Backlinks and link building: links that count, without breaking Google’s rules

Backlinks, inbound links, link building: what we are talking about

“Backlink” is searched 1,900 times a month in France, “netlinking” (the French term for link building) 1,300 times. Search Console gives the simplest definition: an inbound link is a link on a page of another website that points to a page of your website.

Links play two roles for Google. First, they are used to discover pages: Google writes that the vast majority of the new pages it finds every day are found through links. Second, they count in ranking: PageRank, which uses links, is one of Google’s core algorithms. But Google immediately adds that its search is not limited to links and that it uses many ranking signals.

Links from one page of your site to another of your pages are internal links: they belong to internal linking, which you fully control, and that is often where to start.

What Google’s policies forbid

Google’s spam policies define link spam as links created to or from a site mainly in order to manipulate rankings. Google gives precise examples:

• buying or selling links, or articles containing links, for ranking purposes;
• exchanging goods or services for links, or sending a free product in exchange for an article with a link;
• excessive link exchanges (“link to me and I’ll link to you”) and partner pages that exist only for that;
• creating links through automated programs or services;
• advertorials and paid guest posts containing links that pass ranking credit, or optimised anchor text in press releases distributed on other sites;
• links from low-quality directories or bookmark sites, links hidden in widgets, links repeated in the footers of many sites;
• forum comments with optimised links in the post or the signature.

The penalty is real. Google detects these practices with automated systems and, where needed, through human review that can lead to a manual action; the sites concerned can rank lower or disappear from the results. The manual action for “unnatural links to your site” appears in Search Console.

Paid links, partnerships, sponsorship: the attributes to use

Paying for visibility is not forbidden: Google acknowledges that buying links for advertising or sponsorship is part of the economy of the web. What is forbidden is a paid link passing ranking credit. The rule comes down to one attribute:

• rel=“sponsored” for paid links: advertising, paid placement, sponsored article, paid partnership. rel=“nofollow” is still accepted for these links, sponsored is preferred.
• rel=“ugc” for links published by users: comments, forum posts.
• rel=“nofollow” when no other value fits and you do not want to associate your site with the linked page.

If you sponsor a club, a charity or a local event, it is good for your reputation; simply ask for the link to your site to carry rel=“sponsored”. Google specifies that these links are generally not followed, but the linked page may be discovered by other means.

Earning deserved links as a small business

Google writes that links to a site come naturally over time, and that you can encourage them by promoting your content: social media, engaging with a community, online and offline advertising, word of mouth. For a small business, the link sources that last are those that reflect a real relationship:

1. 1
   Data only you have: a price survey, a barometer of your trade, a study of your city. That is what gets cited. We publish our own studies for this reason.
2. 2
   Your real partners: suppliers, manufacturers, networks, franchises, which often list their resellers or installers.
3. 3
   The press and local media, with real news: an opening, a remarkable project, a figure from your study.
4. 4
   The directories your customers really use: professional body, chamber of trades or commerce, the directory of your quality label. A directory that exists only to sell links is the opposite.
5. 5
   Useful pages that deserve a link: a guide, a calculator, a downloadable template that other sites have good reason to recommend.

See your backlinks for free, and when to disavow

The Links report in Search Console shows, for free, the sites that link to you most, your most linked pages and the link text. It is a sample: the tables stop at 1,000 rows, and the report does not say whether a link is nofollow.

The disavow tool, on the other hand, is almost never needed. Google writes it: in most cases it can tell which links to trust without help, and the tool is of no use for the majority of sites. Use it only if your site has a manual action for unnatural links, or if you fear getting one because paid links were placed.

1. 1
   In the event of a manual action, export the list of links from Search Console.
2. 2
   Identify those that break the rules, starting with the sites that link to you most and the most recent links.
3. 3
   First ask the site hosting them to remove them, or to add rel=“nofollow” or sponsored.
4. 4
   Disavow those you could not get removed, and never disavow natural links.
5. 5
   Submit a reconsideration request explaining what was done.