Link building is a creative and very lucrative business. It helps drive the traffic, increase conversions, improves SEO, and consequently ranks a website higher. However, there are times when link building goes wrong, and that can have serious consequences for your business. To prevent that from happening, let's see what the most common mistakes that lead to Google penalties are, and how to avoid them.
Linking back with no content or value
Reciprocal linking is one of the most common strategies to quickly build a pool of links. You have a partnership with another website, they add your links to their articles, you add theirs to yours. This seems like a good idea that will get you plenty of backlinks quickly. Furthermore, if you find more websites like this, you can double or triple the number of links in just a few weeks.
Creating links that have no value is not a good strategy.
However, this strategy is marked with a big red flag in Google's book. Have in mind that you can still do this occasionally, as long as it is not excessive, and has value and content quality. Doing it with the intent of just increasing the link count in hopes of getting more visitors is not a good idea. There are better ways to double your website traffic.
Spamming links
When writing your articles, you will often feel the need to link to as much of your content as possible. Whether it is to product pages so you could advertise your multi-vendor marketplace, or to other articles on the blog, there should be a limit for the number of links you use for one post. Google bots are often in charge of checking links, but from time to time someone may check your website and send you a penalty if they notice this issue.
Accepting backlinks from "shady" websites
One of the best strategies for link building is to focus on organic links. Meaning, you create quality content, partner with reputable websites, and ask them to link back to you, and you patiently work on getting more visitors. That works fine as long as the websites that link back to you have a reputation and high rank. However, if you partner with websites that are not built well, not maintained, or doing "shady" stuff, this will be seen as bad for your website. You don't need that kind of publicity.
Whenever you are approached by a website that offers to link back to you, always verify if that website is a reliable one.
Algorithm links penalty
Since we already mentioned who Google bots usually check your links, there is a type of penalty that is usually given by a bot. Algorithm links are bought links or links obtained through other strategies via link networks. The repercussions may be very serious, and you might even completely lose your indexed ranking.
Avoid using link networks.
Releasing links too fast
If you have a lot of writers who contribute daily, you might start releasing a couple of articles every day. Before you start adding links to every article, understand that there is something called link velocity. If you are releasing a bunch of links too fast, this will be seen as a suspicious activity.
No one knows for sure how many links will trigger this penalty, as the experiences are different. Nevertheless, even if you are getting a lot of quality backlinks, try to spread them throughout the week.
Rushing things will only backfire and will not produce wanted results.
Build link diversity
If you are running any website, it is a natural response that you get many backlinks from different sources, even those that have no obvious connections with your industry. However, that is perfectly fine, as people have different interests and clients who need different things.
Link diversity plays a crucial role for every website.
It would look suspicious if all of your links are connected only to your niche. You need the link diversity to stay clean of any potential issues.
Outbound links issues
You may get an outbound link penalty if the outbound links do not look natural. Whenever you get a request for a backlink, always check it yourself before approving. It must have a meaning, and be written in a quality way that will add value. People often comment by adding links to other websites to build their link base or just promote their products. This kind of action should always be forbidden, and do not allow it on your website.
Building a private blog network
A private blog network consists of multiple websites, all controlled by one person. The idea is to link back to multiple websites and build their rating at a fast pace. This is another one of the most common mistakes that lead to Google penalties.
Google will quickly penalize links that come from PBN networks.
It may look tempting to try something like this, but the final result will not be a success.
How to build the links in a proper way?
After reviewing all of these common mistakes that lead to Google penalties, here are a couple of advice on how to build the link properly:
always focus on quality over quantity; a single link that leads to a reliable source is worth more than 10 links leading to nowhere;
release quality links in a controlled way, do not be too reckless. Starting with 2-3 links per day is a good strategy;
create organic links, which means work hard and create connections with reputable websites;
be diverse with your content;
hire a reliable online company like Link Department that can help you learn how to build quality links for your website;
The most common mistakes that lead to Google penalties explained
As you can see, there are many pitfalls you can fall into when building links, especially if you are not aware of their existence. These most common mistakes that lead to Google penalties will quickly destroy your index rating. With that in mind, be patient, work on organic links, and the reward will be tenfold!
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