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Backlink Profiles: More Backlinks for Beginners

Posted by Michael Martinez on July 10, 2007 in Link Theory

In Backlinks: The Beginner’s Guide to Backlink Theory I wrote: “Search engine optimization is not about volumes of backlinks”.

Today’s search engine optimization community fusses over backlinks like gossipy old ladies at a quilting bee. The only difference between SEOs who blather on about backlinks in forums and blogs and the ladies at the quilting bee is that the ladies are more likely to produce something useful.

I have said it many times before: If you don’t know how to optimize without backlinks, you don’t know how to optimize. A lot of people take umbrage at such language. After all, they’ve been building backlinks for years. Of course, they haven’t been optimizing for search engines in that time.

Link building is its own industry, its own discipline. Link building is another aspect of Web marketing. It’s just not search engine optimization.

Spammers work with volume, not efficiency. A lot of SEOs have taken their cues from spammers because they have seen spam pages hit the top search results very often. But just because volume produces results doesn’t mean it’s efficient. Many black hat SEOs have openly estimated that the 80/20 rule applies to their work as much as it does to anyone else’s: 80% of their success comes from 20% of their sites.

So unless you have the time and resources to spam 5,000 links a day, you cannot hope to win the volume game. If you think you can get enough links if you put enough time into the formula, think again. You need volume to compete on links. Most people just don’t get it. And they don’t do nearly as well in the search results as they could if they would just stop obsessing over links.

Let’s talk about backlink profiling a little more. Most SEOs dutifully compile backlink profiles because they see other SEOs talk about backlink profiles on blogs and forums. But the same SEOs don’t know what to do with backlink profiles.

Knowing how many links point to a site (according to any one search engine) tells you nothing about the site, the quality of the site, the popularity of the site, or how well the site should perform in the search results. I can create 100,000 links in the space of a few hours. They’ll be indexed by the search engines in the space of a few days or weeks.

I’ve done it. I have the technology. I have the resources. 100,000 backlinks means nothing.

Don’t waste my time with your silly nonsense about “quality links”, “relevant links”, or Toolbar PR. Better yet, don’t waste your time with that nonsense. If you’re going to analyze backlinks, you have to look at what backlinks will tell you.

1. Where do the links come from?
2. Where are the links placed on the pages?
3. How long have the links been there?
4. Who made the links?
5. Why were the links made
6. Which search engines acknowledge the links?

If you want to analyze someone’s backlinks, those are the kinds of questions you need to ask. People will create links for the flimsiest of reasons. They’ll also create links just to mask other links. Spammers will create links looking for clicks, PageRank, and anchor text. Web site operators will create links because they have read in SEO forums that they need links.

The spammers have a specific goal in mind. The Web site operators who create links because that’s what all the SEOs say to do have no specific goal in mind except to create backlinks.

Backlinks have to serve a purpose. You’ll know how good your competition is if you can determine which links were created at his behest and which links were placed naturally. You’ll know how good your competition is if his natural links were placed by discerning, knowledgable people or by naive people who just want to create lists of backlinks.

When you look at a page that is loaded with outbound links, ask yourself, “Why did this Webmaster put these links on this page?” Don’t go looking for the deeper mysteries of link theory. Just go with the first plausible explanation that leaps into your mind.

Make a note about that page. “Spammy links”, “Naive link list”, “list of links provided by a pseudo-expert selling an ebook”, “links provided by a knowledgable person”, “links provided by an expert in the field”.

Take any one of your competitors’ Web sites and go to Google. Use the URL reference query format to find all the pages that refer to the root URL of your competition’s Web site. Now look at the Google cache entries for those pages. Make a note for any pages that are in the Supplemental Index and don’t look at the cache. Make a note for any pages that show a title and description, that are not in the Supplemental Index, but which do NOT show a cache.

You don’t have to look at every backlink, but pop through the various pages in your search results, grab two pages at random, and compile a list of random samples. When you have 20-30 sample backlinks with notes, look at the pattern that should have emerged in your notes.

Are the non-Supplemental pages showing cache data? If there are many pages without cache data, what do you think that might mean? It’s a pattern. People can tell the search engines not to cache their pages. A lot of spammers tell the search engines not to cache their pages. A large footprint in the backlink profile of uncached linking sources is a red flag.

What if the majority of the links you examine come from legitimate content sites? How can you tell they are legitimate content sites? One sure sign will be a lack of Webmaster-supplied advertising. A site on Geocities or some other advertising-supported hosting service is more likely to be legitimate than a site where the Webmaster plastered Google AdSense or Yahoo! ads all over the page.

Generally speaking, the more advertising you find on a page, the less the Webmaster cares about the content, the less the Webmaster cares about annoying his visitors. Sincere content providers want people to visit their content. They want people to read their content. They may try to sell some books or related products but they’ll keep the visitor’s focus on the content.

Serious information hubs can actually provide a lot of advertising but that’s okay because they have a lot of traffic and a lot of content. How can you tell if an information hub has a lot of traffic? Start by looking at its forum and/or blogs. Do you see people leaving comments? Look at traffic estimates by Compete and Alexa (but understand that those numbers can be and often are manipulated by spammers).

You can also look at the brand value of an informational hub by performing keyword research on its name. The more variatioins you see on that site name, the more activity its generating. Sites with real traffic generate real curiosity.

Now, you’ve only scratched the surface in your backlink profile, but if you do no more than what I have outlined here, you have learned far more than you’ll ever learn by looking at numbers of backlinks.

Numbers of backlinks mean nothing. They have no relevance to search engine optimization. They offer no value to your analytical efforts.

If you want to profile backlinks, then you need to spend time sampling the backlinks, looking at where they are placed, at who is placing them, at why they are placed, and at what they seem to be doing for the destination site.

If you want to build your search engine optimization strategies on backlink placements, then do yourself a favor and start learning what backlink analysis is really all about. The fewer unnecessary backlinks you place, the better. The more truly helpful backlinks you place, the better.

Just understand that while you’re out there digging through the Web for backlinks, your competitors may be using more efficient methods of search engine optimization. That’s because not every Web site operator out there is clueless. There are plenty of savvy Web marketers who understand that it’s not all about links.

And it’s definitely not about volumes of backlinks.

Read more articles in this series:

1. Backlinks: The Beginner’s Guide to Backlink Theory
2. Backlink Profiles: More Backlinks for Beginners
3. Backlink Theory: Building Links From The Ground Up
4. Backlink Theory: Shaping Your Link Profile
5. Backlink Theory: HTML Sitemaps, XML Sitemaps, RSS Feeds, and More