Andrew,

This is a really tough dilemma for Google. They have to balance both the quality of the on page factors (content, media, keywords, etc) with the quality of the off page factors (social media mentions, links, anchor text, etc).

Penguin took a strike at manipulative off-page factors. Many of the penalized sites were using manipulative anchor text and linking techniques. (ie – using too much exact matching anchor text)

I think it is still tough to determine whether this update was beneficial or not on a large scale…

Great thinking Marlon,

I especially like this point:

“why use such methods when you have many perfectly-safe, Google-friendly methods of building links available at your disposal, right?”

The fact is that many people are looking for shortcuts that are only going to harm them in the long term.

If everyone stuck to the mindset that you lay out here, we would have many more successful and valuable bloggers!

Thanks for the comment and I hope to stay in touch in the future.

Regards,

Jason

Magnus,

Thanks for the comment. In general, I agree that directories are not the greatest way to build links.

However, there certainly are legitimate directories that are still available, and I wouldn’t say that DMOZ is the only good directory to submit to.

I get your point though… There are much better ways to spend your time when it comes to link building.

Jason

Absolutely Ross,

If a link building method seems like it is too easy or too good to be true, there is a good chance that it is.

Google is only going to get better at detecting and penalizing spammy link building.

Thanks for the comment Ross, and I look forward to connecting in the future.

Jason

Especially after Google’s Updates, mainly Penguin. For me it’s difficult to make something out of it. I have seen sites that even if they did provide quality, they really dropped. What is your input on this topic?