Links - How many is to many

[Steven1976a]

Hi All,
Im starting a new website and i need to start the long boring task of building links. After i have done my directory submissions and start to request links from similar websites I would like to find out if i need to be careful how many links i get in a short period of time. I understand to stop link farms that if a large amount of links are made in a short period of time then the site will be classed as spam or from a bad neighbour hood.

My question is how many links are to many?

Are we talking about 1000s of links in a few hours/weeks/months....

If i was to get for example by sending requests, 30 links a day for the next 30 days (900 in a month) would this be frowned upon?

What is an acceptable amount of links to acquire?

Steve

[thefandango]

Google recommends no more than 100 outbound links per page of a website. As for IBL's, directory submissions dont all get authorised at once, so you could submit thousands and they would filter in over two months or more.

My advice is to not worry about volume. It is the relevance, site authority and keyword anchor text in those links that is vital to your success. You can do a strong backlink building campaign without ever having to worry about Google thinking your linkbuilding is unnatural. They are really on the look out for the link farms and automated link exchanges who allocate out thousands of random links to a site, all suddenly appearing in a few days etc.

[Toni Anicic]

Google penalizing websites for gaining backlinks to fast is just a SEO myth.

If that would be true, everything that ever went viral would be banned from SERPS in the matter of hours, but we can see that's not true.

Google will never penalize a website for the links it can't control, the links from other websites pointing at it. This would allow you to remove your competitors from SERPS by building lots of bad backlinks to their websites, now wouldn't that be just plain stupid from Google?

Google will sometimes neutralize the value of a backlink if it finds it spammy, but it will never penalize you for it.

[thomas09]

Originally Posted by thefandango

Google recommends no more than 100 outbound links per page of a website. As for IBL's, directory submissions dont all get authorised at once, so you could submit thousands and they would filter in over two months or more.

Hi,

I don't think there is any kind of thumb rules that we should go with the specific number of outbond links.

[angilina]

I think a site can not get penalized for getting too many backlinks in short period of time, as if google used to penalize sites for getting too many backlinks [quickly], then people will start to do all this for their competitors in order to get them penalized. The worst that can happen is that google will ignore such links, that is, you will get no credit for those links.

You should try to get some natural links via adding some excellent content in your site.

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by angilina

I think a site can not get penalized for getting too many backlinks in short period of time, as if google used to penalize sites for getting too many backlinks [quickly], then people will start to do all this for their competitors in order to get them penalized. The worst that can happen is that google will ignore such links, that is, you will get no credit for those links.

You should try to get some natural links via adding some excellent content in your site.

The more the better. links are only good to you if clicked on or picked up by search engines,
so the more you have the greater the chances of it happening.(Including the link from my signature on this page....(Grin) I think the only problem might occur if you had paid links from a site know to google for doing this.

[GameFriends]

If only it was that easy to get "too many links" . For personal reasons I recommend setting a goal each day for how many links to build rather than trying to build them all at once. If you set a goal of say 50 links a day you will have a decent amount in only 30 days. Eventually people link to your content but in the beginning you'll most likely have to build as many links as possible. Best of luck.

[williamc]

You can have too many links?!?

Why did nobody tell me this?????

[henrybarnett]

I posted this on another thread but thought it might help here.

First example: Google the word "cle" or "clé". That means "key" in French and is a pretty generic term (with or without the accent on the e.) Now look for the website cleservice.com which usually is in the first few search returns, and look at the bottom of their page. Follow a few links.

Best example: now Google the word "montre" That means "watch" in French and is also a pretty generic term. Now look for the website tictactime.com which is normally 1st and look at the bottom of their page. Follow a few links.

There are about 150 links to 150 pages each link has the word "montre" twice in each link on the bottom part. Each linked page has the same links at the bottom. 300 x 300 = 90000. There are a further 120 links on the left side each with the word montre in the link twice. No wonder they are number one with "MONTRE"!!

So that's the proof how good backlinks work and that 90,000 seems a large number!

[jayparker90]

Well, yes you cannot have too many links posted as google
will penalize you as a SPAM it is better that you limit your
submissions only to less than 900 in a month for better results

[williamc]

Originally Posted by jayparker90

Well, yes you cannot have too many links posted as google
will penalize you as a SPAM it is better that you limit your
submissions only to less than 900 in a month for better results

Back that statement up immediately. One mention on slashdot can get you 900 links in a day with no penalty, the same goes for digg, etc. Please don't post things as fact without knowing what you are talking about.

[MediaPrecision]

The most important thing is to make it look like your site is growing naturally over time, and the same goes for links. Add around 10 links per day but some days add less and some days add more, and some days don't add any at all. Do this gradually until you have around 1,000 links then you can turn the throttle up and start being more aggressive.

[morestar]

come on now, you can't get any sort of penalization for many many backlinks to your site. maybe IF for some reason google can tell that you're backlinking from your own sites (like I believe happened to me) than maybe, just maybe you can be bumped, but never banned or penalized.

[MediaPrecision]

Originally Posted by morestar

come on now, you can't get any sort of penalization for many many backlinks to your site. maybe IF for some reason google can tell that you're backlinking from your own sites (like I believe happened to me) than maybe, just maybe you can be bumped, but never banned or penalized.

If it is a brand new site and you suddenly have 1,000's of links Google will take a look. As we know links need to be quality & relevant. I would question if you were able to get that many links in such a short period of time if they would be of good quality.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by MediaPrecision

If it is a brand new site and you suddenly have 1,000's of links Google will take a look. As we know links need to be quality & relevant. I would question if you were able to get that many links in such a short period of time if they would be of good quality.

but google doesn't 'take looks'

If that were the case then google would possibly NOT serve relevant content to it's searchers. I don't know but I don't believe google wants to exclude relevant content based on the 'possibility" that the site has 1000 'un-natural' links.

PLUS: who the hell can get a thousand un-natural links so fast? If there was a thousand new links to my site I believe I must be doing something right.

NO?

[MediaPrecision]

Originally Posted by morestar

but google doesn't 'take looks'

If that were the case then google would possibly NOT serve relevant content to it's searchers. I don't know but I don't believe google wants to exclude relevant content based on the 'possibility" that the site has 1000 'un-natural' links.

PLUS: who the hell can get a thousand un-natural links so fast? If there was a thousand new links to my site I believe I must be doing something right.

NO?

So you don't agree that search engines like sites grown organically over time???

Of course Google looks into things otherwise how can it decide what's within the guidelines and what's not, what's white hat & what's black hat?

Anybody can get 1,000's of un-natural links within a short period of time. just take a look on the services section of DP.

I am not saying don't add lots of links, I am saying build up gradually before you start being too aggressive.

I you already had thousands of links to your site then adding another 1000 in a short space of time would be ok if they were good quality, but this is not advisable for a brand new site with no links.

[williamc]

Originally Posted by MediaPrecision

If it is a brand new site and you suddenly have 1,000's of links Google will take a look. As we know links need to be quality & relevant. I would question if you were able to get that many links in such a short period of time if they would be of good quality.

Quality and relevence are personal prefs. Not an actual ranking factor as yet in my opinion. Let's look at it this way for a second:

I get an article on digg front page.

800 people link to my site from their own just cause they got a laugh out of my digg description.

How many of those people you REALLY think are going to have websites that are that relevent to mine? Very few.

How many of those websites or blogs will actually be 'quality'? Very few.

Will all those links still count? Yep.

[MediaPrecision]

I totally agree with what you are saying these links will be counted, but if we both have 800 links from blogs with 0 PR, and my links are from from blogs/articles that are relevant to my niche and yours are totally unrelated then my links will carry more weight than yours.

Originally Posted by williamc

Quality and relevence are personal prefs. Not an actual ranking factor as yet. Let's look at it this way for a second:

I get an article on digg front page. 800 people link to my site from their own just cause they got a laugh out of my digg description. How many of those people you REALLY think are going to have websites that are that relevent to mine? Very few. How many of those websites or blogs will actually be 'quality'? Very few. Will all those links still count? Yep.

[williamc]

Originally Posted by MediaPrecision

if we both have 800 links from blogs with 0 PR, and my links are from from blogs/articles that are relevant to my niche and yours are totally unrelated then my links will carry more weight than yours.

I have yet to see a single iota of proof on that assumption. The google algo does not seem capable of that 'yet'. What I think I DO see happen is manual reviews adding authority to some 'sites', possibly based on relevent link profiles. But those are not algo generated, and as such should not be spread around as fact.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by MediaPrecision

I totally agree with what you are saying these links will be counted, but if we both have 800 links from blogs with 0 PR, and my links are from from blogs/articles that are relevant to my niche and yours are totally unrelated then my links will carry more weight than yours.

ok but we weren't talking about weight...

and for the record, when i do directory submissions i DO take my time for this very reason but in the back of my mind i truly don't believe it make a difference NOR will I (or the site) get penalized either.

When you speak organics,

Originally Posted by MediaPrecision

So you don't agree that search engines like sites grown organically over time???

...what is not organic about a thousand links in one day? You use the word "over time" with "organic" but getting a thousand links a day as opposed to "over time" again, doesn't make a difference.

PLUS who cares about the SERPS in that case cause the thousand links to your site will bring you enough traffic anyways.

NO !?!?!

[williamc]

Morestar: mass directory submissions never get added 'all in one shot' anyways. Most directory owners are lazy when it comes to adding new listings. It takes some of them days, some weeks, some months or even years. They do not appear 'overnite' so it does not look that un-natural anyhow.

[MediaPrecision]

Morestar: Ok so tell me, how could you get 1000 quality, relevant links in a day using only white hat methods?


Having a thousand links to your site is no guarantee you will get traffic. You could have 1000 links from blogs that nobody visits and you will get no traffic.

[morestar]

If I found a genuine movie of President Obama having sex with a horse and posted it on my blog, I would probably get over a million links to my site in a matter of days...

relevant? I know it wouldn't matter to anyone including Google and Google wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to provide this resource to its searches simply based on whether the links were on relevant pages or if the links were 'quality'...

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by morestar

If I found a genuine movie of President Obama having sex with a horse and posted it on my blog, I would probably get over a million links to my site in a matter of days...

relevant? I know it wouldn't matter to anyone including Google...

you would not... The government would remove it in minutes and you and the site disappeared as if you never existed, probably put the horse down as well! (grin) I am only joking they would not hurt the horse...

[morestar]

Originally Posted by ron angel

you would not... The government would remove it in minutes and you and the site disappeared as if you never existed, probably put the horse down as well! (grin) I am only joking they would not hurt the horse...

*sighs*

but that isn't the point.

[williamc]

They dont remove the ones about obama and hillary clinton :P

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by morestar

*sighs*

but that isn't the point.

I know it was not the point, but I could not resist it. The British ironic humour is completely different from that of the USA humour. It must sound serious to be funny and be ridiculous to the situation and point in question at the same time. I think your Obama stuff being "misinterpreted" and answered to by myself fitted the bill perfectly!

[morestar]

lol it did and i thought for a split that you were the actual person i was responding too...
either way yes it was funny...not offended...brit humour kicks sometimes...

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by morestar

lol it did and i thought for a split that you were the actual person i was responding too...
either way yes it was funny...not offended...brit humour kicks sometimes...

If you and anybody else who thought it was amusing want to see some more that I and my bruvver wrote a
long time ago (I am bruvver,you will understand) have a look at
The EMU Files EMU stands for eccentric mailbox user at a time when
there were lots of private bbs systems before the internet was used as it is to-day.

[mediacontour]

You can never have too many inbound links... the more the better and the higher your search engine rankings will be.

I want to know how many inbound links is "enough?" Does it depend on your industry or the keywords that you are targeting? Is 1,000 inbound links enough for a small business?

[morestar]

Originally Posted by mediacontour

I want to know how many inbound links is "enough?" Does it depend on your industry or the keywords that you are targeting? Is 1,000 inbound links enough for a small business?

I presume by 'enough' you mean enough to get to the top of the SERPS, well...that depends on many other factors.

I can compete for a couple of keywords like cow magnets and if there is only two sites competing for those words I would venture that 8 links to your site with the anchor text being cow magnets might get you to the top of the SERPS (for cow magnets).

Other much more competitive keywords would take much more.

P.S. the cow magnets site was created to show that google can crawl tables nested 40 or more levels deep. For some reason the nests bugger up in FireFox so you can't view the links but work in IE8.

CIAO!

[williamc]

Originally Posted by mediacontour

I want to know how many inbound links is "enough?"

There are never enough. If you ever get to the point you think you have 'enough', sure as god made little green apples your competition will blow by you in the serps.

[macgizmoguy]

There really is some sort of 'true-ism' - Whether quantity or quality, the one with the mostest and/or bestest backlinks wins.

The real art is learning WHICH backlinks actually work for YOU. Site stats tell you which matter and which don't. But look to Yahoo SiteExplorer and Bing Webmaster Tools to tell you _which sites they care about and value_. And which they continue to value over the long haul.

Google's crawler pretty much INHALES everything it comes across. Most will become 'Show Omitted Search Results?' you literally have to FORCE Google to show you. (And that implicitly tells you how worthless they feel those Page Six and beyond backlink sites really are.)

Bing/MSN and Yahoo are quite different tho. They give you a much easier to spot and better (if narrower) sense of sites they value and latch onto for inbound links. If you see Bing/Yhoo pick up on one of your backlinks, note them and try to get your other sites listed on those specific places too.

Just as links can get picked-up -- the lesser ones also get FLUSHED OUT periodically. Sites come and go, backlinks get deleted, archived, or erased. So you can never rest on your laurels. Relentless, ongoing link-building here, there, everywhere is essential. A few will pay off in spades, most will NOT.

[cignusweb]

Nothing is enough.

You always have to get ahead of the competitors.. so getting new links is a regular process.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by cignusweb

Nothing is enough.

You always have to get ahead of the competitors.. so getting new links is a regular process.

I agree, if we stop seeking out back-links and just sit on our sites then eventually the new ones or the ones continuing to obtain back-links will prevail.

This is work.

[shakir]

Great discussion... According to my exp .. make BL from good neighborhood as much we can manually... Do not use any tools to make links... Even 100/ days is not a big problem

[morestar]

Originally Posted by shakir

Do not use any tools to make links...

I've used tools that help submit to directories and they've worked just great. I use the same tool with all new seo projects I take on - I even used it this week and have found zero negative repercussions and have seen rankings get much higher months after my submissions.

[zeruel]

Originally Posted by morestar

I've used tools that help submit to directories and they've worked just great. I use the same tool with all new seo projects I take on - I even used it this week and have found zero negative repercussions and have seen rankings get much higher months after my submissions.

True. But keep in mind as well that not all software or tools works out the way we want it. That's why most of the time, I prefer to it manually. I have used so many tools before and some of them only became very helpful on my campaign.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by zeruel

True. But keep in mind as well that not all software or tools works out the way we want it. That's why most of the time, I prefer to it manually. I have used so many tools before and some of them only became very helpful on my campaign.

I would guess then that it depends on the tools you use.

For me, the tool I used just displayed about 300 directories and I click on one, it populates for submissions form for me, I enter the captcha and submit.

I also manually submit on a day to day basis as well. Truly? I don't like using directories. I'd prefer getting links from better sources.

[Tubby]

I cannot find the link to the site where Obama is having sex wih the horse.

Did google ban it for spamming? Or did google de-list it for having too many inbound links.

Did it have over a 1000 IBL's . . . I really wanted to see that picture.

[kgun]

The consensus in this thread seems to be that you can not have enough IBL's, but IBL's may hurt your according to some members. What is the logic? Fun? Joke?

[Tubby]

Kgun asks - What is the logic?
I am not overly enthused by logic, I am greatly of the opinion that nothing has any value at all (zilch) if it does not contain 15% fun. . Logic does not automatically have a 15% fun content. therefore logic has absolutely no value.

[loosapphire]

Originally Posted by Steven1976a

Hi All,
Im starting a new website and i need to start the long boring task of building links. After i have done my directory submissions and start to request links from similar websites I would like to find out if i need to be careful how many links i get in a short period of time. I understand to stop link farms that if a large amount of links are made in a short period of time then the site will be classed as spam or from a bad neighbour hood.

My question is how many links are to many?

Are we talking about 1000s of links in a few hours/weeks/months....

If i was to get for example by sending requests, 30 links a day for the next 30 days (900 in a month) would this be frowned upon?

What is an acceptable amount of links to acquire?

Steve

I would never worry about the problem of too many back links, the more the better for me. The only thing I am worrying is that I am unable to obtain as many quality link as I want. Actually I am still struggle to link back more.

[williamc]

Originally Posted by kgun

The consensus in this thread seems to be that you can not have enough IBL's, but IBL's may hurt your according to some members. What is the logic? Fun? Joke?

As was explained in that thread, an 'attack' of the kind we tested for can indeed 'hurt' you. However normal linkbuilding and getting as many backlinks from decent sites as you possibly can is never a bad thing.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by williamc

As was explained in that thread, an 'attack' of the kind we tested for can indeed 'hurt' you. However normal linkbuilding and getting as many backlinks from decent sites as you possibly can is never a bad thing.

I may miss that explanation or I did not accept it. If you mean that it is a pathological example.

Originally Posted by williamc

I have yet to see a single iota of proof on that assumption. The google algo does not seem capable of that 'yet'. What I think I DO see happen is manual reviews adding authority to some 'sites', possibly based on relevent link profiles. But those are not algo generated, and as such should not be spread around as fact.

And I miss your proof that IBL's can hurt you.

Originally Posted by williamc

Back that statement up immediately. One mention on slashdot can get you 900 links in a day with no penalty, the same goes for digg, etc. Please don't post things as fact without knowing what you are talking about.

Hm

Originally Posted by Tubby

Kgun asks - What is the logic?
I am not overly enthused by logic, I am greatly of the opinion that nothing has any value at all (zilch) if it does not contain 15% fun. . Logic does not automatically have a 15% fun content. therefore logic has absolutely no value.

My bolding.

Tubby, Here I don't buy your logic.

[Tubby]

Kgun. said.
"Tubby, Here I don't buy your logic. '

I know you don't Kgun. This is the thing about logic. what is logical to me may not be logical to you.
I have said it a dozen times on WPW we are not 'intelligent' creatures. we are 'emotional' creatures.

every one of us requires a different proof before we believe something. Some require it is written in a holy book. Some require a test that is repeatable. some require the evidence of our own eyes. some simply bow to peer group normalities and acceptances.
(the list goes on)

not everything is written in the scriptures
circumstance can not always be duplicated
some of us hallucinate
some of us work with dickheads

nobody ever needs to 'Buy'another person logic. . because we each have our own logic specifically tuned to our own reality . .

I do know that it makes no sense at all to deny the way other people see and understand things to be. (even down to minor things like how google works)

I myself simply like to state my view. . and leave it at that . I ask no one to force feed themselves on any thing I have ever said - I am content if someone nibbles on a sentence now and then. . So I simply try to cover a wide diet in my ramblings.

[Tarzan2]

Originally Posted by Tubby

nobody ever needs to 'Buy'another person logic. . because we each have our own logic specifically tuned to our own reality . .

I do know that it makes no sense at all to deny the way other people see and understand things to be. (even down to minor things like how google works)

Tubby, I love it!
That's why my tag line says, "When YOU change the way you look at things, the things you look at are different."
We all have our unique perspective on things. If we change that perspective, we see things differently!

I see it that you cannot have too many backlinks. However, if you suddenly gain thousands and thousands of backlinks, someone at G may take a closer look at your site to see if they can detect spamming.

[ChiefLee]

I know how this sounds, but I've got a friend of a friend at google who says the ONLY time that inbound links can HURT you is if you have a brand new site, and all the links come from "bad neighborhoods".

Google will not take the chance of penalizing a company for something that might be outside of their control. If that were the case, we'd all be buying crappy links and directing them at our competitors.

My advice is to have a good SEO strategy, and work it without worrying about Google penalizing for inbound links.

[ChiefLee]

Worst case scenario is that in inbound link has little or no value. I don't think they ever have negative value. The example of the "viral" creating inbound links is a good one.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by ChiefLee

I know how this sounds, but I've got a friend of a friend at google who says the ONLY time that inbound links can HURT you is if you have a brand new site, and all the links come from "bad neighborhoods".

I took the commodity lift with a friend of that persons cousin to the algorithm room of DueDilligenceChecklist