Link building, the process of obtaining backlinks to your website, is an integral part of SEO. Inbound links from trusted sites transfers trust and authority to your website and improve its rank on Google and other search engines.

There are many ways to build links to your website pages; but  not all of them help with SEO. In fact some linking methods can harm your website and have a negative impact on its search engine ranking.

Here are 12 most common link building mistakes that you should avoid at all costs:

1. Copying Content Without Crediting the Source

Copying content from other sources without giving due credit can get you penalised by Google. Whenever reprinting or referencing content, give due credit by including a link to the original source.

2. Lack of Internal Links

Internal links to relevant pages adds more value for readers helps to increase your page views and retains visitors on your site for longer. Internal links are also beneficial for SEO as it improves the page rank and authority of other pages you link to. It is also effective method for revitalising old content.

3. Not Linking to External Pages

Some publishers make the mistake of linking only to content from their website. It is equally important to link to valuable information on other external websites. Interlinking content is essential practice of good content creation. Linking to valuable content that supports the topic improves the quality of content.

4. Too many Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal link refers to exchanging links with other sites. It is an old SEO practice that was widely used before social media became popular. If you use this approach, be very selective and use it cautiously. If a large portion of your links is obtained this way, search engines will take note. It is better to focus on natural methods to build one way links e.g. link bait techniques.

5. Buying or Selling Links (Paid Links)

Search engines dislike buying and selling links using it purely for the purpose of influencing search engine rank. This includes purchasing text links, paid reviews, paid blogs posts, and other such methods. Google recommends using the “nofollow” attribute in such links which prevents page rank and authority to be passed to the linking destination.

6. Too Many Links on a Page

It is also important to limit the number of links on a page. There is no fixed number however Google recommend limiting the number of links to 100 per page at most. In practice however, it is better to stay well below this number.

7. Linking to Bad Neighbourhood

Bad neighbourhood is a SEO term to describe websites of low quality that are typically penalised and flagged by search engines for malpractices e.g. link farms. Being associated with such sites in any way either by linking to them or obtaining a backlink can have detrimental results on your search engine ranking.

You can use this Bad Neighbourhood Checker Tool to find out if you link to such sites.

8. Using Dubious Linking Methods

Google hates dubious SEO techniques such as hidden, cloaked or incorrectly forwarded links. There is no real purpose for including hidden links or text on a webpage except to try to cheat Google and other search engines. Use of such practices can get you penalised and result in loss of your Google rank.

9. Linking to Irrelevant Off-Topic pages

Linking to as well as obtaining links from sites that are not relevant to your niche orm off-topic can also hurt your ranking for your desired keywords. Instead focus only on sites that are relevant to your niche.

10. Lack of Anchor Text Variation

It has become increasingly important to avoid using the same anchor text in all inbound links to your website. Google can associate lack of variation in anchor text with artificial link popularity and reduce any positive influence on search engine ranking. From an SEO perspective therefore, it is recommended to use variations in anchor text of inbound links to your website.

11. Sitewide Links

Search engines have also started taking note when every page on a website links to you. Links in footer is a perfect example of a sitewide link. Although technically you can end up having 100′s of incoming links from a sitewide link (one from each page), they are all from the same site and IP address which can make Google suspicious.

12. Inaccessible Link Pages

Some webmasters create link pages on their site that are not accessible from any other page on the website. The only way to get to the page is if you know the address of the page and access it directly. Search engines cannot index such pages as they are not accessible via the menu nor are they linked to from any other page on the site. As a result, obtaining a back-link from such pages is of little to no use.

Conclusion:

Link building is one of the most important factors for achieving a favourable Google rank. However it is equally important to avoid the common linking mistakes if you want to get most out of your links and achieve a top Google rank.