Not All Backlinks Are Created Equal

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I received an email from Tiffany Otten at GlobalSpec who wanted to thank me for mentioning her organization in 12 Steps to Dumping Your Marketing Department – Step 3 Hang Out with Your Market. She also brought up a very good point that I really should mention as a follow up.

Google, and other search engines do not view all backlinks equally.

A backlink is a link back to your site from another site. However, most paid directories such as GlobalSpec track the link through their site so that the link ends up looking something like this:

http://www.globalspec.com/Goto/GotoWebPage?gotoUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elawson%2Ecom%2F&gotoType=WebHome&VID=120925

Google, and other search engines, do not consider that link as legitimate as one that is “free and clear” of any other sites. A link of higher quality would look more like:

http://www.yourdomain.com

It’s tough to find a clean answer from the SEO experts on how exactly Google sees the first link. e.g. Is it worth 10% as much as a clean link? 25%? 30%? If you’re like me, you want the specifics so you can manage your SEO efforts more effectively. However I suspect the vagueness of the responses has a lot to do with the ever-changing rules of SEO and that Google is a little coy about releasing any of their search engine algorithms.

Yahoo, as I understand it, has a little looser restriction on the backlinks, but that could change by the time I post this. I haven’t seen anything about how Microsoft’s Bing sees backlinks yet. Any SEO experts want to weigh in on this one?

That said, these paid links should not be included in the same category from other paid links that the SEO experts will warn you about. As long as paid directories like GlobalSpec are consistent with your theme, you shouldn’t be dinged for using them. (At least according to the rules as of this moment!)

Thanks again Tiffany for suggesting this clarification.

All the best!

Melissa