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Eric Ward on ‘The Passively-Obtained Backlink’

Eric Ward is one of the most respected experts on linking on the Web. His latest article is a good read and one that I think highlights what a good link building strategy should be:

Every web site has its own universe of inbound links it can reasonably expect to come about from a passive approach.  But you can’t just sit back and wait for a webmaster somewhere to happen upon your site and link to it.  The key is to be strategically active, rather than randomly active.

This isn’t referring to an approach that requires 1000 reciprocal links on your site, or buying links from 50 “SEO-spam-directory-listing.com” type Web sites. Instead, think about where you could be linked from sites in, or related to, your industry. This will likely not require money, but instead, will require time.

As search engine link algorithms improve, quality links will perform much better than reciprocal or spam directory links. Any possible algorithmic feature-whether Hilltop, TrustRank, “the sandbox” or VIPS-will reward HQ links over spammy links. And if you have a long term SEO strategy, that fact should dominate your link building strategy going
forward.

Read more: Linking’s Holy Grail: The
Passively-Obtained Backlink