It is impossible to ignore the recent influx of news following the penalties levied against JCPenney and Overstock.com for link building schemes covered in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Each retailer is guilty of violating Google’s guidelines prohibiting link manipulation. Having been in this industry for quite some time, I recognize the violations are glaring. JCPenney had thousands of links pointing to their site, from mostly irrelevant sites, reinforcing uber-specific keywords – a big no-no in the eyes of Google. Overstock.com incented educational institutions, and students alike, to link to them from .edu pages for discounts of 10% on select items. Crafty, but reminds me of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Did they really think this would go unnoticed?
Both of these tactics are immediately recognizable to anyone in the SEO industry. I have had clients compete against these sites in the past and have been well aware of these trends. However, savvy marketers and search engine optimization professionals know inbound links play an essential role to one’s rankings and building them is difficult. In the end roughly 75% of a website’s search engine performance is due to inbound links, it is not wise to take risks when building those connections.
These very public outings are a warning to all online marketers. As an industry we know the risks associated with spammy links. However, some providers still gamble with outsourcing the work overseas or utilizing link farms. Even if a company engages a firm for link building, penalties such as these are often a two way street. The responsibility is shared by both the client and service provider. Below I have listed questions to help qualify your SEO provider as well as tips for building a strong link portfolio.
Questions:
1. Is your link building handled in house or is it outsourced? If it is outsourced who is performing the work and what quality control measures are in place?
- Warning signs: Avoidance of answer or hesitation, use of a third party vendor with no reporting mechanism or cannot speak to what indicates quality link building.
- Preferred answer: Link building is handled in house and not outsourced allowing for quality control and collaboration with greater team.
2. Do you report link placement/location throughout the link building process?
- Warning signs: No reporting, automated reporting or suggestion client should monitor.
- Preferred answer: All link placements are reported on a monthly basis and reviewed regularly to ensure links remain in place.
3. What types of factors contribute to a quality link?
- Warning signs: Suggestion any link is a good link, unable to show examples or mentions quantity is more important than quality.
- Preferred answer: There are many factors that contribute to quality links which include, but are not limited to, the following factors:
i. Relevancy of linking website
ii. Age of linking website
iii. Number of links coming into linking website
iv. Number of outbound links on page where your link will be placed
v. PageRank of page linking to you
Tips:
- Leverage client and partner relationships to build inbound link portfolio.
- Use free tools like Yahoo! Site Explorer and Open Site Explorer to research your links and competitor links.
- Encourage staff to include your company website link in their LinkedIn portfolio.
- Use sites like HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to gain more PR and links.
- Register with Yahoo! Directory and Business.com to get two quality inbound links.
In the end, relevant link building takes time, experience and creativity. It is best to engage a variety of strategies from evaluating current link portfolio and researching competitors’ link portfolios to distributing press releases, registering in top paid directories and constantly assessing possible placements/opportunities.
The post Google Penalizes Major Online Retailers: How You Can Avoid the Same Fate appeared first on Precision Dialogue Blog.
