Link building techniques in 2014

 Most importantly, and contrary to what you may have heard, link building is far from dead. Many of the "link building is dead" theories are ingrained in wishful thinking and/or fear. The fear is real and understandable as the Penguin update at last delivered on Google's long running promise to severely penalize websites engaged in manipulative link schemes.

The Google Reaper

Some have fulfilled that the best and safest response to Penguin is to stop link building altogether. That's a bad idea.

Here's a reality check: the best way to recover visibility in the SERPs, in 2014, is still link building. Links are still believed to be the most significant part of the algorithm, according to the most recent Moz search engine ranking factors survey.

The main takeaway is this: Link building is still the key to more visibility in organic search. If your purpose is to improve visibility in organic search, then invest in resources accordingly. Social media and authorship may  impact the SERPs at some point in the future, but not today and maybe not significantly in 2014.

Relevance is the New PageRank

The growth of the original 1 link = 1 vote algorithm took a quantum leap forward in May 2012 with the introduction of the Knowledge Graph, which is used by Google to deliver search results with semantic-search information. This information is gathered from a wide variety of sources, using more than 500 million objects and 3.5 billion details. In Googlespeak, the Knowledge Graph is about "things, not strings."

It's quite credible that Knowledge Graph is baked into Hummingbird, the latest Google algorithm. Assuming that's the case, then a connection between "context, not anchor text" and "things not strings" is applicable. Relevance is the new PageRank when searching for linking opportunities.

A real life example could look something like this: Pre-Hummingbird, a search for car covers might yield results crack among auto accessories to protect your car, tribute bands that cover the classic rock group "The Cars" and songs enclosed by Ric Ocasek and the cars. The "old" algo couldn't distinguish one car cover from another. Hummingbird, on the other hand knows the difference. Now, all of those auto parts links coming from high PR band sites, are now showing for what they really are: unnatural. At best the link is devalued. At worst it triggers a physical review.

Link Schemes vs. Link Building

Understanding the variation between link scheming and link building is critically significant in 2014. For webmasters who were doing SEO before Panda, this can be particularly difficult to navigate.

Many have been directly impacted by the Google paradox. Unlike the Einstein theory of insanity, in the Google Paradox, SERPs really do yield different results after doing the same thing (spammy link building) over and over again.
A link scheme that scored number one rankings in 2010 can and will draw a manual or algorithmic punishment, today. That paradox has driven many a webmaster nuts!
According to Google, the following actions are link scheming – not link building:
 

•    Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
 

•    Using automatic programs or services to create links to your site
 

•    Linking to a site for the sole purpose of getting a link back
 

•    Building a link networking for the point of linking
 

•    Large-scale article marketing or guest posting using keyword-rich anchor text
 

•    Buying advertorials or articles that include links that pass PageRank
 

•    Creating & Distributing Press releases with optimized anchor text
lately removed from the guidelines, but still likely to trigger a penalty:
 

•    Linking to web spammers or unrelated sites with the intent to manipulate PageRank
 

•    Links that are inserted into articles with little coherence
 

 Secure Ways to Build Links in 2014

 
 •    Focus external link building efforts on the gaining of editorially given links. These are links requiring human interference and approval.
 

•    Build links that are relevant – on pages where the readers would have a genuine attention in your website.
 

•    Quality trumps quantity. A few links from high trust/authority websites will have more crash than hundreds of links from "Made for Guest Posting" blogs.

There are no more short cuts to link building. The process is hard and time intense. In 2014, it's time to spend the time and the money to do it right so you can stop fearing the Google reaper.

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Most important Google Changes expose the expectations of SEO

 Google is doing a brilliant job of pushing people away from planned SEO behavior and toward a more planned approach.

Here's a look at the major developments, some of Google's initiatives driving this change, and the overall impact these changes will have on SEO.

1. '(Not Provided)'

Google made the move to make all organic searches secure early September 23. This means we've lost the capability to get keyword data for users arriving to our websites from Google search.

Losing Google keyword data is sad for a number of reasons. These impacts publishers in many ways, including losing a valuable tool for understanding what the intent of customers that come to their site, for change optimization, and much more.
For planned SEO efforts, it just means that keywords data is harder to come by. There are ways to work around this, for now, but it just won't be quite as simple as it used to be.
 

2. No Page Rank Update Since February

Google has updated the PageRank numbers shown in the Google Toolbar every 3 months ago or so, but those numbers haven't been updated while February. This means 8 months have gone by, or two updates have been skipped.
In addition, Google's famous Engineer Matt Cutts has said Toolbar PageRank won't be updated again this year, most important many to speculate that PageRank is going away. I won't miss it because I don't look at PageRank often and I normally don't have a Google toolbar in my browser.

3. Hummingbird

There are a small number of elements to Google's Hummingbird algorithm, announced in time for Google's official birthday, but like Caffeine before it, this is really a major platform transform. Google has built a capability to understand conversational search queries much better than before.

For example, submit a query to Google such as "show me pictures of Fenway Park", and it does:

Then you can chase that query with this one: "who plays there", and you get this result:

Both of these show conversational search at work .Hummingbird really changes the keyword game rather a bit. Over time, exact keyword matches will no longer be such a big deal.
 

4. Google+

While it seemed to get off to a slow start at first, many argue that it has developed a lot of momentum, and is growing quickly. The data on Google+'s market share is pretty hard to parse, but there are some clear impacts on search, such as the display of modified results:

In addition, you can also see posts from people on Google+ show up in the results too. This is true even if you do your search in "incognito" mode:

And, while I firmly consider that a link in a Google+ share isn't treated like a regular web link, it seems likely to me that it does have some SEO value when joint with other factors.

How Google+ fits into this picture is that it was built from the ground up to be a content sharing network that helps with establishing "identities" and "semantic relevance". It does this quite well, and in spite of what you might read in some places, there is a ton of action in all kinds of different verticals on Google+.

5. Authorship

OK, authorship also isn't new but it is a part of a bigger picture. Google can use this to connect new pieces of content with the person who wrote it.
Over time, this data can be potentially used to measure which authors write substance that draw a very strong response (links, social shares, +1s, comments) and give them a higher "Author Rank".

We won't look into into the specifics of how Author Rank might work now, but you can read "Want to Rank in Google? Build Your Author Rank Now" for my thoughts on ways they could look at that.

That said, in the future you can imagine that Google could use this as a ranking signal for queries where more complete articles are likely to be a good response. Bottom line: your personal authority matters.

I also should mention Publisher Rank, the concept of building a site's authority, which is perhaps more important. Getting this payoff depends on a holistic approach to building your authority.

6. In-Depth Articles

The Google announcement included a statement that "up to 10% of users' daily information needs engage learning about a broad topic." That is a pretty big number, and I think over time that this characteristic will become a pretty big deal. Effectively, this is an entirely new type of way to rank in the SERPs.

This increases the payoff from Author Rank and Publisher Rank – there is a lot to be gained by developing both of these, assuming that Google actually does make it a ranking factor at some point. Note that I wrote some thoughts on how the role of in-depth articles could evolve.

The focus now is on accepting your target users, producing great content, establishing your authority and visibility, and given that a great experience for the users of your site. Properly architecting your site so that the search engines can understand it, including using schema and related markup, addressing local search , and work of this type still matters, too.

But, the obsession with tactical items like PageRank and keywords is going to weaken away. As Google tweaks the way their service operates, and look for ways to capture new signals, they do things that of course push you in that direction. It isn't going to stop. Expect more of the same going forward.

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Most important Google Changes Reveal the opportunity of SEO

Google is doing a sparkling job of approaching people away from tactical SEO behavior and toward a more strategic approach.

You could argue that "tactical SEO is dead", but that's not reasonably right. And don't run around saying "SEO is dead" because that is far from the truth, and I might just bawl at you.

Instead, let's take a few steps back and appreciate the big picture. Here's a look at the major developments, some of Google's initiatives driving this change, and the overall crash these changes will have on SEO.

1. '(Not Provided)'

Google made the move to make all organic searches secure starting September 23. This means we've lost the capability to get keyword data for users arriving to our websites from Google search.

Losing Google keyword data is sad for a number of reasons. These impacts publishers in many ways, including losing a precious tool for understanding what the intent of customers that come to their site, for conversion optimization, and much more.

For tactical SEO efforts, it just means that keywords data is harder to come by. There are ways to work around this, for now, but it just won't be fairly as simple as it used to be.

2. No PageRank Update since February

Previously, Google has updated the PageRank numbers shown in the Google Toolbar every 3 months ago or so, but those numbers haven't been updated since February. This means 8 months have gone by, or two updates have been skipped.

In addition, Google's famous Engineer Matt Cutts has said Toolbar PageRank won't be updated again this year, leading many to consider that PageRank is going away. I won't miss it because I don't look at PageRank often and I usually don't have a Google toolbar in my browser.

However, a lot of people still use it as a basic measurement of a site's prominence.

For sites with a home page that has PageRank 7 or higher, it may in fact be logical to assume that the site has some chops. Correspondingly, sites with a home page that has a PageRank of 3 or lower, it is either new, or probably a low quality experience. Stuff in the middle, you just don't know.

3. Hummingbird

There are a few fundamentals to Google's Hummingbird algorithm, announced in time for Google's official birthday, but like Caffeine before it, this is really a main platform change. Google has built a capability to understand conversational search queries much better than before.

:Hummingbird really changes the keyword game quite a bit. Over time, exact keyword matches will no longer be such a big contract.

The impact of this algorithm is likely to be quite large over the next 2 or so years. Net-net, they have radically reduced access to the raw data, and are rolling out technology that changes the way it all works at the same time!

4. Google+

Google launched Google+ June 28, 2011.

While it seemed to get off to a slow start primarily, many argue that it has developed a lot of thrust, and is growing rapidly. The data on Google+'s market share is pretty hard to parse, but there are some clear impacts on search, such as the display of modified results:

Hummingbird really changes the keyword game quite a bit. Over time, exact keyword matches will no longer be such a big deal.

The impact of this algorithm is likely to be quite large over the next 2 or so years. Net-net, they have radically reduced access to the raw data, and are rolling out technology that changes the way it all works at the same time.

5. Authorship

OK, authorship also isn't new but it is a part of a bigger picture. Google can use this to associate new pieces of content with the one who wrote it.

Over time, this data can be potentially used to measure which authors write stuff that draw a very sturdy response and give them a higher "Author Rank" .

We won't delve into the particulars of how Author Rank might work now, but you can read "Want to Rank in Google? Build Your Author Rank Now" for my thoughts on ways they could look at that.

That said, in the potential you can imagine that Google could use this as a ranking signal for queries where more comprehensive articles are likely to be a good response. Bottom line: your personal authority matters.

I also should mention Publisher Rank, the concept of building a site's authority, which is arguably more important. Getting this payoff depends on a holistic approach to building your authority.

6. In-Depth Articles

Google announced a new feature, in-depth articles August 6. 

This increases the payoff from Author Rank and Publisher Rank – there is a lot to be gained by developing both of these, assuming that Google actually does create it a ranking factor at some point. Note that I wrote some thoughts on how the role of in-depth articles could evolve.

Is There a Pattern Here?

Yes, there is. The data they have taken away has been in history used by publishers to optimize their SEO efforts in a very tactical manner.

How do I get higher PageRank? What are the keywords I should optimize for? Taking these things out of the picture will reduce the focus on these types of goals.

On the other side of the coin, the six major Google changes listed above are all moves that support more strategic behavior. Note that I didn't bring up Google Now, which is also a really big deal too, and it's another big piece of the Google plan, just not a major driver of the point I'm trying to make today.

All of these new pieces play a role in receiving people to focus on their authority, semantic relevance, and the user knowledge. Again, this is what Google wants.

The focus now is on accepting your target users, producing great content, establishing your authority and visibility, and providing a huge experience for the users of your site. Properly architecting your site so that the search engines can appreciate it, including using schema and related markup, addressing local search, and work of this type still matters, too.

But, the obsession with tactical items like PageRank and keywords is going to fade away. As Google tweaks the way their service operates, and look for ways to capture new signals, they do things that naturally push you in that direction. It isn't going to stop. Wait for more of the same going forward!