How many backlinks are "safe"

[JayFCF]

Tweet

Thanks for the tip.

I'll give it a whirl.

Have I read it right though in thinking I SHOULDNT include my keywords in the anchor text?

[mtuffin]

Thanks for the tip.

I'll give it a whirl.

Have I read it right though in thinking I SHOULDNT include my keywords in the anchor text?

You should include your keywords... what else is the point in using the directories? You have two choices:-

1 - Use targetted keywords which will improve your serps for those keywords
2 - Don't and just see an increase in pagerank

To generalise let's say you own a blog/shop/whatever and you use the keywords you found using wordtracker as your anchor text variation, which will improve your serps for those terms, as well as your pagerank.

Or you could use your shop name, which really isn't going to improve your serps as you should already be number 1 for that but your pagerank will increase.

I have to be completely honest and say the directories are just for backlinks, I've seen no traffic to any of my sites from directories other than the directory administrator coming to check my sites out.

[KirstyM]

Right. As an SEO with 8 years experience I feel I have to contribute to this thread.

DON'T use link auto submitters. We're trying to charm Google here NOT Yahoo, and if you read our auto submitting friend's post he's talking about having loads of Yahoo links. Yahoo will index any load of old tosh, Google on the other hand... is a little more choosy about things (I'm simplifying here). Claims that Google has no penalty on too many backlinks are essentially right.

However, what Google does look out for is unnatural growth of links. What better way to look unnatural than to submit thousands of links with exactly the same anchor text on the same day? Hand pick and submit your links to RELEVANT sites and Google will love you. Do it every now and again, and vary anchor text and descrptions as much as possible. When I am training people I always give one bit of advice. If it sounds like a too good to be true shortcut... don't bother - Google has already thought of it and will catch you out. Put yourself in the position of a search engine when considering tactics like this. If you were fed up with spammers, how would you work out an artificial link building pattern. It's not hard...

I don't usually come out and say things like this, but don't listen to the advice you have been given here Jay, it's incorrect. Do the hard yards and Google will love you. Trust me, I'm a Search Engine Doctor

[dougs]

Google can take lots of links very fast....but they can't be rubbish ones.......and sometimes they can be

slowly slowly if you dont want to take risks

Doug
Google are looking at your knickers | Doug's mouthpiece

[mtuffin]

Right. As an SEO with 8 years experience I feel I have to contribute to this thread.

DON'T use link auto submitters. We're trying to charm Google here NOT Yahoo, and if you read our auto submitting friend's post he's talking about having loads of Yahoo links. Yahoo will index any load of old tosh, Google on the other hand... is a little more choosy about things (I'm simplifying here). Claims that Google has no penalty on too many backlinks are essentially right.

However, what Google does look out for is unnatural growth of links. What better way to look unnatural than to submit thousands of links with exactly the same anchor text on the same day? Hand pick and submit your links to RELEVANT sites and Google will love you. Do it every now and again, and vary anchor text and descrptions as much as possible. When I am training people I always give one bit of advice. If it sounds like a too good to be true shortcut... don't bother - Google has already thought of it and will catch you out. Put yourself in the position of a search engine when considering tactics like this. If you were fed up with spammers, how would you work out an artificial link building pattern. It's not hard...

I don't usually come out and say things like this, but don't listen to the advice you have been given here Jay, it's incorrect. Do the hard yards and Google will love you. Trust me, I'm a Search Engine Doctor

Firstly I used Yahoo as an example, the exact figures are:

Yahoo - 704
Google - 703

I don't think you can say that a web directory is relevant or not relevant to whatever your site is - it's a collection of links and thats all it is. DMOZ which is the most famous is relevant to every single site you produce if you're accepted.

The software I suggested allows you to taylor your anchor text and also the text that accompanies it so it will avoid any issues with the problems you suggest due to artificial link building patterns. In fact tayloring the anchor text to multiple keywords was what I was suggesting and as it randomises the anchor text you can put 30 different anchors in and away you go, no need to do it by hand. It is probably safer and easier than doing it by hand.

As a lot of these sites take a long time to be reviewed, have different crawl rates etc these links will not all 'appear on the same day'. You are merely submitting them on the same day. If you were truly worried by this you could choose to submit just 5 a day using either this or any other tool (roboform or imacros come to mind which will also make this easier).

This isn't a quick fix, it isn't a substitute for a proper link building campaign but it's certainly going to do you no harm.

Funnily enough Matt Cutts who heads up Googles webspam team also seems to think directory submissions are fine.

[Leeky]

From what ive seen Google and yahoo count and record the same amount of backlinks, the only difference is Yahoo make them public and google only show the full amount in your webmaster tool account.

I haven't seen any evidence of any free backlink or the amount of free backlinks gained in a short amount of time effect a site in a bad way.

From what ive read Go Gompare got penalized for buying backlinks to increase their rankings not for the amount they got in a short period of time.

Lee

[KirstyM]

All I can say is this.

Do it the hard way, take no shortcuts and you won't screw up your site. Come on guys, nobody with an ounce of professionalism would use these for a client. So why would anyone use them on their own site?

Google DOES penalize for unnaturaly quick link building patterns.

But why listen to me? I'm only the wee girl who has been providing SEO professionally for the last 8 years and who has worked on campaigns for some of the biggest companies in the country.

What would I know?

[smingle]

All I can say is this.

Do it the hard way, take no shortcuts and you won't screw up your site. Come on guys, nobody with an ounce of professionalism would use these for a client. So why would anyone use them on their own site?

Google DOES penalize for unnaturaly quick link building patterns.

But why listen to me? I'm only the wee girl who has been providing SEO professionally for the last 8 years and who has worked on campaigns for some of the biggest companies in the country.

What would I know?

That makes 2 of us Kirsty Sometimes I think we are better off leaving people alone and us "novices" can just struggle on by

[channel5]

Google DOES penalize for unnaturaly quick link building patterns.

I'll be off knocking my competitors out of the index with this method then.

[JayFCF]

I'll be off knocking my competitors out of the index with this method then.

Now heres a thought. What would happen If I used an auto submitter to submit my competitions site to 10000 directories using a proxy server?

Would they get double penalised.

For the record and I want it to be public

"I WILL NOT DO THIS"

Cheers

[gadget]

Jay.

Kirsty and Smingle both know there stuff. Pls don't use any auto device.

[channel5]

Now heres a thought. What would happen If I used an auto submitter to submit my competitions site to 10000 directories using a proxy server?

Would they get double penalised.

For the record and I want it to be public

"I WILL NOT DO THIS"

Cheers

Well I was being sarcastic, however if you did what you are suggesting the site that all the backlinks were pointing to would not be penalised.

What would happen is that if it tripped a filter at Google then the links would be devalued in terms of passing linkjuice, however there would be a number of links that would fly under the filter so the receiving site would most likely gain a certain amount of linkjuice.

[JayFCF]

Jay.

Kirsty and Smingle both know there stuff. Pls don't use any auto device.

Hi Gadget,

I know they do they both helped me out loads when I got started. Its still nice to hear the opinions of others every once in a while though.

I read on forums all the time "what works for one may not work for all"

So it is nice to get a mix of opinions and see what the general consensus is.

[Rich]

As I've understood it Google will devalue any links that it doesn't like but won't directly penalise the target site. So if your site is dependent on these links and Google devalues them it will look like a site penalty but if a competitor has 200 good links and you add 1000 rubbish then these links will get devalued, leaving the original good 200, and so leaving the site as it was before.

[channel5]

Exactly.....

As I've understood it Google will devalue any links that it doesn't like but won't directly penalise the target site. So if your site is dependent on these links and Google devalues them it will look like a site penalty but if a competitor has 200 good links and you add 1000 rubbish then these links will get devalued, leaving the original good 200, and so leaving the site as it was before.