There was a time, before Google, when webmasters who owned websites would link to other websites just because they’d found something useful or interesting there.
No one charged for links, no one demanded them, and no one certainly went out and tried to build as many as links as possible.
Then Google came along and everything changed.
Once Google realized that links were a really great way of evaluating exactly how good a website was, backlinks stopped being so innocent. Instead, they turned into something that every webmaster ‘needed’.
From there on out it was only a matter of time until things evolved to exactly what they are now – where link building isn’t natural, and doesn’t happen ‘innocently’, but rather is a convoluted maze of barter trades and high value demands.
Buying, Selling and Trading Links
Let’s face it – links are now a commodity, and everyone knows it. As much as Google and other search engines issue guidelines against buying, selling or trading links, the fact that links are in such high demand makes it inevitable that some will try to do so.
Most SEO services engage in these sort of practices. After all, what choice do they have? If they aren’t buying links, others are going to do so and surpass them, which will cause them to lose clients. Some of the more respectable services inform their clients about their practices, but others do not.
Even if SEO services and webmasters don’t actually ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ links, they very often end up trading them. At times this may be via reciprocal linking, but at other times it may take the form of a link for an exchange of some other service.
Yes it sounds very shady, but is there really an alternative? Can links actually be built naturally in an environment where everyone who knows anything about SEO is aware of exactly how valuable they are?
Search Engines Shifting Away From Backlinks
It would seem as though Google has decided the answer is ‘no’. Recent developments seem to suggest that Google has started diversifying the factors that influence rankings on their results – by adding social factors into the mix.
For now, this to be relatively less prone to abuse – but if it does catch on you can bet that it is only a matter of time before people attempt to game that system too.
In order to reassure webmasters, Google’s often quoted line is to focus on building quality websites – and not regard their ranking as the final goal. As you can imagine, this isn’t very reassuring for webmasters who require traffic in order to turn a profit!
For now it would seem that the best way to go about link building without getting on the bad side of search engines would be to do so at a measured pace. Content that is worthy of being link-bait doesn’t hurt either – and if properly promoted this could probably generate a fair amount of natural links.
It really is impossible to tell how search engine algorithms will evolve over the next few years – but as of right now ‘link building’, especially for SEO services, is bound to not be entirely natural in nature.