Don’t Do This

We all know the importance of incoming links to search engine results position, so we are all conditioned to seek incoming links.  However, the recent changes by Google–and their announced intent–has made some favorite strategies for getting links downright dangerous.  Here are three of them that you’ll do well to avoid.

Spammy Directories

There are a lot of poor-quality directories that are just lists of Web sites organized topically in some fashion.  This is not the way to stand out in your field.  If you can get listed in a directory of sites in your field, preferably with some comments other than just a listing, then that can have value by brining visitors from the directory as well as the value of the link.

Forums

Conversational forums are a great way to get an incoming link.  But there are so many listings.  However, the link that you include in your comment may be moderated out of your comment.  Forums are often updated so often that your single posting will just be swamped by the volume of updates.  Incoming links from forums are an example of the sort of links that may be targets of future Google updates.

Spammy Blog Comments

There are lots of blogs and comments in the blogs provide you with links.  However, here, too, the moderator may decide to mark your link no follow, so that you don’t get help with your search engine position.  There are high quality blogs that are authoritative in your discipline, and links from them will help you.  But go for quality and authority.

The Bottom Line–Do Do This

Relevance and authoritativeness triumph.  Participate in relevant, authoritative directories and blogs.  Do things that look real to the search engines because they are real.