When they embark on natural referencing for their site, neophytes are very quickly confronted with technical and English-speaking jargon most of the time. We will focus on two terms that are often confused: net linking and backlink. In reality, these are two concepts relatively easy to understand: we do net linking thanks to backlinks! In this article we will provide answer to the question what is backlinks.
What is a backlink?
The backlinks meaning is quite simple as it is simply a link. A link made from a third-party site to yours that includes an anchor. In other words, it is an inbound external link. Therefore, it is distinguished from inbound or outbound internal links, which are made only from your site, to one of the pages of your site, or a third-party site.
For the little info, the anchor is the word on which the link is affixed. Most of the time, it is textual (especially when building a net linking campaign). But the link can also come from an image or even be embedded in a video.
What is net linking?
Also called link building, net linking is “constructing a strategy of links to better reference its site.” It’s a bit long, and net linking is still classier!
To understand the principle of net linking, let’s go back a few years when Yahoo and Alta Vista were the most used search engines. They ranked their search results based on the content of a page. It was the only criterion. But when Google entered, these search engines quickly declined. Google’s famous Pagerank algorithm analyzed the content of a page and the number of people who suggested it through the links.
It was a revolution, and it is partly thanks to him that we internet users can find exactly what we are looking for on Google. In 20 years, the algorithm has improved considerably and even today manages to determine the quality of backlinks especially do follow backlinks a site receives.
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How to do net linking with backlinks?
Let’s come back to the concept of backlink. As we said previously, Google can analyze the quality of backlinks received by its dreaded algorithm: Penguin. Unfortunately for us, website editors or SEOs, we can no longer rely solely on the number of backlinks. The quality of the links takes precedence even over the quantity.
But what is a quality backlink?
No one can answer this question entirely because only Google holds all of Penguin’s secrets. However, the giant has still given some instructions to prevent us from receiving algorithmic penalties. The most important is: do not make any links!
Yes, there you say to yourself, “how can we do unrelated net linking?”
In theory, net linking is “forbidden” by the search engine because they are an artificial link designed to manipulate algorithms. Except that in practice, no one follows these rules, and net linking is one of the most used and efficient SEO strategies. Suddenly it’s the snowball effect: your competitor does a little net linking and manages to get past you, so you’re going to do even more, and then he will do even more.
There you go so that Google will have a scoop for you: everyone is making artificial links!
The algorithms are powerful but do not yet compete with our human brain, vile and creative! To create “juicy” backlinks (which transmit a lot of SEO juice) and thus build an effective net linking strategy, there are specific points to be observed:
The third-party site must be as much as possible in your theme (or complementary)
It should generate a minimum of traffic and ideally be followed on social networks, forums, etc.
The do follow backlinks must be contained in a quality article whose theme correlates with yours.
The site must be “popular” (it is also said that it must be authoritative). It must itself receive quality links and offer unique and relevant content. Several tools are used to measure the popularity of a site.
Finally, there is one last golden rule regarding net linking: do not “nag”! It’s hard enough to find quality backlinks, so you don’t have to bother looking for the thousands. On the one hand, it’s frankly mission impossible, and above all, it’s counterproductive. Your link profile should stay natural and receive too many backlinks; it isn’t.
If we recap, a net linking strategy can increase the popularity of a site thanks to backlinks generated by other sites. If this lever is considered the goose that lays the golden eggs of natural referencing, it is also very time-consuming and complex to implement not to trigger the wrath of the Penguin. Evaluating the quality of sites and their links is a meticulous job that it is preferable to entrust to a net linking expert. This will not prevent you from requesting natural links when the opportunity arises. Yes, in natural referencing, you should not hesitate to play the opportunist. If one of your partners has a quality site, don’t hesitate to ask them for an article with an SEO link. The main thing is not to make reciprocal links but rather to privilege the exchanges of triangular links this is the best answer to how to get backlinks?
For example, if you are site A, your partner is site C, a third-party site B:
A links to B
B links to C
C links to A
Thus, Google does not see a direct link between A and C. The more you complicate this diagram by adding sites and links between your site and your partner, the less you will be spotted. Likewise, you can use the link to link technique to give your indirect backlinks more power. This way, you also prevent them from falling into Google’s limbo and also provide solution to the query how to create backlinks?
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