Does Link Building Violate Google’s Guidelines?

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Before we dive into this topic, let's take a step back and explore Google’s foundations and the evolution of link-building.

A Brief History of Google and Why Links Are Critical

In 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed an algorithm called PageRank that would later become the foundation for Google. It calculated a website’s authority based on the number of sites linking to it.

Basically, if a site has more links — especially from other trustworthy sites — then Google deems it more authoritative and tends to rank it higher in search results.

Initially, Google displayed “PageRank” as a metric in its toolbar. It was, however, based on a 0-10 numbering system, unlike the actual metric that’s based on a logarithmic scale.

Nevertheless, SEOs became fixated on it as a means to improve rankings. And soon, PageRank started to be manipulated, with money changing hands for links.

A public score of PageRank was easier to manipulate with each site’s authority out in the open.

If we look at this from Google’s perspective, the public-facing PageRank toolbar was a problem. Without this, there was no accurate measure of a webpage’s authority (at least officially). So it was harder to manipulate the score.

Ultimately, SEOs abused PageRank and used it to manipulate rankings. That was likely why Google retired the toolbar in 2016.

Today, metrics such as DR from Ahrefs and DA from Moz / Semrush can be used to estimate PageRank. However, they're not perfect and merely estimate a website's authority.

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As you see, Links are the foundation of the modern web. Without them, Google won’t even be able to find you on the World Wide Web.

Google’s Stance on Link Building

With PageRank being retired, it's evident that Google is opposed to any kind of manipulative technique to build links and they’ve been very vocal about it. Here’s what Google says in their Link Spam guidelines:

Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam.

In other words, literally, anything you do to acquire links is a violation of their guidelines. Google wants you to publish your content and pray for people to link to your website. Not going to happen, right?!

Oh, btw one of the lines in their guideline says:

Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking may be termed as link spam.

Notice the word “excessive”. They too realize links are the foundation of the web and if you don’t build them they too won’t be able to find your valuable website.

Link Building is Inevitable

Google believes that truly outstanding content would get linked by authority websites. I agree but then what’s so unique about a CRM listicle? And yet you want to rank for the term “CRM software” if you sell one.

Let me break it to you, having great content and website performance is table stakes today. The majority of tech websites do a decent job at it. The only distinguishing factor is your domain’s authority. If you are sitting on your butt waiting for a website to link to you, better say goodbye to your dreams of ranking on the SERP.

Almost, all tech websites today are engaged in some kind of link-building. They do it in private - through their closed network, Slack community, guest posts, paid agencies, or paid link insertions. However, it’s important to realize you should be building links in a sensible way. In a way you don’t fall into the “excessive” links category as Google defines it.

Before, exploring the sensible way, let's understand the evolution of Google’s search algorithm over the years. What’s changed and what no longer works?

Links that don’t add value:

As SEOs understood the building blocks of Google, they started exchanging links to boost their sites’ authority. And hence started a forever dance between Google plugging holes in their algorithm and SEOs trying to reverse-engineer it.

Common and Easy links

The following links can be obtained easily today:

Directory Listing

Social Profile

Blog commenting

Posting to forums, communities, and Q&A sites.

Since these links are easy to obtain, search engines devalued the link value that you receive from them.

However, that shouldn’t discourage you from building Social Media profiles. You should have them as a foundational layer to build upon.

Unrelated links

Earlier SEOs would build any kind of links from partner websites and see a ranking boost. For example, you would see a link to “best insurance company in New Jersey” in a car service blog.

In 2016, Google released the Penguin update, which neutralized the link value that was being passed through such unnatural / un-contextual links.

Exact Anchor Text Link

SEOs have a tendency to associate a keyword for a page and then build links on that specific keyword alone. Let's say you have a page on “dog food” and you go ahead and get 100 links from other websites just on “dog food”.

When a Search Engine looks at your page’s link profile and encounters 90% of links on anchor text “dog food” it's surely going to detect it as spam.

One should be conscious of this and allow partner websites to link on anchor text they deem appropriate.

Reciprocal Links

A reciprocal link exchange occurs when website A links to website B, and website B links to website A. These links are typically evident in Google’s eyes and are devalued.

We recommend exploring 3-way link exchanges where there are more than 2 partners involved. This is typically done so contextual links are not detected as spam by search engines.

Guest Posts

In 2014, Google’s former head of web spam, Matt Cutts, published a blog post proclaiming that “guest blogging is done.” However, he was primarily referring to low-quality guest blogging published on low-quality sites for links.

Writing a valuable blog post for an established site with a relevant audience will still help your SEO and is unlikely to hurt it.

The Right Way To Build Backlinks

Link building is a byproduct of the modern web and there’s no escaping it. If you want to drive more traffic to your site and rank higher in the SERPs, you'll need to build inbound links, and they wouldn’t always be natural.

Still, to make your link-building efforts seem more organic, consider the following:

Avoid link stuffing: Don't place too many links (irrelevant or hidden) on a page to boost its ranking.

Use contextual links - Prioritise links that enhance the reader’s experience and provide valuable information.

Avoid using the same anchor text: Using the same anchor text for all your backlinks will make your link profile look spammy.

Remember, link building isn’t inherently bad for SEO. In fact, it’s a necessity, given that content quality and user experience aren’t enough to secure backlinks. Nevertheless, there’s a strategic way to do link-building (as highlighted above) and it's prudent that you master it to hack your way to the top of the rankings.