What is a backlink?

• Any inbound or incoming links that links one website to another is known as BackLinks.Backlinks are important to SEO.

Importance of Backlinks:

• For SEO backlinks are very essential as they represent “ Vote of Confidence” from one site to another. To know if others have vouched for our content, backlinks to a website is a signal to search engines is one of the best way to generate quality backlinks.
• If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines can infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP.
• To have a positive effect on a site`s ranking position or search visibility the websites need to earn backlinks.

Earning and Giving backlinks:

• For off site SEO essential component is to earn good quality backlinks and the process of obtaining these links is known as link earning or link building.
• Earning a good quality backlinks from trustworthy, famous, and high authority sites are the most desired backlinks that an website can earn while getting backlinks from a low-authority, potentially spammy sites are similarly at the other end of spectrum.
• Whether a link is followed or not a site owner instructs search engines to pass or not pass link equity and do not discount the value of no follow links.
• One of the best way to earn a quality backlink is by getting mentioned on the high quality websites which will give our brand a boost.
• As some backlinks earns more valuable than others, links that we create to other sites also differ in values.
• When linking an external site, the page can have a heavy impact on the value depending on the choices from the page that we choose like page authority, content, search engine accessibility, the anchor text and other meta tags.

Competitive Backlink Research:

• Getting a quality backlink can be time consuming. When it comes to link building new sites or sites which are expanding their keywords finds it difficult to understand where to start from. This is where competitive backlink research is helpful.
• By examining the backlink profile like collection of pages and domains linking to a website to a competitors website which is already ranking well in target keywords, we can get an understanding about the link building that may have helped them.
• We can use a backlink tool like Link Explorer that can help us to  uncover these links so we can target the domains in our own link building campaigns.

The Types of Backlinks:

Two types of backlinks are :

• DoFollow
• NoFollow

Person who reads the webpage cannot understand the difference between dofollow and no follow backlinks because the difference is in the source code.

In the source code we can add some specific tags which determine how google and other search engine views the backlink which determines the effect of backlink on SEO Profile.

Dofollow Backlinks:

• Most valuable and common type of backlink for SEO is Dofollow backlinks. When a dofollow link is put on the website, google understands the link to be organic which means the target website did not buy the link and we are promising for the accuracy of the content at the other end of that link.
• Dofollow simply tells google and other search engines that it should be noted that the content on the other end of the link is important.

Nofollow Backlinks:

• Nofollow backlinks are less common and less valuable. They’re used to tell search engines to ignore a particular link.
• Google’s definition of tag nofollow provides a way for the websmasters to tell search engines “ Don’t follow links on this page “ or “ Don’t follow this specific link “.
• In a website the percentage of dofollow versus nofollow links will vary. Google wants to see a good mix of both for a healthy link profile.
• The biggest difference between these two types of links is that dofollow links gets a lot of value in google which means that they are great for SEO. Whereas the nofollow links are less valuable for SEO which is ignored by google algorithm.

Where do nofollow links come from ?

• Nofollow links are less common than the dofollow links but there are plenty of spaces on the internet where we can pick nofollow links. We can get these types of backlinks from websites where we upload our own links and content, because these websites donot promise for the accuracy of the content.

Few places from where nofollow links comes from:

• Social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Blog comments
• Content aggregation websites, such as Scoop It
• Q&A websites, such as Quora
• Forums, such as Reddit
• Press releases

Apart from these many high-authority websites, like Wikipedia and the Huffington Post, use nofollow links to reduce the number of spammy backlink requests they receive.

Nofollow backlinks are useful for SEO:

• Surprisingly, nofollow backlinks do provide some SEO value. There are few instances where nofollow links are followed from high profile websites like Wikipedia is best way to generate a quality backlinks

High-authority websites:

• It is a fact that nofollow links from high-profile websites, like wikipedia helps to improve organic rankings. These high profile websites are known for their high quality content.
• If these high quality websites are linking another website, the linked website becomes valuable.At this time google ignores the nofollow link. There are probably very few websites that fall into this category, which is the best way to generate a quality backlinks.

Buying nofollow links:

• Creator of SEOJet, Adam White wanted to know how nofollow links affected SEO. He went to a website which ranked number 1 in SEO and paid them to place a nofollow backlink to his website. He also asked them to use the anchor text backlink software for his website to rank high in google for that keyword.He also made sure that no other links pointing to his website had that anchor text.
• The use of that anchor text is important because anchor text helps Google understand what your website is all about when someone links to your website using specific keywords in the link.

Indirect benefits of nofollow links:

• The biggest reason to follow a nofollow link is the indirect benefits of gaining one, which is one nofollow backlink from a highly trafficked website can result in plenty of dofollow backlinks. That’s often because content creators use those highly trafficked websites to research their own content.
• The other indirect benefit of nofollow links is that these nofollow links still pass traffic to our website, which is better than no link at all.
• To sum up there is no such evidence that nofollow links are good, but there is enough unreliable evidence to prove that they aren’t bad.
• If we are planning for any link building campaigns, we should not ignore the websites that only give out nofollow links, especially if they are from high authority websites which will be still valuable in terms of traffic, exposure and even a bit of SEO.

When should you use dofollow and nofollow backlinks?

• When linking your website from other website we have to use dofollow link. As long as we are linking a valuable resources that help readers, we can use a dofollow link.
• In certain cases when we are linking our website to a number of low-quality websites, we can use a nofollow tag so that google can think that we are promising for teh quality and accuracy of these low quality websites.

Several Reasons for not using a nofollow links:

1.You don’t have control over what gets posted:

Post that are posted by people in the forum or comments section of our website, we can mark the links as nofollow links which will help reduce spam comments on our blog or forum.

• If people knows that they can’t get dofollow links from our website they will not post a ton of irrelevent links. This is perfectly done by Hacker News. The main links from their website are all dofollow, but the links in the comments are all nofollow.
• The links that are highlighted in green — the link to the main content and internal links — are all dofollow. The top comment, which includes an external link, is highlighted in purple because it is a nofollow link.

2) Someone paid you to link to their website:

• Backlinks are supposed to be organic. If somebody pays you to promote their website, we need to nofollow that link,
• Which helps search engine to understand that for organic search that link is not valuable because it was manipulated.

Google will penalize if we donot nofollow paid link. There are few types of links tht you should not follow:

• Link-for-money exchanges:If somebody offers to pay you for a link from your website, you need to nofollow that link.
• Product-for-link exchanges:If someone sends you their product to try out in exchange for a link, you must use a nofollow tag on that link.
• Link-for-link exchanges:If someone offers to link to your website if you’ll link to theirs, you better nofollow that link.
• Keyword-rich anchor text link guest posts:It is ok to have a guest posting in a website, except when the guest post has excessive number of dofollow links back to authors website, then we need to nofollow these links.
• Contract-required links:If your customer contracts require that they link back to your website, you better make sure they’re nofollowing those links.

3) You’re worried about crawl prioritization:

• Large website have to worry about crawl prioritization. If there is huge number of pages in a website, google might have problem trying to figure our which is the most important page to index.
• If any of the pages in a website is not indexed any internal links to those pages should be nofollowed.That will keep search engine bots focussed on the parts of the website that matter.

How to identify nofollow backlinks:

• Few ways to check the types of backlinks that are used by certain webpages. First way is to look at the source code to tell if these links are nofollow or dofollow. If the source code is unreadable and unsearchable we will not be able to find out the content or links anywhere in the source code.
• When a website whose source code is unsearchable or unreadable, we can use a chrome plugins like NoFollow or MozBar to highlight the links that have nofollow tag.

How to get more dofollow backlinks:

• dofollow backlinks are the most valuable ways to get free backlinks for our website which makes a bigger difference in SEO.
• Dofollow links can be obtained by creating content by referring to page from Rand Fishkin`s book and create a content which is 10 times better than any of the top ranking articles for that keyword is the better way to gain backlinks organically.
• Writing high quality posts for other websites which includes a link back to our website is a better way to get backlinks for the website. We can avoid getting penalized by Google if we can used only one or two dofollow links in our guest post.
• Consider creating and publishing some original content if any of the above techniques work. This is a great way to get a quality backlink because our research will be cited by other authors in their content.
• Below are the few ways to get dofollow backlinks without creating a more content if all of the above three techniques are followed.

1) Testimonials

• We need services, tools and agencies to run our company. These companies have some sort of testimonial or case study page on their website so that we can contact them and offer a testimonial of case study page about their product in the website, in which case most of the times they will backlink to our website as part of their testimonials.

2) Top X lists:

• If we consider any industry and search for “Top X Keyword” we can find blog posts that gives a number of resources or companies that their readers should know. If we find these companies, product or content we contact the author to check if they can include us in their list.
• Ex: In a medical device industry, if they are planning for a conference, and wants the conference webpage to rank high, the best way that can be done is to gain a backlinks.

3) Help a Reporter Out

• This technique takes time but really works. There is a website “Help a Reporter Out” helps to connect journalist with experts.
• Once we regsiter in these kinds of websites we will get an email each about the list of questions that a reporter needs answer for. Answering some of those questions is the best way to earn a high quality backlinks.
• This technique is used by lot of marketers, which means they get lot of responses and they cannot use all of the responses. That is why we need to give a best possible answer when replying to reporters questions.

4) Broken link building:

• This is a time consuming technique which can really work. The idea is to find websites that are linking to content similar to yours, but for certain reason the link to that content is broken.
• When we come across such instance, we have to reach out to the site owner or author and tell them about the broken link in their site and mention that you have a resource that best suits for their link.
• Since broken links are bad for user experience and SEO, site owners want to fix the broken links. We can help them by fixing the broken links by using a broken-link checker tool which helps us to identify any broken links on that website.

Don’t focus on one type of backlink over the other:

• Overall profile of the website depends on the two types of backlinks. A healthy link profile with both nofollow and dofollow links are suggested by google.
• If our website has too many nofollow links from low-authority sites indicates to google that we have spammed our content on the web and too many dofollow backlinks from a low authority websites looks suspicious.
• It is very important to understand the difference between the two types of backlinks, getting one type or other can be beneficial. We can focus on building links and rest will be handled by google.

For Posting BackLinks Contact: [email protected]