The objective is not to “make your links appear natural,” the objective is that your links are natural.
If backlinks are like votes, then it follows that link spam could be likened to ballot stuffing, and followed advertisements and affiliate links likened to vote buying. When domains participate in these practices to influence their positions within organic search results, they are effectively influencing the governing body’s (aka Google’s) understanding of who the people voted for — and in turn, rigging the “election.”
In the real world, these actions can have serious consequences. In the SEO world, the same is true — sites are penalized (aka put in “Google Jail”) and demoted in rank, effectively pushing them out of their positions of influence. With penalization having the potential to impact thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue, fixating on backlinks as a marketing strategy is a huge gamble for a lot of big-name sites.
Many digital marketers from the last decade have recklessly played the long con called link building and have bet against the house in the hopes of climbing the ranking ladder. A lot of us are guilty of this, including myself.
In the last few years, however, with the clarifications Google has made in its Quality Guidelines (Yes, Link Schemes provides clarity, if you know how to read between the lines), those who “get” this industry have recognized what it is Google wants and expects from their sites: a solid user experience, and valuable, authoritative information.
Backlinks are a happy result of a job well done
Is it really links you’re going after, or is it engagement? Brand awareness? Traffic that converts? Links are an outcome not goal #1.
— Adam Audette (@audette)
Backlinks were never meant to be the origin point of a marketing campaign, but rather a result of (or even reward for) those efforts. Sure, they contribute to how competitive you are in the search results, but this is based solely on the idea that those backlinks were legitimately gained and represent the people’s choice.
We, as SEOs, need to step away from the dials and stop trying to game an ever-evolving and highly complex algorithm. Instead, let’s get back to the SEO basics of building technically sound sites that crawlers can find, read and understand.
Let’s develop, market, and share content that helps our customers improve their lives, expand their thinking, and get involved in the important conversations happening around them. Let’s stop looking for the gaps in the system and start paying attention to what really matters: user value and a quality experience.
