As Google continues to refine how people search for websites, it is also changing the way that websites develop content. One of the more recent changes Google has made is that it basically outlawed the use of purchased links on a website to try and enhance traffic. Google wants you to grow your website organically through strong relationships with websites that are complimentary to yours. But even if you gather your links through hard work and online networking, there are still link characteristics that can cause the links you use to damage your website’s Google results status.
Before you accept a link swapping arrangement with a website, it is extremely important to do research to make sure that the website you are swapping with is considered reputable. Websites that have a history of creating spam content or breaking Google’s SEO rules are considered to be questionable, and using links to those sites will damage your Internet presence as well.
Google is getting very picky about what kinds of links it will accept, and that means that you have to stay up to date on all of the new guidelines for link swapping as they are released. It used to be that a website that featured content on gardening could team up with a personal finance website to help drive traffic. But with the new rules Google has in place, the personal finance content would be considered irrelevant to the gardening content, and using that link would cause problems for the gardening site.
After months of communicating with a relevant and reputable website, you are extremely happy to finally get the chance to swap links. You are so happy that you decide to put that new link in several spots on your website to maximize exposure. This is something Google now frowns on, which means that using a good link too often can have the same effects as if you used a disreputable link just once.
You and your brother develop websites that offer similar content, so you decide to swap links to generate traffic for each other. This sounds like a great idea, but it is something Google frowns upon. If you are putting links to the same website or set of websites throughout your content, then you could incur a Google penalty for excessive linking.
For years, the best way to get the most out of a link was to use industry keywords as anchor text. But Google now considers this practice to be taboo, and will hit your website with stiff penalties if you do this. Google wants to see your links used naturally in the flow of an article, and not crammed into the middle of content using keywords.
The definition of a good SEO link seems to change frequently, and using bad links can bring about serious penalties. If you want to make sure that your website is using the right kinds of links, then you need to invest in the services of an Internet marketing professional. When it comes to links, hiring a professional could mean the difference between great web traffic, or devastating Google penalties.
