1.0123 Reg Blog: Small business tips, insight and advicehttps://www.123-reg.co.uk/blogAlexandra Gavrilhttps://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/author/alexandra/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="xbAsWDAxvf"><a href="https://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/seo-2/complete-guide-backlinks/">Your complete guide to backlinks</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/seo-2/complete-guide-backlinks/embed/#?secret=xbAsWDAxvf" width="600" height="338" title="“Your complete guide to backlinks” — 123 Reg Blog: Small business tips, insight and advice" data-secret="xbAsWDAxvf" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script> /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); //# sourceURL=https://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js </script> https://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/backlinks_guide_feat.png200200A few years back… Keyword stuffing was an optimisation technique that would help in ranking higher. Now it can get you penalised. Pages with automatically generated content still ranked while today they’re getting penalised for low quality. Adding spammy links to forum comments and exchanging links would increase your rankings. Now, it’s natural backlinks from authority, trustworthy sites that can increase your visibility in the search results. These are just a few of the old search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques that webmasters used in order to boost rankings. But the SEO landscape has gone through so many changes over the past few years. Still, one thing has remained the same… Backlinks still matter. A lot. In fact, out of the hundreds of ranking factors that Google uses in its algorithm, it’s content, backlinks and RankBrain that correlate more strongly with rankings than anything else. So while many marketers have proclaimed the death of link building over the last couple of years, they couldn’t be further from the truth. Backlinks are still at the heart of Google’s Page Rank system, and their importance hasn’t diminished by the hundreds of algorithmic changes that the search engine giant has made over the years. With backlinks remaining an extremely important Google ranking factor, you should make the effort to earn and monitor yours. Why? Because they can guarantee your site’s online success. In this guide we’ll walk you through all you need to know to stay away from links that won’t help your business and how to see if your current backlinks are causing any issues. Table of contents What are backlinks and how do they work? How Google used to punish bad links Manual penalty The Penguin update How to spot possible backlinks-related issues How to prevent or recover Types of bad links How to analyse your current backlink profile How to handle links in a post-Penguin 4.0 world The disavow file   Let’s start with the basics… What are backlinks and how do they work? Simply put, a backlink is an incoming link from a website or page that directs to another site or page. Now, search engines use links to not only analyse the popularity of a website and page but also its authority, trustworthiness and freshness. The logic behind it? Sites that are trustworthy tend to link to other sites that also trustworthy, while spammy sites receive few links from trusted sources. So a backlink is like a vote of confidence that says that someone trusts your content, believes it has value and deserves to be shared and linked to so more people can read it. But while backlinks can help you to rank higher in the search results, it’s not so much about how many sites link to yours but more about how authoritative and trustworthy the sites linking to yours are. This means that having ten backlinks from relevant, authority sites will be worth significantly more than 50 links from decent quality sites. If you want to get a good idea of the kind of websites that are linking to you, then give the 123 Reg Website Checker a try. How Google used to punish bad links The search engine giant used to send out Manual Penalties, a message in Google Search Console telling you that there are unnatural backlinks pointing to your profile. This means that the affected website or parts of the website would lose their ranks while under the penalty. Recently, all of this changed. You can still get a manual penalty Google seems to still be sending messages regarding the links you have on your website rather than other sites linking to you. Manual penalties can be site-wide matches or partial matches, affecting your entire website and ranks, or just the ranks of parts of your website. When a manual penalty is applied, you will receive a message in Google Search Console and it will mention if it’s partial or site-wide. Unnatural links from your site If you get this message in Search Console, it means that some of the websites you’re linking to don’t look like honest editorial links. Linking to another site is fine but only if you believe it provides more value to your users (for example, to help them get more information on a topic or to redirect them to a place where they can buy a product you’ve mentioned on your article) and as long as you’re not getting anything in return. If you link to websites you’re affiliated with (meaning you earn a commission whenever your visitors click on those links and end up buying a product or a service from those sites) or you receive money or goods in exchange for linking to these websites, then you risk getting penalised. How can you avoid or get rid of such a penalty? Take a closer look at the sites you’re liking to and identify the type of links that might be considered “paid”. A simple way to do this is to ask yourself these questions: Did you receive money to post this link? Did you get a “freebie” in return for a link or review? Are you monetarily affiliated with the website you’re linking to? Are you linking to a website that’s not even relevant to what your page is about? If you answered YES to any of the above, chances are that Google is on to you and you can get a manual penalty for having such links on your site. That doesn’t mean you can’t be an affiliate or monetise your website at all. However, you can’t gain authority through such links so you’ll need to nofollow them. This is an attribute that you need to add to your links’ HTML like this: <a href=”http://www.other-website.com/affiliate-link” rel=”nofollow”>Link Text</a> It basically tells search engines that the link should not be followed so it doesn’t pass authority. Once you have updated all the outgoing links that might be problematic with this nofollow tag, you can submit a reconsideration