Backlinks..

[Nick2561]

Is it worth...

Having a backlink from a decent website but of an unrelated topic

OR

Not to have that backlink at all? i.e. will it cause more harm than good?

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Nick

 

[Blossom]

It's the quality of the link that's more important than anything else. Unrelated links won't cause you any harm. I've actually been experimenting with this recently to try and test if it makes an impact at any level, but I've built over 1,000 unrelated links to a domain (gradually) so far and rankings have only increased...even though most of them are on the same unrelated topic.

 

[js1]

Is it worth...

Having a backlink from a decent website but of an unrelated topic

Hi Nick,

If it’s from a "decent website" it should pass value, but the real question is how much value / trust will be associated with the link?

How many other out going links are there on the page / site?

Do you own this site?

Is the site part of a network?

How old is the site?

What is the link profile like for the page on the site where your link is going to be placed? (and what anchor text is used in these links to this site)

How old is this page on this site?

What type of link is it going to be???? in the text / side wide link

How old are the links, that go to this page (very imporant).

Does the page rank in the serp for its keywords (keywords in the title element of the page / and the anchor text in the links going to the page / site etc)

The sites that link to that site / page, what are their link profiles like, how old are they etc etc etc.

I could go on and on and bore you to dead, but to be honest you will have to do some research Nick and I’m sure you will be able to answer the question yourself once you done some digging around, the rest is guess work without a url of the sites.

 

[chippyb]

It's the quality of the link that's more important than anything else. Unrelated links won't cause you any harm. I've actually been experimenting with this recently to try and test if it makes an impact at any level, but I've built over 1,000 unrelated links to a domain (gradually) so far and rankings have only increased...even though most of them are on the same unrelated topic.

How do you find all these places to get backlinks from?

 

[Blossom]

How do you find all these places to get backlinks from?

I have a huge spreadsheet I've built up over time, all divided into categories with notes. You can get started simply by googling and following links around the web, and swapping parts of lists with people once you have a couple of hundred links.

Also, doing backlink analysis of competitor/high ranking sites using Open Site Explorer helps to track down valuable (usually more relevant) links. I tend to have a separate spreadsheet per site for these and tick them off/rule them out over several months.

 

[js1]

I have a huge spreadsheet I've built up over time.

Any chance of you emailing your spread sheet, when you get a spare minute

Joke aside thought...

I would also like to stress getting links that your competitors/high ranking sites have can be great, that’s the easy bit.

It’s the quality links out there they don’t have you also need to get, giving you a wider, better link profile... setting you apart for the competition that’s the hard and important bit (the quality of your site, then really comes in to play here).

 

[Nick2561]

Thanks for the replies! I will keep these points in mind from now on