ivangdavila_seo/links.md

Links & Authority

Internal Linking

• Every page should be reachable within 3 clicks from homepage
• Use descriptive anchor text — "SEO guide" not "click here"
• Link from high-authority pages to important pages — passes PageRank
• Contextual links (in content) more valuable than nav/footer links
• Fix broken internal links — 404s waste crawl budget
• Don't overdo it — 100+ links per page dilutes value

Anchor Text

• Exact match: "SEO tips" linking to SEO tips page — powerful but risky if overdone
• Partial match: "learn about SEO strategies" — safer, still relevant
• Branded: "Google's guide" — natural, builds brand
• Naked URL: "https://example.com" — looks natural in some contexts
• Generic: "click here", "read more" — wastes link opportunity

Mix of anchor text types looks natural. All exact match = penalty risk.

Backlinks

• Quality > quantity — one link from NYT > 100 from random blogs
• Relevance matters — link from SEO blog > link from cooking blog (for SEO site)
• Domain authority (DA/DR) — higher = more valuable, but not everything
• Follow vs nofollow — follow passes PageRank, nofollow doesn't (but still has value)
• Link placement — in-content links > sidebar > footer

Link Building (White Hat)

• Create linkable assets — tools, research, original data, infographics
• Guest posting — write for relevant blogs, include contextual link
• HARO (Help a Reporter Out) — journalist queries, get press links
• Broken link building — find broken links, offer your content as replacement
• Resource page outreach — get listed on "best resources" pages
• Digital PR — newsworthy content that journalists want to cover

Link Penalties

• Buying links — Google detects payment patterns, manual actions
• Link exchanges — "I'll link you if you link me" at scale
• PBNs (Private Blog Networks) — footprints get detected
• Excessive reciprocal links — some OK, pattern-based penalized
• Low-quality directories — mass directory submission is outdated
• Comment/forum spam — nofollow anyway, plus looks desperate

Disavow

• Use only when you can't remove bad links manually
• Upload disavow file in Search Console
• Disavow at domain level for spammy sites: domain:spamsite.com
• Don't disavow links you didn't build — Google ignores most bad links automatically
• Takes weeks to months to see effect