Link building strategy

theonemanyuri · Jun 11, 2011

I've had a few sites disappearing and reappearing recently from G, luckily they've just reappeared from their latest drop. I was getting a bit carried away with the link building last week and wondered if this might have been the cause?

How often do you link build on any given site in terms of links a day/week/month?

Blossom · Jun 11, 2011

My preferred strategy is generally to match the links to the site - if it's a PR0, it's usually going to get whacked if you go crazy link building or add too many high PR links to it too quickly. If it's a PR6 it will take thousands+ in a month with no problem.

The thing is that you want to keep it fairly steady, not do 100 links in one week and then nothing for a month.

I'm sure there will be different opinions on here though

theonemanyuri · Jun 11, 2011

That makes sense, cheers. Mine are both PR0. I have been keeping it fairly consistant though, without doing it too uniformly so I look like automated spam.

I think it's a fine line (if it's even over-linking that keeps making my sites yoyo up and down) as they climb the SERPs pretty quickly then just as they get to a nice spot, bam they're gone.

I'm going to take a more organic approach now they're back I think, atleast until they get some PR.

cc976a · Jun 11, 2011

Sorry to hijack thread a little but how often is PR of a site updated by Google - is it real time or once week / month etc...?

Blossom · Jun 11, 2011

The PR toolbar (which is what us plebs see) isn't updated very frequently or consistently - six months, nine months, a year. How often Google internally updates PR - who knows? Probably more frequently, but the SERPs/algorithms are of more interest to them so maybe not. PR was always generally more for our benefit than theirs.

theonemanyuri - It's interesting because often I see that sites go down after solid link building then pop up again higher a while later. The link builder often assumes that it's because of a dodgy link or over linking, but I'm wondering whether that's really the case. We panic and stop link building and the site returns, we assume it's because we've stopped but maybe it's because the links have had time to be evaluated and 'settle'.

I started a site about a month ago which still has PR: unranked because there's been no toolbar update, but I've only been submitting it to low PR directories - about 15 so far- and its holding up well in the SERPs with surprisingly little bouncing around.

theonemanyuri · Jun 11, 2011

I agree Blossom and I'd even go further, from what's happening to my sites it seems to me that there's more than an initial period where sites bounce around before settling, I'd say G treats the whole time a site has no PR as an evaluation period. Obviously that's only from my own experience and it might be the same once the sites get PR.

I've got several very similar, very niche names to develop soon, I might do a little test and do a fair amount of link building on one and minimal / none on another and see if they're both as prone to jump around.

Hmm interesting, keep note of how it gets on and keep us updated

arold10 · Jun 12, 2011

The same thing happened to one of my sites. I was ranked in the 4th position for a highly competitive keywords and all of the sudden my ranking dropped. When I checked a penalty too, it's reported that my site has a severe penalty.

I've been very aggressive in link building, in a month I build more than 200 back-links I thought that may been the cause for my sudden drop. I filed a reconsideration request to get the penalty off my site since I didn't violate Google webmaster guidelines. After 4 days my site appeared where it was. Now I am building my back-links in natural way.

theonemanyuri · Jun 14, 2011

The 2 of mine that had come back, have disappeared yet again! No link building, nothing. It's doing my head in now, are they just going to bounce around indefinetely..?

Blossom · Jun 14, 2011

How frequently are you adding content?

theonemanyuri · Jun 14, 2011

Not for a month or 2 on the ones that keep jumping. I could understand them slipping back a little from no new content as other sites maybe gain more relevancy, and I could understand them jumping around if there was new content going up all the time, but jumping without adding content? Neither site has a feed on it either, they're both selling a small amount of products through widgets.

philiporchard · Jun 14, 2011

Links from related sites that aren't involved in mass link building has been the most successful strategy for us.

For example, here are two sites that linked to us today:

http://www.jgriffithselectrical.co.uk/reviews.html

http://www.soho-solutions.co.uk

theonemanyuri · Jun 14, 2011

Thanks for sharing mate, I like your strategy. I try and only get fairly relevant links with as much authority as possible, but at the moment it doesn't seem to matter what I do the sites just don't sit still. Bing / Yahoo results never jump around, or to nowhere near the same extent, why can't G be the same...

cc976a · Jun 14, 2011

Did you play a part in acquiring these backlinks or did you just happen to find them?

philiporchard said:
Links from related sites that aren't involved in mass link building has been the most successful strategy for us.

For example, here are two sites that linked to us today:

http://www.jgriffithselectrical.co.uk/reviews.html

http://www.soho-solutions.co.uk

philiporchard · Jun 14, 2011

cc976a said:
Did you play a part in acquiring these backlinks or did you just happen to find them?

Yes, we ask for links when a business suggest themselves to our sites - it's automated which now means we are generating new links on a regular basis.