What types of Backlinks are Good and Bad?

If you are familiar with SEO (search engine optimization), you are probably aware that backlinks nowadays are perfect for your website. Sadly, that isn't quite the case for all of them. Not all backlinks are created equal, and some can actually cause more harm than good. Some links can likely get your site penalized.

What Makes a Great backlink?

There are a few things to look for when inspecting a backlink. A high-quality backlink will be natural, well respected, and highly relevant. High-quality backlinks, without a doubt, pass the most value, but you can still get reasonably good momentum through medium-quality links. You need to make sure and look out for the low-quality/spammy links because they pass no link juice and can cause your website to be penalized.

Domain & Page Authority

Authority is a metric used in SEO to gauge a particular domain or web page's SEO value. The metric is an attempt to replicate and estimate the 'PageRank' of a specific resource on the web. Then based on the results they gather, the higher your score, the more authoritative you are in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

Backlinks allow authority and the concept of "link equity" to be passed through from one site to another using hyperlinks. Meaning, a link from a site with high authority will be far better than one with low authority.

Do-follow vs. No-follow

Dofollow and Nofollow links have opposite meanings and are viewed differently in terms of SEO. When putting a 'nofollow tag' on your links, you let search engines like Google and Yahoo know that you don't want to advocate for the site you are linking to.

Dofollow links, on the other hand, constitute a vote of confidence for the site, thus passing "link equity" through. Not adding a 'nofollow tag' to your link, you tell Google that you advocate for the site being linked to another; therefore, the link equity would be passed along.

What Is a Good Backlink?

A good backlink is a relevant outbound link to a trusted and authoritative site. Typically, a site is viewed as trustworthy if it has many solid backlinks pointing straight back to it. Google views these backlinks as a way to confirm that you are giving helpful, high-quality content.

Organic Backlinks

Organic is another way of saying natural. Backlinks that are naturally occurring are great examples of excellent links. Examples of these links are when writers come across your content through social media or search and link to it within articles. Organic backlinks are among the best kinds of links, and they show that you have good content. Some people have to beg for it, and it doesn't always end up all that well.

Editorial-Based Backlinks

Editorial backlinks are valuable because they are natural and provide real value to readers. They are ones that you get when you have great content, and other people will naturally want to cite it and include it in their content because it adds value for the audience.

Search engines generally look at two factors of these links. One of them is the site's attributes and where the article is contained, and the other is attributes of what page the link appears on.

Guest Blogging Backlinks

Although guest posting does take a lot of time and effort, it is still one of the top link-building strategies. Researching and reaching out to other people's sites that are relevant to yours and your audiences is a great way to guarantee a boost in user experience and significant growth in your rankings.

What Is a Bad Backlink?

A lousy backlink will come from a low-authority site with low-quality content or spammy links from non-relevant sites or blogs. Some people might tell you that any backlink is good; that is not true. Google focuses mainly on the quality rather than the quantity of a backlink; they track and evaluate backlinks to flag any potentially spammy/low-quality practices.

Comment Spammed Links

Comment spam links are an extremely outdated tactic. These are links placed within the comments of blogs or other sites. If you aren't providing real value within your comment and linking to relevant sources, these links aren't any good. It's important to know that comment spamming could penalize your site.

Backlinks From Poor Websites

Links acquired from sites of poor authority scores or bad SEO can hurt your site. The backlinks you want and should get come from high-quality content. Find pages with a high DR (domain rating)!

Guest Blog Backlinks

Content is the king no matter what, so don't give any poorly written content because it is not practical. If you create poorly written guest blogs with tons of mistakes, it won't help you get points with Google. Google takes the quality signals over the quantity, so poorly written content probably won't do the trick and carry as much weight as the high-quality content ones do.

Conclusion

Knowing what backlinks are good and bad is something we take very seriously here at Brainspin. Strategic link-building is very effective for search rankings, but it can be one of the most challenging SEO strategies. Everybody wants to be at the top of the SERPs and be well known, but it doesn't come to you; you have to work for it and do it right. 

People think they can link to any site, but there are roles to that; you need to be linking to a site or blog of relevant content, high DRs, and DA (domain authority), or you won't get anywhere. If you don't do things the right way, you can be penalized for it, which can be the deciding factor if you will be a success.