You hear it over, and over, and over again: “Good links HAVE to be relevant”, but do they? And what is a relevant link anyway?
That’s what we’re covering in this post in the series. Link relevancy, the problems with it, and the benefits. In case you missed it, here are the other posts in the series:
Link Profile Traits:
- Link Diversity
- Link Velocity
- Link Worth
- Bonus: Link Tracking XLS Sheet
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Defining “Relevant Links”
I guess the ‘no duh!’ part of defining relevant links is the literal meaning.
Princeton says relevant means “having a bearing on or connection with the subject at issue”. According to Wikipedia, relevance “describes how pertinent, connected, or applicable something is to a given matter. A thing is relevant if it serves as a means to a given purpose.” In Information Retrieval, “relevance denotes how well a retrieved document or set of documents meets the information need of the user.”
Makes sense right? So, if I had an animal charms website, a link from a jewelry news site would be relevant. Links to the site from a science website, however, don’t seem to make much sense and are less relevant.
Unfortunately, there’s a problem with the concept of relevant VS irrelevant…
What’s Relevant and What’s Not?
Using the example above, how relevant are links from pet sites? What about links from veterinarians? What about sites about animal images? What about a site on metal and metal manufacturing? The site is SEO’d and uses Internet marketing…are links from those sites relevant?
Maybe we’re going the wrong direction. Maybe relevant links are only those from sites that use our exact keywords? Maybe they’re only those directly in our respective niches.
It seems most of us are having trouble deciding where to draw the line. At what point are links no longer relevant? Google: Time To Define “Relevant” or “Related” Linking and Reciprocal Linking from Webmaster World and Google’s Definition Of “Relevant Linking” at Search Engine Watch are some great discussions on this topic.
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Natural Linking VS Relevant Linking
Before we get too far, let’s attempt to define ‘natural linking’. In my eyes, natural linking are exactly those…links that appear without any artificial help. They’re the ones we don’t buy, ask for, or make ourselves. They just happen…naturally.
When I release a good post or a good piece of link bait, I get all sorts of links from within the industry, from complementary industries, and from completely unrelated sites. The content is scraped, responses are posted, forums pick them up, and even universities and professor link back to my content. Are these natural links useless to me? Are they irrelevant?
Now, there is a huge difference between industry links and customer links. Industry link and content attracts other people in my industry. Customer links and content attracts customers, come from customers, and concern things they’re interested in. Are both of these relevant? For my business, they certainly are, but if a client selling beauty products gives me a link, is that relevant? I get links from SEOs all the time, but I’m not an SEO. Does it mean they’re irrelevant?
What about posts looking at two sides of an issue like oil companies and environmental issues? Are their posts relevant?
If you want to know more about linkbait and the argument concerning defining relevancy, check out some of these links:
The Anatomy Of Linkbait — Website Magazine
Link Building With Content Ideas — Link Spiel
Link Bait Kool-Aid — Eric Ward
Golden Rules Of Linkbaiting — Smashing Magazine
21 Keys To Link Bait Success — Famous Agents
Why Relevant Links Are Irrelevant — SEO Chicks
The Relevant Link Myth — Michael Martinez
Determining Link Relevance
Deciding how relevant a link is could include several factors:
- Content Surrounding the Link — The other text surrounding the link itself could play a significant role in determining how relevant the backlink is to your own site. If the content on the destination page matches the content surrounding the backlink, they’re relevant, aren’t they?
- Anchor Text – Anchor text could determine the relevance of the source page and that of the link itself. A keyword-rich anchor text link is surely more relevant than one without keywords, isn’t it? Or is it? Bill Slawski looked at a patent on using anchor text to determine the relevance of a page a few years back that has several ideas.
- Destination & Source Page Topic – The subject of the destination and source pages could be large indicators of link relevance and is probably the most common one people think of.
- Location Of the Link – Are links in blog rolls as relevant as links found in the content? On my site, I have a link to Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts because I like them and have purchased several of their shirts, but that isn’t technically relevant is it? If it’s in the content, would that increase it’s relevancy?
- Titles, H1, Meta Data — If these match the destination page, the link could very well be relevant. My issue with this one is that you can have a page with bad titles and data, but with great content.
A Few Final Thoughts
While I think relevancy has its place in the idea of a link’s value, it’s important not to think of this as the only factor or as a main factor.
Also, when you consider all of the possible ranking factors on and off the page, it probably plays an extremely small part. That being said, with more than 200 ranking factors, they all play a small part, so it’s worth thinking about.
I’d also like to mention that the value of a link is never as important as its usefulness for users. If it makes sense, I don’t care if Google likes it or not, I’m going to include it anyway because at the end of the day, my site visitors are most important.
If a link isn’t necessarily one I’d find relevant, I’m not going to have it removed either. I feel that all of them have some kind of value. It’s simply a matter of which ones have the most weight.
Sometimes a link’s strength comes from the domain and sometimes it comes from the content. Even those originating from scrapers are a bonus for me.
Not only does it help keep my link profile looking natural, but these sites won’t be around long enough to worry about. Worst case scenario, some scraping bot thought my site was important enough to scrape, and that’s got to account for something…or nothing at all.
Lastly, like the rest of the posts on link worth, or any post you read on anything, you need to consider all of the information and make your own decision. These are written purely with research in mind. I want to prompt discussion, even if the only person you share your views with is you.
Want to know more about link relevance? Try these links:
A Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value & Potentiality — Search Engine Land
Proof You Can Gain Additional Rankings and Build Relevant Links With Google News — 97thFloor
How To Find Relevant Links — Big Oak Inc
Other posts in the series:
Link Profile Traits:
- Link Diversity
- Link Velocity
- Link Worth
- Bonus: Link Tracking XLS Sheet