Does this link building actually work?
-
Doing a small SEO project for a local dermatologist and when reviewing competitor link profiles I found one site that was earning a TON of links from other doctors throughout the country.
From what I can tell, it looks like this web development company builds medical practice sites, then puts a page on each site that links to all other practices they created site for.
Does this actually work? What would the name of this be? Recipricol links? Link farm?
http://www.raleighsportsmed.com/ypo-showcase.php
Thanks!
Ricky
-
Does it work? Yeah, probably. For now.
Should it work? Probably not. I obviously haven't seen the sites, but if they're hosted on the same hosting account with the same IP address, then it wouldn't surprise me if this was eventually hit. And if it was reported, it definitely would not pass a manual review by the Google spam team IMO.
As others have said, it's super risky. Just a few weeks ago I didn't let someone join my platform to provide local SEO services specifically because they are doing this sort of thing as their main link acquisition tactic for their clients, and while it works right now it's definitely very grey hat and will stop working at some point. I've spoken with people who used to operate Personal Blog Networks like this, and they always get hit eventually.
I'd also hate to be the SEO brought in to clean this sort of thing up and get the clients that this company loses ranking again. Lots of small businesses sound like they'll be harmed because of this, unfortunately.
Hope that helps!
John
-
That SEO consultant or agency is buying all the tickets for a penalty.
Too old school, too early 2000's
-
Wouldn't you hate to be the SEO consultant who had all his clients penalized at the same time? Sheesh!
-
Oh man! That looks reaaalllly dangerous.
I am confident that this type of approach has been on the Google Spam Team's radar for at least a decade. I will be surprised if Google has not at least devalued these links, if they have not demoted some of the sites in the organic rankings - but I don't know what type of negative impact this would have in the local search results.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
When link building yourself where would you advise are the best places to add links?
Hi I am not having much success with SEO companies so am looking at link building and doing SEO myself. Where would you advise are the best places to add links? Also is it better to add links to specific pages or just to the home page? Thanks in advance
Link Building | | Briggzy0 -
Better link building is hardest to achieve in 2014
In a simple words. My site has good quality content not copies 100% original. Have good social points more then 500 or twitter, fb, g+ (200) and now what to do with ranking. should i start linking, but where, please don't refer me any-page. As my thinking all old link building method are now died, like comment, rss, classifieds, footer links, directories. etc At this time i am thinking the powerful link building is hard to achieve in whole process of seo. Now any one tell me where do i start, linking to my site .....? (I also research on competitors but there links are all from contextual and linking domain sites DA is more then 70, and i can't even able to get one link by scraping more then 200 sites.) Thanks .
Link Building | | seom20140 -
Internal Link Building
For a large part of our SEO we have been focusing on inbound links (mainly from guest posts and blogger reviews). But our rankings have dropped (though I understand there is a natural fluctuation in rankings quite often) this week and it occurred to me that we should be focusing more on internal link building as well. We, of course, link often to our home page and have related products on every page but we lack a lot of direct key word links in in our description. Would it behoove us to be on a specific product page--take for example owls and friends wall decals--and somewhere in the description add something like "our nursery wall decals are safe for....and have "nursery wall decals" be the direct link since that is a key term for us? I just wanted to make sure that we are headed in the right direction before I spend a massive amount of time updating all these product pages. Any input would be really helpful. Thanks so much, Elizabeth
Link Building | | WNL0 -
Is Back Link Building still Good Practice
Since all the updates from Google I'm unsure as to whether I should be pursuing good quality back links and how many per month?for my website www.polesandblinds.com . We don't have a very large back link profile and its at least half of some of our competitors, we are currently active on blogging and the 4 main social sites. Many Thanks I look forward to your suggestions/advice/criticism.
Link Building | | JonnytheB0 -
Link Building for relaunched & newly designed site
Hey all, Next week we are relaunching our brand spankin' new site. It's a major overhaul of our existing site from both a brand, design, and identity point of view. As part of the relaunch we will be reaching out to journalists in our niche with PR, and also doing a series of guest posts. But I'm wondering about other link building opportunities around newly redesigned websites. I have a list of about 2 dozen design + CSS galleries to submit to. Can you recommend other sources? I'm especially interested in sites that review web design, etc... Thanks. C.
Link Building | | cmoylan1 -
When link building is returning little success, what is a good plan b?
I know that in an ideal world you would be able to create an amazing site with great content that every one would link to. But what if you're not able to so this, what if you the market you're in is very competitive and you're struggling to find good link partners. I know I can submit to directories and article/press sites but surely this isn't enough to get me any where near my desired goal! I guess I'm asking: is gaining reciprocal links the be and end all of Serps, am I missing any other SEO techniques to get my site higher up the rankings?
Link Building | | newdaymedia0 -
Top 3 Link Building Courses - Who Are They ?
Interested in taking a link building course ...any suggestions on top 3 ? Aaron Wall ...at seo book has something there at a whopping $300 a month not sure if this worth it any feedback on this ?
Link Building | | helpwanted0 -
What are some of your best tips, strategies or resources for link building?
I currently work for a contract manufacturing company so when I think about building links it seems as if it's going to be a daunting task. Mainly because any kind of content that you can come up with is rather dry. When I go about searching for links I usually run into a lot of directories that charge anywhere between $25-$50 for a listing. I've had a hard time convincing marketing that we should start a blog which may be a good way to build some links if we come up with quality posts but those posts may be few and far inbetween. Does anybody have any recommendations for building links for this type of company or subject matter? Also, and I'm sure we have all heard this. When I mentioned the fact that we should be building some quality links to the site marketing first asked why and then commented "Well that shouldn't take you too long". Why is it so difficult to get management to accept the fact that managing a website is an ongoing and constantly changing process that involves research and experimentation?
Link Building | | TRICORSystems0