If you’ve heard that you need quality backlinks to your website for higher search engine rankings you have probably started to ask yourself these 2 questions
What makes a backlink a high quality backlink?
Where do you find high quality backlinks?
High Quality Backlinks – Definition
If you look in the Websters dictionary for the definition of high quality backlinks you are not going to find it. In fact, you aren’t going to find the term backlinks either. So that brings me to the answer of the first question. When does a backlink go from being just a backlink, to becoming a quality backlink?
Quality Backlinks Criteria
Well first of all this is a list of everything that I deem makes a backlink a quality backlink. Some people may disagree on some of these points and I don’t really care because I bet I could outrank them on any search term if it came down to a contest. These points aren’t from some unproven theory I have concocted, this comes down from testing millions of different types of backlinks to hundreds of sites. I then take the data and analyze it like no one ever has. My data has given me these conclusions on what makes a high quality backlink. I’ll start with the very basics and then I’ll move to more advanced factors that you can implement.
1) Quality backlinks come from domains with page rank – the higher the better
Now notice that I wrote they should come from domains with high pagerank, not necessarily a page itself with PR. I rather get 5 contextual backlinks from 5 PR9 domains rather than 5 backlinks from a couple of PR2 pages on PR2 domains. I’ll explain more on that later but to see the power of this you can read about this profile link wheel that put a client to #3 in the search engines just by giving them 5 direct backlinks from PR9 domains. Trust me, I have proof of concept from actual proof of rankings.
2) Contextual Backlinks are much higher quality
Next on the list talk about the difference between a plain old backlink and a contextual backlink. Here is the difference. A contextual backlink is the HTML anchor text surrounded by other words and text. I have found the profile links can still be very powerful as long as you are surrounding them with relevant text, and then of course forcing the indexation by building links to your links – yes, it is absolutely tiresome but a quick way to build links to links and force the indexation is with Backlink Energizer.
As if it wasn’t enough just to build backlinks, now you’re being told to build backlinks to those backlinks. Sounds like some kind of pyramid scam concocted by SEO professionals and link builders to sell even more links, but its unfortunately true and I don’t have time to explain all the reasons on why it works in this post.
When you are posting a link on a website make sure you put relevant text around your backlink. Look for some of the related text that someone may find on a search for that keyword. Google knows with its indexing algorithm that a link about a particular topic should have certain words related to that topic somewhere in the body of that text. The algorithm is quite complex when it comes to link valuations so keep that in mind when you are burying your links into articles that are unrelated. If you do place links into PLR articles on a topic unrelated to your link just make sure to write a sentence that makes sense and includes some of that relevant content. Trust me, you won’t have to build nearly as many links when you build links from related content.
3) Link to Text Ratio effects the quality of a backlink
It’s important to have plenty of real quality content going along with each link to give it a higher valuation in the search engine algorithm. I like to go with a ratio of about 1 link for every 150 to 200 words. So if I’m submitting a short article of only 200 words I’ll usually only put 1 link in it. If I want to place a couple of links I usually go with a 400 to 500 word article and always place them in the body of the article when possible, like in blogs. Many article directories require it in the resource box at the bottom but realize these are getting a lower link valuation. This is why I have found time and time again that blog networks and free blogging sites are superior for creating quality backlinks.
4) Quality Links Are in Content (not in footers and sidebars – AKA “the gutters”)
Do blogroll links help search engine rankings? Yes they do but not nearly like they used to even just a year ago. Links within the footers and sidebars are valued differently by the Google algorithm. A link More information and facts on
Quality Backlinks
