Link Building, the process of encouraging other websites to link to your website, is a vital part of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). To improve our link building strategies we do extensive research and development including link classification methods. This article details some of the ‘link types’ we’ve identified through our research.
There’s a few different ways to classify link types but we like to focus on;
- Link Reason/s – the reasons links are being given
- Link Context – the type of page the link appears on and its immediate context and position
If we can understand the reasons that links are given, we can better tailor both our content and outreach to leverage those reasons and get more links. The context of a link can give us some immediate insight into the link reason and value of the link which improves our classification process and efficiency.
Link Reason/s
Broadly speaking, most link reasons fall into two different categories;
- Attribution Links
- Resource Links
We’ll go into more details about each of these types in our article on linking reasons.
Link Context
This is a list of the most common types of source page (or parts of a page) that link to other websites. When we do backlink analysis, we use this list as an initial step to quickly sort the links and then focus more closely on those that are most valuable.
Learn more in our article: How to evaluate links for link building.
Most Valuable Link Contexts
Articles & Links Lists
Articles and link lists (from unaffiliated websites) are the most valuable (in terms of Relative SEO Value) link contexts for SEO because links from them, known as ‘contextual links,’ have the highest chance of being editorial. Further analysis is required to determine why these links are given and how they can be replicated.
Relative SEO Value: medium – high
Backlink reasons: Editorial resource links, editorial attribution links (many of these links may also be given for black hat reasons but disguised as editorial links)
Note: Links from guest posts and article marketing shouldn’t be confused with the ‘articles’ mentioned in this section. More on this distinction below.
Least Valuable Link Contexts
Links that occur in the following contexts tend to not be very valuable. Once we’ve identified that they fall into this type, we put them to one side and focus our attention on the more valuable types above.
Blog Comments, Profiles, Discussions & Other Self Created
Links in these contexts are generally not very valuable for SEO because anyone can create them so the links aren’t an indication of authority to Google (Google is looking for links that have been giving editorially).
However, these page types and link types can be beneficial for other purposes such as traffic and relationship building. Being an active participant in discussions on forums and in the comments of blogs related to your industry is a good way to build your authority and personal brand and network with other website owners which could bring editorial links, traffic and referrals indirectly.
Relative SEO Value: low – medium
Backlink reasons: Self created (attribution), affiliation (attribution), value exchange (attribution), user generated/organic (either resource or attribution)
Auto Generated & Same as Target
These page / link types are so low value that they are not worth worrying about.
- Auto generated pages such as search results, website analysis, auto curation tools etc. are non-editorial by definition.
- ‘Same as Target’ refers to source pages that either redirect to the target page or they are exactly the same as the target page
Relative SEO Value: zero – low
Backlink reasons: N/A (probably not deliberately placed for SEO)
In-Between / Require Further Investigation
Links that occur in these contexts are a bit of mixed bag.
Business Directories
We always do further investigation of directories to see if they could be incorporated into our Australian Business Directories list.
Relative SEO Value: low – medium
Backlink reasons: Self created (attribution), value exchange (attribution), editorial (loosely given) (attribution)
Guest Posts
Guest Post links are often self created and/or value exchange links but they can be editorially given in some cases. More about this including our policy and best practices on Guest Posting can be found here.
Relative SEO Value: low – high
Backlink reasons: Self Created (attribution), editorial (attribution or resource), value exchange (attribution)
Footer, Sidebar & Other Site-Wide Links
It is generally accepted that backlinks that appear on every page of the source website, usually in the sidebar or footer, have a low Relative SEO Value. Their location also usually suggests some kind of relationship between the source and target websites which would be difficult to replicate.
Relative SEO Value: low – medium
Backlink reasons: Affiliation (attribution), value exchange (attribution), editorial (attribution or resource)