WVO is taking over SEO Part 2

Is link building as we know it going to disappear?

In Part 1, I explained you how Google removed the keyword issue from most of the elements of a page. On-page SEO has been pretty much replaced by “Content Quality Writing” for WVO. The next logical question is about off-page SEO: what’s happening to link building as we know it?

Will link building disappear?

Quite certainly, I can say “No”, link building is here to stay. It was an important metric and still is and still will be in the future.

However, what is changing is the very nature of those links, and their purpose as well the way to acquire them.

As a quick reminder as of why link building is so important, is the fact that search engines consider them (inbound links) as a vote for your site. If someone takes the time and concern to put a link towards a site or page, it means that this one should be of some interest or value. Therefore, it is not wrong to think that the more people would links to a page, the more it should mean that this one is of high value and quality. Such page or site should then be given a better search engine ranking.

It’s a simple logic, and the basic of the off-page algorithm of the search engines. Google is now famous for its metric tool called the Page Rank or PR, that small green little bar with a number ranging from 0 to 10 for which many became obsessed with.

Of course in an ever evolving world like internet, nothing is always that simple or remains that simple for long.

Indeed, it wasn’t long before people start to understand that concept and came out with several techniques to create those multitudes of inbound links faster than normally would:

* Bulk submission to FFA sites and others.
* Link exchange.
* Paid links.

Google loves natural evolution for a site, not something artificial, and therefore started to modify its algorithm to make it more and more WVO than SEO.

The first step was to rage a war against the link farms. Now, having a link would no longer be sufficient, the following elements would be required or your link would have a low value point, or no value at all; some now even say that you could get a negative value for bad ones.

Anyway here were and still are the requirements for inbound links:

* From a page with content related to your current site or page.
* Less than a hundred links on the page.

This pretty much stated that you should stay away from the FFA. The logic for those new rules was simple, there no reason why a site that is not in the same niche as you would need to be recommended, and if your list is too long, it lost its value too.

Another element that SEO experts soon discovered was that having your keyword in the anchor text of the inbound link was carrying great value. I was true and still is, and still will be.

So people started to come out with great anchor text continue to build their links using various methods.

Then again, Google stepped in, and implemented another WVO rule: the text from your anchor text should be different from link to link. The logic this time was that if the links were genuine there’s no way everywhere in the world; webmaster would link to you with the exact same phrase.

Therefore, whenever one is building links, he has to try to modify its anchor text as often as possible (though still with having the keyword in it).

Based on its voting algorithm, the more vote a page had, the more quality it should be; thus if such page where to recommend another one, it should be attributed more point value than if it was coming from an ordinary one.

Understanding this, people with high PR saw a way to monetize this opportunity by selling links from their site. The trade was simple, I post a link from my site, you get part of my reputation, and I get part of your money.

Google never deemed this as organic, than is now battling fiercely against those practice, in fact you’ll get banned now for doing so. So forget about it, both buying and selling!

Link exchange is probably the most popular way to develop your inbounds links. The concept was simple, I put a link on my site, you put a link on your site, with both win.

This is getting less and less true. Google is now also battling against those unnatural links and Google algorithms is getting better and better at identifying those sites. Though doing link exchange won’t get you banned, their point value certainly drops a lot.

It seems that there’s less and less ways to manipulate your ranking off-page too. Google is now implementing more and more WVO rules, and leaving less and less room for SEO. See my conclusion on these matters in my final article on WVO taking over SEO part 3.

Remember, I’m here to help!