49 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
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# Links & Authority
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## Internal Linking
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- Every page should be reachable within 3 clicks from homepage
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- Use descriptive anchor text — "SEO guide" not "click here"
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- Link from high-authority pages to important pages — passes PageRank
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- Contextual links (in content) more valuable than nav/footer links
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- Fix broken internal links — 404s waste crawl budget
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- Don't overdo it — 100+ links per page dilutes value
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## Anchor Text
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- Exact match: "SEO tips" linking to SEO tips page — powerful but risky if overdone
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- Partial match: "learn about SEO strategies" — safer, still relevant
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- Branded: "Google's guide" — natural, builds brand
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- Naked URL: "https://example.com" — looks natural in some contexts
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- Generic: "click here", "read more" — wastes link opportunity
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Mix of anchor text types looks natural. All exact match = penalty risk.
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## Backlinks
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- Quality > quantity — one link from NYT > 100 from random blogs
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- Relevance matters — link from SEO blog > link from cooking blog (for SEO site)
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- Domain authority (DA/DR) — higher = more valuable, but not everything
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- Follow vs nofollow — follow passes PageRank, nofollow doesn't (but still has value)
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- Link placement — in-content links > sidebar > footer
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## Link Building (White Hat)
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- Create linkable assets — tools, research, original data, infographics
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- Guest posting — write for relevant blogs, include contextual link
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- HARO (Help a Reporter Out) — journalist queries, get press links
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- Broken link building — find broken links, offer your content as replacement
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- Resource page outreach — get listed on "best resources" pages
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- Digital PR — newsworthy content that journalists want to cover
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## Link Penalties
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- Buying links — Google detects payment patterns, manual actions
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- Link exchanges — "I'll link you if you link me" at scale
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- PBNs (Private Blog Networks) — footprints get detected
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- Excessive reciprocal links — some OK, pattern-based penalized
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- Low-quality directories — mass directory submission is outdated
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- Comment/forum spam — nofollow anyway, plus looks desperate
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## Disavow
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- Use only when you can't remove bad links manually
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- Upload disavow file in Search Console
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- Disavow at domain level for spammy sites: `domain:spamsite.com`
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- Don't disavow links you didn't build — Google ignores most bad links automatically
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- Takes weeks to months to see effect
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