Backlinks are one of the most important ingredients of a successful SEO plan. Links inform the search engine that the website has enough authority to be trusted. But having a lot of backlinks doesn’t necessarily mean to be recognized trustworthy and be pushed to the top of the results page by the search engine. The type of the link is also very important. The more valuable the link is, the more recognition from the search engines the site gets. In this article, we will talk you through the different types of backlinks, from the highest-quality, to medium-quality and lowest-quality ones.
The best backlinks
1. Editorial links
We will begin with the most valuable links that are the most effective in driving traffic and increasing the search engine presence of a website. The first ones are editorial backlinks. An editorial link is used by a reputable website to refer to your website in a piece of high-quality content. This may include citing a person from your company as a reliable source of information, referring to products on your site as being trusted and worthy of a try, or mentioning your website as a contributor to the creation of the piece of content.
How to get editorial links?
If you have a new website, the only way to get editorial links is by making quality content that turns your site into a reliable source of information. You can address relevant topics that would spark the interest of readers and use quality content that deserves to be trusted and refered to. By having an informationally rich and captivating website, you raise your change of acquiring editorial backlinks from other websites that are already recognized by the search engines.
2. Guest blogging links
To receive this type of links you need to run an intense guest posting activity. Create valuable content and post it as a guest on a website. If the owners of the website are satisfied with your piece of content, they may pay back with an editorial link to your lesser-known site, which may rocket you up to the top result pages of the search engine. A guest blogging link is valuable and is capable of driving traffic on the author’s site, because it is placed in the body of the content.
See Also : How to Build High Quality Backlinks
Good backlinks
1. Acknowledgement links
We will move now to good backlinks which are not that valuable and authoritative as the previously mentioned ones, but are still capable of sending positive signals and improving your search engine visibility. Here, a website refers to another site as a part of a partnership between the two. It’s a kind of promotional affair where an authoritative site tells the search engine that it trusts a lesser-known website, encouraging, thus, the search engine to give more value and visibility to the latter.
The backlink doesn’t necessarily have much content about the brand it refers to. It’s just a short mentioning amidst a piece of content that may not even be related to the niche of the promoted product.
See Also : Easy Link Building Strategies Everybody Can Use
2. Badge links
This one is also a sort of promotional backlink within a partnership between two websites. It works simple. A reputable, higher-ranked website creates a branded badge and awards it to another website which, most of the time, is lesser-known. The search engine will start to associate the two sites, giving more recognition to the refered to, lower-ranked site.
3. Guest post bio links
Some blogging sites refuse placing a backlink to an author’s site in their piece of content. However, they may allow the author to add a link in the author bio section. Since the backlink is not in the main body of the content, it is less valuable and holds less power in pushing you upwards in the search engine. Nonetheless, it is still a step in acquiring a certain degree of recognition from the search engine.
Read More : Ways To Earn Whitehat Backlinks
This type of backlink is hugely used on social media. You include a link to your brand while posting a comment on a website or a social media page. This is a nice way to drive traffic to your site and make more people familiar with your service. However, this backlink is used also by spammers, which encourages the search engine to behave more cautious and award less value to them, but the links still work if you run a healthy online commenting activity. That is, don’t overuse this opportunity, by posting comments on as many sites as you can. Instead, focus only on websites from your niche or having at least a relavant association to your brand.
5. PBN Backlink
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a network of sites with authority and power in the eyes of search engines like Google. This network point backlink to your money-site. Money-site is the target that will benefit from the PBN Network. It can be one you have or your customer.
PBN (Private Blog Network) web link used to be called a high TF backlink. TF means Trust Flow. Google still utilizing it as part of their algorithm in private.
See Also : What Is A PBN Backlink? And How to Build It
Bad backlinks
1. Low-relevance press release links
Acquiring links for shared press releases may be a great way to improve the traffic on your site and improve the value of your brand. Still, it only works if you share truly relavant and eye-catching news related to your industry. If you post hundreds of insignificant press releases one after another it will look like spam and the search engine will grow suspicious about your website, attributing low value to the backlinks used to refer to it.
2. Forum links
Playing a trick on the search engine is not that easy. You may try to take the shortcut, joining lots of forums and post links about your brand. But it will not result in anything good for you. You have to have quality content and join only forums related to your industry to appeal to the search engine.
Bottom line
While all backlinks seem beneficial at first sight, it is not so. There are healthy backlinks that help your brand grow to a lesser or larger extent, like: editorial, blogging, acknowledgement and badge ones. Others, though, are low-quality and will do nothing but harm your website, such as: paid links and links promoting non-newsworthy press releases.
Read More : The Importance of Backlinks for your Website