Backlinks and Search Engines
December 01, 2008
The other day I got an email from a client regarding a marketing email they had received from another SEO company. It referenced “backlinks” repeatedly and stated that my client needed more. Indeed, backlinks are extremely important in terms of ranking, but linking is not the only component of SEO. Full search engine optimization service needs to encompass internal work on the website as well as linking campaigns.
However, the red flag that really caught my attention was this sentence: “We personally own 10,000+ websites and offer private linking to over a thousand website owners just like yourself.”
It is not just the number of incoming links that you have, but the quality. If you can get a highly-ranked site to link to you, search engines will love you. If you have links coming to you from simple landing pages that just exist to link to other websites, search engines will not rank this, or you, as highly. In addition, some unethical (black hat) SEO companies set up a landing page where all your links go to. If you stop paying for their monthly linking service, your landing page goes away along with all your links (or worse, gets sold to your competition).
Always check out any SEO company you do business with to make sure they are using ethical techniques that will benefit your site for the long run.
