The work of an optimizer in a digital agency Agence 25 involves making various changes to the site and constantly analyzing search engine promotion trends. Specialized SEO forums are often used, where colleagues share their observations and project changes. In discussion threads, the question about the relevance of links and the development of a link profile often pops up, in connection with which we decided to share our thoughts and talk about the influence of the link mass on promotion at the current time.
What is the link mass of a site?
Before we start analyzing the latest changes in search engine algorithms and discussing SEO trends, let’s remember what a link profile of a resource is and why it is so important. So, every website that has existed for at least a few months has links to other sites linking to it. For young resources, as a rule, these are technical URLs from various catalogs and directories. For old ones, this is a list of multiple sites with a link to the site. For a long time, it was believed that the more links a project has, the better its position in the search results. Still, since Yandex and Google’s ranking algorithms were updated, external backlinks’ value was first reduced. The sites began to be punished for spam placement. As a result, companies had to think not about increasing the link mass but about how to get the place out of the search engine filter . A few years after the introduction of new algorithms against low-quality link mass, you could still meet companies that actively rented links on websites, but their number was rapidly decreasing.
How the work with the link profile has changed
Sites with rented links in the footer have been replaced by feature articles with anchor hyperlinks in the text. Although such pages looked more natural, the presence of text in the note made it possible to get citations and the external URL. As a result, optimizers began to massively write feature articles, link them and add material to various web resources. The same note was often rewritten so many times that the text became similar to a machine-made set of phrases.
The choice of donor sites has also changed. Optimizers began to pay attention to attendance, ICS indicators (a parameter that replaced the TIC), spam levels, and domain trust. However, one thing remained unchanged – the content was placed on web resources of various topics. For example, they could have published an article on the medical portal about the choice of cornices or cheap freight. Although such link building looked very comical, soon, search engines began to punish for such placement, and SEO specialists needed to constantly check the link mass of the site for low-quality and non-thematic links.
The relevance of the reference mass in the current time
Nowadays, everything related to link building is often called a waste of time. In the dialogs of optimizers, you can regularly find phrases that the section with external links in the web admin has not been working for a year, Yandex does not look at the URL when ranking, and any purchase of commercial links will only harm the resource. As arguments, you can see clippings from the rules of Yandex Webmaster itself and several examples from personal experience. At the same time, leading promotion agencies are in no hurry to remove from the SEO checklist a line about work on developing a link profile. This suggests that the relevance of backlinks is still there. Still, these works are not limited to the banal buying of sites and primitive copywriting of the same type of articles. Developing a link profile at the current time requires long and painstaking work throughout the month. In promotion reports, you rarely see an extensive list of purchased links. Often it’s only 1-2 thematic URLs.
How to work with links?
Although many private SEO specialists have practically abandoned links, it is possible to work on a link profile. With due attention, links can be helpful. It is important to remember that at the current time, quality decides, and you should not rush into link building. Even if you did not find a single site in a month, you should not despair. In the last article, we discussed how and what links to add to a website without the risk of getting sanctions by search engines. Now let’s pay attention to the fact that the indicators of “trust” and “spam” have decreased their value. When choosing a site, in addition to checking the domain and subject, you need to look at the statistics of clicks. The resource must be live. Otherwise, no one will read your material, no one will click on the hyperlink, and you will not increase behavioral factors.
A look into the future
The trend shows that it takes more and more time to work with the link mass, which means that studios with their own SEO staff will be able to provide such a service. Private specialists will most likely replace it with other work or make it a separate expense item. If we talk about the impact on the issuance, Yandex links slightly complement other SEO activities. At Google, the link profile is taken into account by the robot. Old authoritative sites affect ranking and issuance. So far, there have been no announcements of new algorithms, which means that the relevance of link building is still present at the moment.