Link Magnetism = Successful Link Popularity
Although gray hat and black hat link building have played a powerful role in successful link building efforts over the course of the last several years, the dark ages of SEO are on the decline. Every time Matt Cutts (member of Google’s Web Spam team) and company on the Web Spam team create a new update, the old strategies of using programs to automate link building or black hat link building by hand carry less and less weight in search rankings. In today’s environment these tactics often cause ranking penalties when detected. In fact, they put your most critical asset at risk – your web site ranking and potential to rank on Google.com
Unnatural link profiles that appear to be constructed by efforts that are not focused on a solid effort to publish quality content are now the target of Google’s web spam team. Link profiles with regard to anchor text diversity, the pace at which links are accumulated, and now the level to which a published piece engages social media, are all closely evaluated to determine their degree of natural appearance and overall audience engaging qualities.
Quality link magnetism is an art form that requires creativity and an ongoing well executed plan. SEO’s can no longer wear technical hats alone, or outsource their link building to inexpensive offshore groups – at least not SEO’s who will be effective beyond the end of the search marketing dark ages to the renaissance that is emerging today. The development and promotion of creative and engaging written pieces, images, useful infographics, and videos are some keys to attracting genuine links. If a campaign can genuinely spark conversations, then improved rankings will follow.
Google’s philosophy has been made clear over the course of many years. They have consistently stated that quality and quality alone should be the center of focus for developers, site owners, and SEO’s. Until recently, their ability to filter mimicked quality has been unquestionably limited. The recent Panda/ Penguin updates have showed Google’s commitment to penalize sites that are not creating content in lockstep with their philosophy. Following their progress from their limited filtering capabilities to the perhaps overzealous filtering of Panda/Penguin, we predict that Google will continue to improve their web spam filters to the point that black hat link building tactics will continue to diminish in value until they have no value at all.
Looking to the future, our team continues to practice, research, and develop creative approaches to attracting high quality links for our clients. White Hat SEO’s are aware of the reality that we must build content to make the overall web experience better. In so doing, white hat “link magnetism” campaigns are built on the most solid foundation with the built in, long term advantage that as every future web spam update occurs, the campaign will realize greater prominence in rankings. In contrast, competitors who engage in the increasingly antiquated gray/black hat link building tactics will continue to fall or be filtered out of the index completely.
It’s a new Google marketing world in 2012. Contact our team of link magnetism experts to learn more
about how we can increase your link popularity the right way to deliver short and long term success.