Link Building – Leveraging Pre-Existing Sites to Build Authority

January 11th, 2008 | 13 comments

Authority Link Building Obviously the best way to build links is by doing nothing at all (natural.) However, some sites just won’t gain natural links; they need a boost. For instance, I just started a fresh water fish blog. If I just start building content without building any links on my own what do you think the chances are of that blog being found? Very little!

If one really dug down deep, they could probably say that link building is actually unethical because you’re manually boosting the incoming links to your site, which influences the sites rankings in the SE’s. But if you know your site contains great content, it just needs visitors, is it unethical? I don’t think so!

You Probably Have Alot To Offer And Don’t Realize It

In the past few years I’ve built up a pretty big inventory of Websites. While they are all white-hat, some retain traffic while others don’t, some are well optimized while others aren’t and some I feel have more potential than others. However, all of them that aren’t brand-new possess a certain amount of authority and value. If they’re indexed in the SE’s and have any rankings at all they have value and they possess the power to pass authority through linking!

Understanding What People Want

This is easy. People want to receive more than they provide. It’s kind of crappy, but it’s a fact of life. I’m sure this is true for all of us. Some of us don’t mind helping someone out, but the majority won’t even respond unless they get something out of it.

What To Do With That Unused Authority

Use it to give more than you receive! — I love big, juicy site-wide links. Although Google doesn’t like them as much as they did in the past, they are still very valuable and can increase your incoming links by the thousands with one simple link.

So what do I do? I want to build links to mysite.com so I offer a site-wide link on one of my other sites that I don’t promote anymore, but still passes authority. Just because I don’t promote it any longer doesn’t mean it offers worthless links! This site should at least have most of it’s pages indexed by the SE’s so those links count. Since I know it’s probably still not a fair trade I also offer 3 or 4 single page links on another of my sites with their choice of anchor text.

They get a site-wide link on one site plus 3 or 4 individual links on another and all I’m asking for is one little link in their sidebar, which happens to appear on all of their thousands of pages.

Seems simple enough, but it’s very effective. The idea of leveraging several sites with a little authority to build one site with alot of authority is extremely effective.

I’ve just begun using pretty much the same technique to get my new Article Directory going and I’ve used a similar technique to promote the main directory of this site, which now ranks on the front page of Google for Make Money Online.

This is an excellent way to use the authority you’ve built up in dormant sites to build authority in those sites you now actively promote, while avoiding Reciprocal Linking.

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13 comments

Amanda (10 comments.)
11th January, 2008 at 8:23 pm

Interesting post Josh. I have to admit that link building is a pretty confusing topic for me. I usually get that deer in the headlight look whenever I read about it.

For those of us with not a lot of other sites to depend on do you think our time would be more wisely spent submitting articles and building up our site with content than link building in general?
Josh Spaulding
11th January, 2008 at 8:29 pm

Hi Amanda,

I can see where it could get confusing. There many different techniques and methods and then you have all of the opinions floating around and it’s hard to decide what works and what doesn’t.

This post was intended for those who do already have some established sites obviously, but you are correct in assuming a good way to get a site going is to do some basic link building via articles, web directories, forums etc. Of course building a site with content should be first before anything else.
(EMP) E-Marketing Performance » : » Team Reading List 1.14.08
14th January, 2008 at 3:28 pm

[...] Link Building-Leveraging Pre-Existing Sites to Build Authority [...]
Kyle Eslick
14th January, 2008 at 8:52 pm

I’ve set up a few extra sites in the past. Some still get some traffic and I try to give them a post occasionally to keep the search engines happy, but for the most part they are dormant.

I’ve made a practice of adding site-wide links to my other sites from these blogs, or will sometimes place a 125×125 banner up in the meantime while i have an advertising opening. So far it has worked pretty well!
Josh Spaulding
14th January, 2008 at 9:19 pm

Hey Kyle,

I’m not sure of the effectiveness of interlinking our own sites. Most of my sites on separate c-classes and I do believe that helps, but when they’re all on the same c-class I’ve noticed the links are discounted.

Jon actually talks about that in his ebook (latest post,) but it’s still a little unclear overall to me. Maybe you know a bit more on the subject?

btw, thanks for the recent link love. I’ll be returning the favor in the near future.
Victor
7th March, 2008 at 2:47 pm

I need to get busy and do some testing. I just read another interesting way to get high quality backlinks. Simply type your keyword into Google and look through the top 10 or 20 results for sites that accept links or articles. These may be directories or social bookmarking sites. Seems like a simple way to take advantage of sites that are already well ranked for your keyword phrase.
Josh Spaulding
7th March, 2008 at 3:09 pm

@ Victor – It can be. Generally social bookmarking sites and web directories aren’t going to do you a whole lot of good, but they are a good way to get a site started. If you’re competing for a competitive niche I can’t see them as being much of a help.

If it’s a competitive niche you’re probably not going to find web directories and/or social bookmarking sites ranking anywhere near the top anyway.

If you’re targeting long-tail keywords though, it wouldn’t hurt
Is Reciprocal Linking Still Effective?
24th March, 2008 at 4:53 pm

[...] Another thing I like to do is triangular links where site A links to site B, site B links to site C and site C completes the triangle by linking to site A. This requires you have other sites that you can use to leverage the trade, but it’s very effective. I wrote more about that in a previous post titled “Leveraging Pre-Existing Sites to Build Authority.” [...]
Victor
24th March, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Josh,

What do you think of 3 way link membership sites where the link building process is automated? If that is unethical, then is PPC or any form of paid advertising also unethical? I agree with you that it boils down to the quality of my site content. As long as I don’t spam anyone I can use link building tools to help me with ranking. I think Google may have a double standard when it comes to artificially boosting results. Isn’t that what PPC is all about? Would Google reject a PPC bidder/client because their site is not up to standard?
Josh Spaulding
24th March, 2008 at 9:30 pm

@ Victor – It all depends on the site. As far as it being ethical or not I guess that’s up to you. Some people would say that any type of link building other than natural linking is unethical although I don’t personally believe that.

Whether link building membership sites are effective or not though depends on how they do it.

Google has ALOT of double-standards when it comes to their guidelines especially with their link buying rules!

Google wouldn’t reject it, they would just raise the price you would pay lol pretty ethical huh?
Jeff (4 comments.)
10th April, 2008 at 7:25 pm

You have to build your own links these days or you won’t ever be seen by anybody that wants to give you a link. Good linking on your own web site is a must. I wouldn’t link all you web site to each other or you will get in troubel eventually. Link your #1 site to #2 to #3 and so forth but don’t link two and 3 back to 1. Jeff
Josh Spaulding
10th April, 2008 at 7:38 pm

Hi Jeff,

I definitely don’t agree with your first statement!! I have build very few links to this very blog and I received 500-1,000 uniques per day.

It all depends on your business model and the purpose of your site.

Some sites do need a boost and won’t ever rank without building links, but others don’t need a link building campaign to succeed.

Linking your own sites together won’t hurt you. If they are all on the same c-class, same registrar info etc. they may (probably will) be devalued as backlinks though.

I host most of my sites on separate c-classes on my server and seem to get full credit for links coming from my own network of sites.
Is Your Link Building Strategy a Time Waster?
21st January, 2009 at 7:55 pm

[...] Instead, spend your time executing some or all of the known link building techniques: – writing good content that invites links (natural linking) – article marketing – reciprocal linking – guest blogging – creating WordPress themes, tools and other applications that others can embed onto their site with a link to your site. – leveraging pre-existing sites [...]