate backlinks beyond getting your sites listed on sites that copy Twitter feeds and RSS feeds.
If you look at the top of this post there’s a little green Tweet/Retweet button. That’s a WordPress plugin from (allows you and others to easily Tweet your posts) in combination with (automatically tweets old posts based on settings) generates some low quality links (nothing special, but they all help). You need a Twitter account for the second plugin.
Before you asked this question didn’t really think of this as part of SEO, which is why they aren’t included in the plugin list (DOH!).
I’ve looked at plugins for adding sites to Digg etc… but the ones I’ve looked at add links (usually nofollow links) as the Digg type links. Nofollow is SEO damaging, so we shouldn’t use any plugins that add nofollow to our sites. I was in the process of converting a plugin to use javascript links (which if done correctly Google etc… ignores), but got distracted with other things :-)
I’m looking at a WordPress plugin (in the testing phase) from which allows you to add HTML code (links) into your RSS feeds so when your site is scraped for content you get backlinks. Unlikely to get high quality links, but they all help and once setup no input from the site owner.
You should be very careful with services that offer automated backlinks. Generally speaking the concept is a link farm, you add a plugin and you get links from others running the plugin (link farm).
Was reading about a plugin called BlogPress SEO Plugin that offers this as a service, but the plugin includes malicious code that can give the plugin author access to your Dashboard (hack your site)!
David
Generate Backlinks WordPress Plugins
WordPress BackLinking Plugins
Can you recommend any WordPress backlinking plugins that might work well with Talian 05?
Backlink SEO WordPress Plugins
I don’t use any backlink WordPress plugins. Closest would be the ©Feed Plugin : SEO Version (see article above) and the SEO Smart Links Plugin (see article above), though the second one doesn’t generate backlinks.
There’s the Twitter plugins mentioned in another comment (couple of comments up), but Twitter nofollow’s it’s links so they won’t increase a sites backlinks. The TweetMeme page like (page related to this article) has a dofollow link, so that’s a backlink, won’t add a great deal of link benefit mind you.
I haven’t tested any WordPress plugins that generate backlinks per se, I get my links the hard way :-)
David
Backlink SEO WordPress Plugins
Twitter comments and backlinks
Hi David, good site. Can I ask whether making a comment on a blog using the twitter plugin leaves a backlink on that page? I checked the page source after posting on one today and couldn’t find a mention so where does that link appear? Thanks Simon
Auto Backlinks
Hi David
I really love your themes, I have a great time creating websites and you make so very easy.
Been a while since I have worked on my websites and ready to do some more work for a few days. My question is: What do you recommend as a utility for auto backlinking. I find this very tedious and would like for it to be easier. Is there some way I can optimize the theme to help with the backlinking process?
I have tried a few plugins but they are not working well. Have you thought of creating one?
Another question is: I find my sites are getting spammed on comments how do I prevent this from happening?
Thanks for your time. Rebecca
Auto Backlinks
WordPress Automated Backlink Plugins
Automating backlinking isn’t generally a good idea, tends to stray into the blackhat SEO arena which is why I don’t use any automated backlink plugins.
I do use the ©Feed Plugin : SEO Version from WordPress SEO Plugins.
This adds links to your content on RSS feeds which tend to be scraped, so when scrapers steal your content they link back to your site.
I use Akismet for comment SPAM with comment moderation of new commenters turned on, this catches most comment SPAM.
David
WordPress Automated Backlink Plugins