The Difference Between Good Backlinks and Bad Backlinks

There is no denying the importance of SEO for your business’s online visibility. In today’s competitive market, SEO is more important than ever. However, When it comes to growing your visibility in the search engines, relying on content alone is not enough. 

Earning and building backlinks is key to success in organic search. While this is a crucial part of SEO, many ignore this detail or hope it will happen naturally. But if you are serious about getting the rankings you deserve, you need quality links. So, how can you determine what a quality link is? Let’s take a look at backlinks and identify the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. 

What are Backlinks?

According to Moz, backlinks, also called “inbound links” or “incoming links,” are created when one website links to another. On the web, backlinks are used as a form of citation, in which you provide credibility for another site that discusses a topic related to your brand, service, or product. 

Backlinks are crucial when it comes to your organic visibility. They are one of the most important pieces search engines look at when identifying how authoritative your site is and whether or not your site deserves a ranking position. Backlinks are a signal to search engines that others vouch for your content. 

There are a few important aspects to keep in mind when building backlinks. You should know that all backlinks are not created equal. There are some major differences between good backlinks and bad backlinks. We’ve broken them down for you below:

Examples of Good Backlinks 

• Links from websites with a high domain authority
• Links from websites with high traffic 
• Links from websites with high page rank 
• Natural, non-spammy links that occur without solicitation
• Links that include anchor text to your website that uses important keywords as the link text

Examples of Bad Backlinks

• Links from your website to completely irrelevant websites (i.e. a fashion designer linking to a dentist)
• Links from sites with explicit content 
• Links from sites associated with spam or unethical practices
• Links from sites that are unrelated to your industry
• Purchased, solicited, or unnatural links
• Links to or from link farms or sites with useless content
• Broken links 
• Using too many links in your content

Backlinks: The Key to a Strong SEO Strategy

While there are numerous ways to build backlinks, you should only focus on earning high-quality backlinks to protect your site from link penalties. Link penalties have the potential to reduce your website’s rankings or remove your site from the SERPs completely. To avoid spending time in the Google penalty box, steer clear of bad backlinks and other black-hat SEO tactics. 

At SMA Marketing, we know how difficult and time-consuming building backlinks can be. This is why we have developed a seamless, white-hat link building strategy guaranteed to help our clients rank higher in search. We have a deep understanding of how search algorithms work and what types of links are best for your site. If you need any assistance developing or supplementing your SEO strategy, contact us today!