Links, there’s no getting away from them anymore; even if Google wishes, we would all forget about them so that they can stop being manipulated. The floodgates opened as soon as the first person realized that you could manipulate links by link building campaign to increase your Google presence. Are links still relevant? Are all links bad? Sometimes all links get a bad reputation. A recent study showed that most people thought all links on the web were commercial when the truth is much different.
So let’s talk about links, shall we?
Are Links Still Needed?
As long as there are links, there will be link building services that try to manipulate them, and as long as Google remains a link-based search engine (and I can’t see it changing anytime soon), links will be needed. They are the main power source for a Google listing, and no amount of scaremongering will change that Google, so stops it. Google may have gotten better at detecting fake articles and links, but its algorithms will never be so complex that a skilled writer can’t best them. Google is actively trying to get writers to write better stuff so that the internet is filled with relevant material. If the content is good enough, Google doesn’t care too much about ‘commercial links. The latest algorithm of Google for helpful content is all about getting quality content on the Web.
Various Types of Links
If you have a little think about links, they all fit into a few easily defined categories. I’ll stop here to tell you why I’m talking about the types of links because they are important and natural. Most links are not commercial on the internet, but people think they are. So many natural links are part of why sites like the BBC and Wikipedia dominate the internet. Organic links are powerful and wonderful things in link building:
- Attribution: These are fairly common because when someone writes an article, they don’t want to take credit for work they didn’t do, so they link back to the source organically. These are good links to have back to your site as they give link juice, but you also get credit for your original work.
- Relevancy: Some links are there to give more credence to what the writer is talking about. It’s a link that comes from the mentality of ‘don’t just take my word for it; this person has said something similar, so it must be true.
- Educational: These links come from a desire to direct readers to an interesting source or website that the writer believes their readers would benefit from reading (and the writer can’t be bothered to write up the information in their article).
- Fun: You know the ones I mean; links to cat videos or a Buzzfeed quiz.
Dan Petrovic did the study above regarding the types of links and found more than the above. These were the ones he found:
- Attribution
- Citation
- Definition
- Expansion
- Identification
- Example
- Action
- Relationship
Some of Dan’s mean the same thing and can be trimmed down to a more cohesive list. Regardless of the link lists, at the end of our ‘link chat,’ we’ve found that links will be going strong for a long time and that organic links are special and powerful things … like Yoda.
