Links remain one of the most important external ranking factors, among those used by Google and other search engines. Search engines discover new content through links, and this is partly how they judge the quality of that content.
Good links are like votes; they indicate how valuable the content is, and Google considers a healthy link profile to be a good sign. On the other hand, Google has improved its ability to detect unnatural link patterns over time.
The search engine is much better at recognizing which types of links are useful to users, and also which are not. This means that the old link strategies no longer work, or do not work as well as they used to. That is where link building comes into play .
WHAT IS LINK BUILDING?
Linkbuilding , which can be translated as link building, is the term that designates the way in which marketing and SEO professionals get links to your content.
Getting high-quality website links can give your website authority and help rank higher in search engine results pages (or SERPs ).
Links are an important part of any SEO strategy, but you can't set them and forget about them. Links can disappear, become toxic , or lose relevance over time.
This means you have to keep looking for new link opportunities to keep your SERP rankings high. All of these activities are part of link building .
NOT ALL LINKS ARE CREATED EQUAL
Since its inception, search engines treat links as votes for popularity and relevance on the web. But, when people began to learn about the power of links, they began to manipulate them to their advantage.
So they found ways to get artificial links to increase their search engine rankings. While these dangerous tactics can sometimes work, they go against Google's terms of service and can cause a website to be deindexed (removed from search results).
For this reason you should try to maintain a healthy link profile. But first, it is convenient to know the types of links that exist.
INCOMING LINKS
Inbound links, also known as backlinks or external links, are those that lead from one website to another. They are the currency of the Internet, as they work much like reputation does in real life.
If you go on vacation and ask four different (and unrelated) people which is the best restaurant in the city you're going to, and most of them say the same thing, you'll be convinced that it's true. Links do that for search engines.
INTERNAL LINKS
Internal links, or links that connect internal pages of the same domain , work similarly to external links, but within your website. A large number of internal links pointing to a particular page on your site will tell Google that the page is relevant, as long as it does so naturally.
LINKS WITH NOFOLLOW ATTRIBUTE
Remember that links work as popularity votes? Well, these links can carry the rel=“nofollow” attribute that allows linking to a resource but eliminating the validity of that vote, for the purposes of search engines.
Just as it sounds, “ no follow ” (literally, do not follow) tells search engines not to follow the link. Some engines still follow them just to discover new pages, but these links do not influence the ranking of either site.
This makes them useful in cases where a page links to an unreliable source or for whatever reason you don't want to link to your website.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIENCE, AUTHORITY AND TRUST
Google places great importance on the concept of EAT, an acronym for Expertise , Authoritativeness , and Trustworthiness .
Sites that don't display these features tend to be viewed as lower quality, while those that do are rewarded. EAT is becoming more and more important as algorithms evolve to understand user intent.
The more popular and important a website is, the more weight the links from it carry. A website like Wikipedia, for example, has thousands of different sites linking to it. This means that you bring a lot of experience, that you have gained authority and that you are trusted among these other sites.
HOW TO GET A GOOD LINKBUILDING?
To gain trust and authority with search engines, you need links from sites that have good EAT properties. They don't have to be Wikipedia-level sites, but they do need to offer search engines credible and trustworthy content.
As a curious note, external links in all Wikipedia articles have the rel=“nofollow” attribute , so they do not contribute to the relevance or authority of the linked sites in the References section of each article.
Avoiding bad practices during link building, such as forced, paid or low quality links, will help you stay away from penalties. Detecting toxic links and having a clear policy to deal with them is another point to consider.
Creating a site that is considered expert, authoritative and trustworthy should be your guide when it comes to practicing SEO, and especially when planning your link building strategy . You will not only get a better site, but one prepared for the future.
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