Link Building Tip: How NOT to Build Backlinks

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Home » Link Building

Link Building Tip: How NOT to Build Backlinks

Submitted by R.J. Breakaway Adams on Friday, 2 May 200819 Comments

I have so far written all about tips and techniques for building backlinks and different tools to help you along the way. Many of you have thanked me for these tips and ideas, and I’ve had especially great responses to our dofollow blog search engine. When I read around the internet for link building information, I usually come across the same old ideas over and over and over. And many of the ideas are good. But, a lot of the information is outdated, and what worked in 2004, won’t necessarily work now, but there’s still many sites that exist in order to build backlinks, using outdated methods that just won’t help your search engine rankings.

Here are some of the link building tactics to stay away from:

Classified Sites
There are tons of classified sites online, the major one being Craigslist. Many people like to use these types of sites because posting an ad can be quick and easy. The problem is, the ad with your link expires in like 7-14 days (if it doesn’t get flagged as spam before then) and then your time spent building that link, even if small, was a waste of your time.

Free For All (FFA) Sites
These are pages that have 1000000’s of links on them, because it’s free for everyone to use and post a link on there. Aside from the fraction of link juice you get, it is all worthless. Don’t use these types of sites.

“Add Our Widget On Your Site for Backlinks” type of sites
There are a few sites like this…. If they want you to put a widget on your site that automatically puts links on your page, this is worthless and dangerous, because you have no clue what you’re linking to. Plus, if Google decides to ban that program you’re using because of their tactics, then they can easily find pages with their widget code on there, meaning your site, and then penalizing you. I am not talking about Entrecard or such sites. Ones that are based on text links… such a text link ads.

Stay away from these types of sites…

If you want to build good backlinks, why not try out our DoFollow Blogs Search Engine for great quality links on tons of blogs!

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19 Comments »

Mark Cuda said:

Great tips, I’ve actually tried using one of these before. :s I know now not to!
Mark Cuda’s last blog post..The Freelancer’s Guide: Part Three

- 2 May 2008 at 3:00 pm

NYC said:

Hi there This backlink thing has me a little bit confused.
When trying to build links, are dofollow comments and directories a really good choice? I mean, can you make your blog/site in the top ten search results with only these kind of backlinks?

I’ve started some little niche blogs, and it’s very difficult to get some ‘real’ link from another related blog/site, so my only choice is commenting on dofollows and submitting articles to directories and so on.
Does that really work? Please, bear my english I guess I feel a little bit lost now that I started this niche thing. Thanks in advance for all your help!! Mia

NYC’s last blog post..Comer al aire libre en pleno Manhattan, o un simple trago : Revel

- 2 May 2008 at 3:14 pm

Breakaway said:

It all depends on your niche… if you are providing content about your topic, then yah, if you are building backlinks with just articles, directories, and blog comments, and even some forum signatures, it is possible to get a #1 ranking… I have a buddy who did… The key with backlinks is to keep on building and building and building, and if you keep putting effort to it, then you will see the returns sooner or later. Some methods may boost you temporarily but they will most likely hurt you in the long run.

My goal here is to throw out a ton of ideas so that a few stick, and as you work on those ones that stick for you, you’ll be building backlinks.

- 2 May 2008 at 4:20 pm

Web Development Blog said:

Alright, thanks for the look out, BUT what about these “pagehole” sites? e.g..: http://pagehole.com where you buy a back link for a $1? Is it worth it?

Web Development Blog’s last blog post..Long Term Project Planning - Part 2

- 2 May 2008 at 6:02 pm

Stu the Australian SEO said:

Spammy links (freeforalls etc) will not hurt your site.

If they did, it would make it too simple for me to hurt my opposition.

It’s true that the search engines might ignore the links, but you won’t be penalised for them

- 2 May 2008 at 6:03 pm

Breakaway said:

That’s true…. you can’t actually HURT your site through backlinks, but you can hurt your overall backlinks if you waste 30 mins a day building links on these types of sites, as opposed to other backlinks…. 30 minutes a day, can be say 6 backlinks…. for 200 days a year, thats 1200 backlinks a year you’ve lost and ‘hurt’ yourself by not building, by wasting time on spammy sites.

- 2 May 2008 at 6:19 pm

Empire Autopilot Jon said:

leaving on blogs is probably the best juice and all the major places like digg etc. There’s also writing articles and posting gets u a bit of backlinking.

- 2 May 2008 at 9:53 pm

Aurelius Tjin said:

The ideas and insights are very worth reading. You really gave me valuable information. Thanks for sharing it!

Aurelius Tjin’s last blog post..“I’m an Internet Marketer”

- 3 May 2008 at 12:48 am

Sacramento Wedding DJs said:

Great article………many years ago I used Craigslist (when it had a 30-day post life)….but now that its on a 7 day cycle, CL is useless for backlinks…..thanks for the tips, I’ve had this site bookmarked for quite a while!!!

- 3 May 2008 at 8:32 am

Polina said:

Thank you for the great tips. I have recently been told that inbound link’s quality shouldn’t be taken into consideration, that you should be worry only about quality of sites you are linking to… I’ve been in doubts about it… And now you’ve cleared out my doubts:)

- 3 May 2008 at 9:52 am

Dennis Edell said: