Understanding Google's Quality Criteria

Link building is a crucial aspect of search engine marketing. It includes various practices like link baiting, link buying, paid link advertising, social media marketing, press release and blog posting. Successful accomplishment of all these actions helps in enhancing the quality and number of inbound links to a specific web page. Being a vital element of search engine optimization, link building focuses on driving quality traffic to a specific site.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="308"] Understanding Google's Quality Criteria[/caption]

The success of a link building campaign depends on several aspects. Google, being one of the most widely preferred search engines on the web, works as a major determinant of quality link building. Thus, before involving a strategic link building campaign, it is imperative for one to understand Google's quality criteria. While, Hummingbird update made it obligatory to make the link building strategies Google-proof, the latest Panda, and Penguin updates changed the way at which one looks at on-page and off-page SEO. Dissecting Google's complex yet advanced search algorithm is relatively tough; however, pointing out the distinct guidelines of what not to do is comparatively easier. Let us have a look:

• Strict No-No to Scrapped Content

Scrapping content from a well-ranked and renowned site and using it simply as a magnet to attract the readers is not at all an acceptable way to draw links to a website. While using content from a different website one should focus on modifying it considerably, so that it suits the requirements of the website and the preferences of the audience. One should remember that including fresh data, views and opinions is far better than just doing copy paste.

• Avoid Doorway Sites

Doorway sites help in drawing traffic to a specific website, but these sites do not offer any additional value to the user. These bunches of websites generally use multiple search strings and keyword phrases that link back to the same site. Thus, in spite of using different search keywords a user ends up surfing the linked website. This not only hampers user experience, but it also diminishes the popularity of the search engine.

• Restricting Content Syndication

Content syndication with popular publishers and blog sites like Yahoo is an effective way to create back links to a website. However, if the content is exactly the same in the website, as well, then the risks of facing search engine penalties increase to a great extent. One can avoid these circumstances, by using correct canonical attributes in the site HTML. Apart from this, one can prove the authenticity of the content by publishing it before anybody else. In such cases, one should use clear authorship mark-ups that signify authenticity of the content.

• Evading Low Quality Guest Posting

Google strongly opposes the publishing of unauthentic and thin content that does not provide significant information or value to the readers.

Adhering to the above-mentioned quality criteria of Google will not only help one to create quality links but it will also help one to secure the website against search engine spamming.

Guest Post By Paramita Chowdhury