Basic Backlink Sources

[SteelBlue]

What are some of your basic go-to backlink sources? Of course, I'm not saying do 10,000 of each, but you could sort out the best of the best and grab links from them.

My rule of thumb: Only get the links that are going to index by themselves naturally, if you're concerned with high quality and not getting smacked by penguin.

1. Social Bookmarks
2. Article Directories
3. Blog Comments
4. Member Profiles

These are the easy ones that you can do, and depending on your niche you can even stay relevant. These are a good spread of basic ones that I'll throw up for a new site of any type and just let them simmer. If it's an authority site or a micro-niche site, these can make a nice starter point.

After this, I like to pursue two things:

• Private Blog Network
• Web 2.0's

These are iffy. Not everyone has a PBN, and you gotta watch out for your footprints too. But the Web 2.0's are great. I don't see them as being amazingly effective but you can still take advantage of them in various ways. Build one and then start commenting all around the platform and leak juice into your own. If you do it right, you might even earn your way into a ton of sitewides as you make friends. And you can always sprinkle some spam on top as a tier 2.

At this point, I'll see where I'm sitting. If the job isn't done (and likely it's not unless you're going after the lowest of competition and value), then I'll take to trying to get guest posts around. I'll also make some link-bait / reader-bait style posts and slip them into relevant sub-Reddit's.

If the site is a big authority attempt, and even if it's not, you can always do the following:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Google+ (don't misuse this!)

Those are the big ones. But creating those and linking two-ways to them is a good way to send brand signals and you can juice those profiles that feature your links too. Plus you can use these as a way to get social signals to your site, which help with ranking in combination with other things, not in isolation. If you have a ton of sites in the same vertical, I suggest making one master social network for them all and promoting your various sites through it and let it become this amalgamation Voltron effort. You can even make your own sub-Reddit.

What else can we be doing as link builders that isn't too complex? Something as a basic list to attack for every site at the start?

 

[TeddyP]

Very nice post!

I've abandoned Article Directories entirely. They still pass juice but so many of them were smashed during the "Farmer" update that many restructured their entire sites using subdomains for each author, amongst other attempts. I don't think 301's were put in place either, so lots of the juice people were building was lost. It made me lose faith in that idea for the most part. If only they'd 301'd I'd be all over it still.

The social bookmarks concept was great for a while. It was like a push-button solution to page one. Now, it's a sure-fire way to get pinged. There's only about 300 out there on the automatable platforms like Pligg and whatever the other big one was. It's so easy to spot manipulators by just seeing who has links on all 300. Getting the top 10 or 25 sites that are on custom platforms is so much better, even if it has to be done manually. They get indexed without coercion and pass decent metrics. And you should have a VA doing that anyways.

I'm still a fan of blog comments. People talk about how they are all no-follow, and they are right, for the most part. But even those that are... there are still ways to sneak a do-follow out of it, if you're crafty and patient. It's a two or three step process that should happen over the course of a couple weeks really. That's all I'll say about that!

I love Web 2.0's, because you can amass an army of them, but I'm still annoyed that Twitter bought that one... I can't even remember the name of it, but they took the entire site down. Made no sense. I lost several 2.0's during that. Just like Yahoo decided they are taking down Yahoo Voices. What's the point in that, when I'm sure it was pulling tons of traffic to their ad networks. I hate not being in control of my own assets, so I'm trying to slowly build up a PBN, but it's really expensive to do it right.

 

[Williamder]

I really appreciate the time you guys put into this but could you be a bit more specific? I feel like I'm about to be asked to sign up for an email newsletter or pay $7 to get the rest of the info (just kidding... sorta... lol)

But some specific guidance would be great like... tell me some web 2's that I can use, or give examples of good sites to leave comments, or where do I get these social bookmarks?

 

[ColdHardCash87]

For web 2.0's, I prefer:

• Wordpress.com
• Blogger.com
• Wix.com

Blogger is getting iffy in terms of having enough legit gmails to continue building. I like the top two because I'm assured they aren't going to be taken down at some point. Best thing is to not build a "keeper" network on those. Use them for what they are, things you don't own that could go away at any time and derive whatever value you can from them immediately.


MUSIC SITES

Here's another one people haven't mentioned, but if you can spin sound clips out of your site in anyways, you can get links from music upload sites. Here's a selection. There are tons out there:

• PureVolume.com
• Buzznet.com
• MixCloud.com
• SoundCloud.com
• ReverbNation.com
• AcidPlanet.com

BLOG COMMENTS

Here's a tip for blog comments. Don't bother scraping sites and pages and sorting for PR and what not. Your chances of getting comments approved on old pages with metrics are low. You're better off hitting new pages you know the authors are watching and then hope they become good pages later. Every link counts, so the higher percentage of success on new pages is better than a very low one on "better" pages.

So take your keywords, broad is good because you'll catch the bigger sites, and set up Google BLOG alerts. Not just any alert, but BLOG alerts. Comments galore if you do it manually. Also consider hitting up newspaper sites.

A trick to know too is that, once your email address gets accepted on these sites, you're far much less likely to get triggered by a spam filter. So don't try to drop links into the comment themselves until after you know the first one went through. And you do it, only use URLs to look legit and non-SEO-ish. If you are getting the links from the "Name" field, use an actual name if you want to get approved. And be consistent from site to site. Better off to choose something like "John" and just stick with it across all the diff sites.

 

[ConversionKing]

FORUMS

Nobody mentioned this but if you are actually into your niche and participate on a forum, you can give yourself a solid signature link to it. Just make sure you use a generic anchor or better yet a brand anchor. Don't optimize with it or you'll be hurting, especially if you have 10,000 posts.

Better yet, IMO, is to not acknowledge that you own the site, but ask questions and start threads that require a link to your site in them. You'll get traffic from it and it'll likely gain some power. You could even tier through it but don't be a meanie and spam someone else's site hard.

 

[MetaData]

Will be keeping an eye on ConversionKing for when he drops those signature links for sites he "doesn't own" ... jk!

 

[Ryuzaki]

The best backlinks you'll get are do-follow contextual links within brand new articles on top-notch, high-metric sites.

Some you can buy into, some you need to build an amazing site and make waves with it. There's no easy way to get them, but they will do serious damage to the SERPs if you do. I'm talking PR6, 7, 8 sites. It's possible.

 

[MetaData]

The best backlinks you'll get are do-follow contextual links within brand new articles on top-notch, high-metric sites.

Some you can buy into, some you need to build an amazing site and make waves with it. There's no easy way to get them, but they will do serious damage to the SERPs if you do. I'm talking PR6, 7, 8 sites. It's possible.

I smell an idea for one of our first threads in The Lab... What do you say, Ryu? Are you willing to spill some beans for the benefit of The Builder Society?

 

[Vernon2014]

I actually get a lot of links just from asking for them. Like everything it depends on your niche and how well you can network, but a friendly email seems to do a lot better than trying to trick someone into linking to you.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I smell an idea for one of our first threads in The Lab... What do you say, Ryu? Are you willing to spill some beans for the benefit of The Builder Society?

Perhaps. It won't be any time soon. If I start a new site that will demand this level of creativity and effort, I will certainly do so. Thank you for the invite.

 

[SteelBlue]

I actually get a lot of links just from asking for them. Like everything it depends on your niche and how well you can network, but a friendly email seems to do a lot better than trying to trick someone into linking to you.

Yeah, there are generally quite a few web 2.0's related to your niche out there. You can sign up, comment around, start talking with these people, and usually end up in their "blogrolls" just by asking. That ends up being a ton of links sitewide, and if you get into "the circle" with one of them you can venture out and start getting more and more of those links. It's like taking advantage of a pre-built real PBN.

 

[Hitman-Zone]

The best backlinks you'll get are do-follow contextual links within brand new articles on top-notch, high-metric sites.

Some you can buy into, some you need to build an amazing site and make waves with it. There's no easy way to get them, but they will do serious damage to the SERPs if you do. I'm talking PR6, 7, 8 sites. It's possible.

Nope! You can have 99% Nofollow and only 1% Dofollow and you still will rank and maybe stay up for years...

 

[Heathcliff]

Nope! You can have 99% Nofollow and only 1% Dofollow and you still will rank and maybe stay up for years...

This totally depends upon the competition but I agree. I've blasted sites with 100,000+ no-follow blog comments (Pre-Penguin) with the right anchors and nothing happened. But as soon as I added a small amount of do-follows, it popped up fast and hard. I think it was because of the anchors I used. I don't see this working in the current google landscape for anything competitive, but I haven't tried either.

Hitman-Zone, have you tried this recently?

 

[DDixon]

I've always been curious about that... I feel like Google must take the no-follows into account in their algorithms in SOME way.

 

[Hitman-Zone]

I don't see this working in the current google landscape for anything competitive, but I haven't tried either.

Nah! just look for some brands and you will see how many nofollow links they have.

Hitman-Zone, have you tried this recently?

Not me but I know who have try it and it's stable, maybe they don't work after some new updates, I don't know but I think less you can find dofollow they probably count also nofollow.

 

[Hitman-Zone]

There is two type of PBN's :

1-Expired old domains
2-Tier one sites (can be a new site with a series of links in a pyramidal structure)

 

[BIGdCPA]

Pyramids in SEO are a lot like the kinds you'll find in Egypt...

They're relics from an ancient world.

 

[Hitman-Zone]

You can point direct links, or maybe circles as you like, the importance of a pyramidal structure it works similar to a vote for a new president or maybe a congress man (politic) he or she need to get vote from cities then regions after that states then the accumulated votes will make you the next president or you just waste six months of presidential campaign...

 

[Lion]

Nah! just look for some brands and you will see how many nofollow links they have.

That only tells you so much though. They are sending a lot of other trust and authority signals and might be ranking despite the no-follows.

I think no-follows count in terms of anchors, and to some extent the # of links and domains linking in. But I don't think they pass page rank, which makes them less valuable than do-follows, but still valuable. They are definitely necessary if you want to mimic a natural backlink profile.

 

[seogeek]

For web 2.0's, I prefer:

• Wordpress.com
• Blogger.com
• Wix.com

Blogger is getting iffy in terms of having enough legit gmails to continue building. I like the top two because I'm assured they aren't going to be taken down at some point. Best thing is to not build a "keeper" network on those. Use them for what they are, things you don't own that could go away at any time and derive whatever value you can from them immediately.


MUSIC SITES

Here's another one people haven't mentioned, but if you can spin sound clips out of your site in anyways, you can get links from music upload sites. Here's a selection. There are tons out there:

• PureVolume.com
• Buzznet.com
• MixCloud.com
• SoundCloud.com
• ReverbNation.com
• AcidPlanet.com

BLOG COMMENTS

Here's a tip for blog comments. Don't bother scraping sites and pages and sorting for PR and what not. Your chances of getting comments approved on old pages with metrics are low. You're better off hitting new pages you know the authors are watching and then hope they become good pages later. Every link counts, so the higher percentage of success on new pages is better than a very low one on "better" pages.

So take your keywords, broad is good because you'll catch the bigger sites, and set up Google BLOG alerts. Not just any alert, but BLOG alerts. Comments galore if you do it manually. Also consider hitting up newspaper sites.

A trick to know too is that, once your email address gets accepted on these sites, you're far much less likely to get triggered by a spam filter. So don't try to drop links into the comment themselves until after you know the first one went through. And you do it, only use URLs to look legit and non-SEO-ish. If you are getting the links from the "Name" field, use an actual name if you want to get approved. And be consistent from site to site. Better off to choose something like "John" and just stick with it across all the diff sites.

What does the content usually look like on your web 2.0s, is it jus

Very nice post!

I've abandoned Article Directories entirely. They still pass juice but so many of them were smashed during the "Farmer" update that many restructured their entire sites using subdomains for each author, amongst other attempts. I don't think 301's were put in place either, so lots of the juice people were building was lost. It made me lose faith in that idea for the most part. If only they'd 301'd I'd be all over it still.

The social bookmarks concept was great for a while. It was like a push-button solution to page one. Now, it's a sure-fire way to get pinged. There's only about 300 out there on the automatable platforms like Pligg and whatever the other big one was. It's so easy to spot manipulators by just seeing who has links on all 300. Getting the top 10 or 25 sites that are on custom platforms is so much better, even if it has to be done manually. They get indexed without coercion and pass decent metrics. And you should have a VA doing that anyways.

I'm still a fan of blog comments. People talk about how they are all no-follow, and they are right, for the most part. But even those that are... there are still ways to sneak a do-follow out of it, if you're crafty and patient. It's a two or three step process that should happen over the course of a couple weeks really. That's all I'll say about that!

I love Web 2.0's, because you can amass an army of them, but I'm still annoyed that Twitter bought that one... I can't even remember the name of it, but they took the entire site down. Made no sense. I lost several 2.0's during that. Just like Yahoo decided they are taking down Yahoo Voices. What's the point in that, when I'm sure it was pulling tons of traffic to their ad networks. I hate not being in control of my own assets, so I'm trying to slowly build up a PBN, but it's really expensive to do it right.

@TeddyP @ColdHardCash87 What does the content usually look like on your web 2.0s, is it just related to the money site. What's your opinion buying web 2.0s. Also, would these get you penalized? Thanks.

 

[seogeek]

@TeddyP @ColdHardCash87 On average, how long does it take you to build these web 2.0s.

 

[BANG]

@seogeek I do web2.0's by hand with the same caliber of content I would put on a money site. Some people will just pop em up quickly and blast them, but I put a decent amount of time into doing it "right". Maybe about an hour each. I actually build out the profile... I leave comments... I follow people... all that stuff. Depending on what the platform is I just use it the way it is intended to be used. I've never had any problems. Those huge authority domains are so powerful that they can handle the spam usually, BUT they can also be tamed and wrangled just by using them exactly how they're meant to be used and then you dont have to worry. Good ole Scrapebox is your friend here. Be one with the link juice that these sites have in abundance already. Bend it, morph it, meld it to do your bidding. No need to add more.

Keep in mind I'm not going for huge niches. If I was trying to rank payday and stuff like that then I sure as hell wouldn't be manually building out my 2.0's.

I'm sure you can still get a penalty if you overdo it with links or optimization or anchors... but I haven't had any problems because I'm not spamming them... I take the time to do it right the first time and then I have yet another asset in my arsenal that can be leveraged again and again.

 

[seogeek]

@BANG Thanks for the answer Bang!I'll look into that.

 

[TheSeo1]

@BANG pretty much agree about putting some time and effort into your HQ tier1 links. By doing so, I personally get my VAs to do about 75 really legit Tier1 links, profiles filled, unique content all the usual stuff. I let them age a week, see what's been deleted and after that, fire up the tier2 spam. Works like a charm to create a foundation for future, less white approaches, for me.

 

[soynacho]

@BANG pretty much agree about putting some time and effort into your HQ tier1 links. By doing so, I personally get my VAs to do about 75 really legit Tier1 links, profiles filled, unique content all the usual stuff. I let them age a week, see what's been deleted and after that, fire up the tier2 spam. Works like a charm to create a foundation for future, less white approaches, for me.

If you don't mind me asking, how much you pay your VAs?