Links drive the web.
Without the right links, you may not rank in Google top 10. And Google’s algorithm has evolved over the years to reward natural, relevant, and authority sites.
There is a great correlation (or relationship) between Google rankings and links. If you see a web page that sits at the #1 position in Google, it probably has a lot of the right links. According to Moz, 99.2% of all top 50 results had at least one external link pointing to the website.
Yes, links connect the dots of the web together. But from the search engine’s viewpoint, not all links are created equal.
In the past, Google created a metric called “PageRank” to calculate link points. These link points come primarily from dofollow links. So we can define dofollow links as links that search spider follows, indexes and rewards. These links are counted as points, because they pass SEO value to a web page and improves it search rankings, page authority, and overall search performance.
It’s been a long-standing argument. SEO experts and internet marketing companies want to know what the best dofollow vs. nofollow link ratio is.
The truth is there is no best ratio. What works for my site might not yield good results for you.
You need both dofollow and nofollow links
Yes, you can’t enjoy organic traffic from Google if you lack any of these link types. They’re both essential for the long-term success of your site.
The most important thing to remember, though, is that you need a balance on the type of links you get.
On one hand, if all your links are dofollow, Google and other search engines will view this as manipulative and tag your links as spammy, even if you didn’t do anything fishy.
In the chart below, you’ll notice that too many links from low-quality sites and too much exact match anchor texts could put you in the danger zone.
The difference between dofollow and nofollow is big – hence, Google views these campaigns as unfriendly to their algorithm and users.
On the other hand, if many of your links are nofollow, Google will definitely not penalize your site, but you’ll struggle to rank highly in Google results pages – solely because nofollow links don’t improve search rankings.
According to Matt Cutts:
“in general, we don’t follow nofollow links.”
When links and fresh pages are crawled, Google adds them to its index (a data bank containing billions of saved web pages that are served to users when a search is made).
Pages and links that aren’t in the index will not show up in the search results when a keyword is inputted and searched in Google.
Although there is no right or wrong answer on the best dofollow vs. nofollow link ratio, but you can learn how other webmasters, companies, and SEOs build balanced links that makes Google smile.
Note: What Google is truly concerned about is the relevance of your backlinks. Even if the links don’t pass SEO value, do they offer any value to the users.
A link from a referring site that’s not related to your industry or topic may not be useful to people when they click on it.
It doesn’t matter whether the link is do or nofollow. Thus, this will lead to a high bounce rate, or pogo-sticking if you generate clicks from the search engines.
What is a natural link profile?
Google has one agenda:
To rank the best results will offer tremendous value for its users.
When you understand this most important pursuit, you’ll dare to spend adequate time on your content, and craft a masterpiece that people will naturally link to.
Your content, links, approach, and the like are all vital when you’re looking to improve your link profile.
Just as user’s profile on Facebook contains their full name, address, country, phone numbers, hobbies, academic information, and more, your link profile serves as a gateway for search engines to make smarter decisions on where to rank your web pages in their organic listings pages.
First, a link profile is not just backlinks.
The average SEO expert will advise you to get the right links if you want to boost your rankings. And it’s true.
Except they’re not telling you what makes a link “good” or bad, and what makes a link natural or manipulative.
A link profile is made up of:
The types of links pointing to your site (sources such as blogs, static sites, directories, forums, news articles, press releases, social, etc.).
Link velocity: how these links were acquired (all at once, or slowly/steadily over time) in the first place.
The anchor text distribution (words used) distribution used in those links (this is an integral part of what makes up a link profile).
Now that you know what a link profile is, another question is, what makes it “natural?”
The word “natural” is not strange to us. It means existing in or formed by nature. And not made or caused by man, as illustrated below:
So Google wants to index links that look natural, as though you didn’t ask, request or did anything to get it.
Link profile is more important than you think. Google algorithm updates have leveled the playing ground for both professionals and newbie site owners and SEOs.
Google penalties don’t look at faces before it works. You’ve got to understand that these penalties are largely based on the site’s link profiles.
If you want your content pages to perform well in the organic listings pages, you need to work on your link profile.
In modern SEO, where you got your links from is more important than the link itself. Better yet, the quality of a link carries much power than the quantity (or number of links you generated).
That said, every link is designed to create awareness of something on a different web page. While creating awareness, links offer value and help users find the information they’re desperately seeking for.
For example, some of the outbound links (out-going links) on this article are relevant.
Because if you click on them, you’ll land on a page that’s closely related to link building or SEO in general. I couldn’t link out to a real estate page, otherwise it may not be useful to you.
In the same vein, the entirety of your link profile MUST be natural, relevant and in one way or more help the users, not just boost rankings.
If you’re more concerned about rankings, then you’re probably doing something odd – and Google doesn’t like it.
What makes a good link profile?
Several things affect a link profile. Taking a look at the deeper complexity of a link is vital, because it gives you an unfair advantage over your competitors whose focus is on the quantity of links they can get.
A healthy link profile means that lots of high authority links are pointing to your site and no spammy links. The breakdown of a good link profile is:
It must contain lots of relevant, high authority, and high-value backlinks
zero spammy links
In the Moz’s list of Google ranking factors, you find that domain-level link features and page-level link features are the two most important factor that influences organic listings.
Domain-level link features
This can be defined as the total number of incoming links to a domain as a whole, and their characteristics (e.g., IP address diversifications, domain extensions, domain age).
Domain-level link features matter because it gives credence to your link profile. If the domains that sent links to your site are not authoritative or aged, your link profile will possibly not enhance your rankings.
I’m sure you don’t want that to happen. Or do you?
Let’s do a quick backlink analysis to determine the authority of domains linking to your site.
You can use Linkody to conduct a quick backlinks analysis. Once we know the number of backlinks, and the number of unique domains, we’re set to go.
i). Go to Linkody Backlinks checker. Input your site URL into the search bar. Click the blue “CHECK” button:
ii). Check backlinks data. At a glance, you can see that the site (contentmarketingup.com) has generated 3282 total backlinks from more than 400 unique domains.
Now let’s find out the domain authority of these domain names. We’re going to use another tool, from the company that initiated and developed domain authority as a site metric – Moz.
So quickly go to Open Site Explorer. In the search bar, input your site URL (e.g. contentmarketingup.com). Click the “search” button:
Next, you’ll see the domain and page authority of sites linking to you. This is so important, because when you’re armed with this, you’ll be able to focus on the right sites and develop a high quality inbound link profile .
You can see that the sites linking to contentmarketingup.com have strong domain authority.
In the eyes of Google, these authority sites will likely not be penalized for garnering too many links, because they’ve got a proven track record already.
It’s possible that someone else is trying to get them into trouble by deploying a negative SEO campaign.
More than anything, you’ve got to develop a strong foundation for your links. To start, connect with pro bloggers who have over the years grew their blogs. Their blogs currently rank highly in Google for several profitable keywords.
One of the ways to reach out to these authority blogs and connect with them at a personal level is to pitch a guest post. As popular blogs, they’re desperately looking for fresh content.
After all, they got to the first page of Google and currently ranks highly for several long-tail keywords by constantly publishing fresh, relevant, in-depth and long-form content. They need to continue, or lose their rankings.
When you guest post, if the site has a good standing with Google, even if the link contains a nofollow tag, it’s not useless nonetheless. Don’t ignore or throw it away.
You can also reach out to trade associations, local Chambers of Commerce, Educational blogs, Government owned portals, Better Business Bureau, business.com and other “authoritative” directories and websites.
Their domain names usually contain strong backlinks that are aged. Google favors these high-value domain names. By linking from them, you increase the quality score of your link profile, and take your rankings to another level.
In all of these, remember to use your company name (or brand name) as the anchor texts for links (more on this later).
This is critical, because over-optimized anchor texts can harm your site, and pass negative signals to your link profile, making them look manipulative, instead of natural.
Of course you know that useful content is key. Great content will continue to grow leads, increase traffic, rankings, and grow revenue.
Whether your site is new or not, it’s important to create great content that is link worthy, says link building expert David McBee.
Don’t be aggressive in your link building
Whether it’s dofollow or nofollow, you don’t have to be aggressive about it. One of the things that Google considers is the frequency that you get your links. Aggressive link building could harm your site especially if your site is fairly new.
Trustworthy sites like Amazon, Ebay, and the like have the authority to do aggressive linking and get away with it. But you shouldn’t.
A recent Search Engine Watch forums post showcased an email that went out from Home Depot.
The folks behind this huge ecommerce shopping site was asking their partners to link to the Home Depot’s website. A copy of this email is right here.
The resultant effect was that Home Depot saw an increase in its ranking when partners and fans started linking to them.
This might seem manipulative, because it’s against Google’s policy, but it helped the site. And they got away with this act at the time, because of the trust flow the pages have.
But a new site that tries this may not live to tell the sad story of Google penalty.
A basic backlink analysis shows that Home Depot’s link profile has a balance between dofollow and nofollow links.
Of course, the management may not have considered this, but it’s always good to know where you stand in the SEO world.
Most SEO experts are still confused on what the right ratio is. But I think Google has made it a lot easier to.
In the sense that if you get paid links, you need to add a nofollow tag to tell Google bot to ignore the links, and not index them.
If you don’t use a nofollow tag, and Google eventually finds out you purchased the links, you stand the risk of a penalty.
According to Francois Goube, “an ideal link profile has follow and nofollow backlinks. It’s just “natural”.
In other words, both dofollow and nofollow links will be present in your link profile if you have been following link building best practices, especially when you focus on creating link-worthy content. This types of content can go viral when you promote them effectively.
“You should be working towards earning links not building it,” says Michael Martinez. That way, you’ll possibly get a natural link profile.
And while responding to a Quora question regarding the importance of a good follow vs. no follow link ratio for SEO, Rav Smith says that a 50/50 ratio for dofollow/nofollow link is a natural backlink ratio.
However, the truth is that it’s very difficult, perhaps impossible to get a 50/50 ratio. What I think is that the difference between dofollow and nofollow links that points to your site should be tiny. Say follow links (60%), and nofollow links (40%).
Dofollow links should always surpass nofollow links. Because the former is more important to search engines and are responsible for improving your search rankings, but the latter (nofollow links) have their fate spelt out already by Google:
Anchor text distribution for links
We can’t talk about the best ratio for dofollow/nofollow links without mentioning anchor texts. Anchor texts are the lifeblood of any link. As noted in this description by the Stanford University:
“First, anchors often provide more accurate descriptions of web pages than the pages themselves.”
SEO is a multi-faceted subject. Links alone will not get you the rankings you seek, neither will content, no matter how good.
Don’t approach SEO with a half-baked approach. Remember there is correlation between page-level & anchor text-based links.
The relevance of a link is usually determined by the content of the page and the anchor text.
The caveat behind anchor text usage is simple: if you used “social media tools” as your anchor text, what do you intend to achieve?
Obviously, you want people to click on the link, and access tools that will enhance their social media marketing. Is that right?
When it comes to anchor texts links, you have to simplify the process, and not stuff a web page with several outbound links that goes out to the same site.
You’ve got to understand that when Google sees more than one anchor text that links out to the same web page, the first anchor text will be counted and SEO juice or value passed to your page, but the second link will be ignored.
Unfortunately, many people don’t know this. Yes, the anchor text is supposed to speak the same language as the referred site.
In other words, if the anchor text is “social media tools,” the landing page doesn’t have to be “how to get twitter followers” or “get more leads from Instagram.”
No, it has to be specifically dedicated to what the anchor text says or closely connected.
In order to successfully build a natural link profile, you need to pay more attention to your brand names and use them as anchor texts.
Because Google penguin was released to penalize exact keyword match anchor texts Or rather over-optimized exact match keyword anchor texts). So be careful how you use your keywords in anchors, and instead use your brand name.
Some of the respected SEO professionals have a wide range of anchor text distribution. Interestingly, distributions that are friendly with modern SEO is hinged on brand names. Take at look at Backlinko’s anchor texts distribution:
Brian Dean builds a lot of links, not only for his blog but for his clients. And they’re seeing good results in terms of search rankings, link acquisitions, organic traffic, and revenue growth.
His anchor texts are distributed evenly. But more emphasis is placed on his personal brand name (e.g. brian @backlinko, brian dean’s backlink, brian dean).
In like manner, you want your anchor texts to be as natural, and evenly distributed as possible. Here’s what majority of SEO agencies, professionals, and webmaster recommend as the ideal anchor text distribution:
i). Branded – In this case, your brand is included in the anchor text (e.g., our dodocase wallet, quicksprout).
ii). Brand Name – The brand name is mostly the anchor text, e.g. Backlinko’s SEO
iii). Keyword Branded – Sometimes, to see result, you have to combine an anchor text with a keyword(exact/phrase/partial match) and the Brand Name, e.g. the best SEO articles from Brian Dean at Backlinko
iv). Exact Match – You shouldn’t ignore your main keyword either. Although use them with discretion. Use your exact keyword as anchor to pass more relevant value to your link, e.g. SEO expert NY.
v). Phrase – The anchor text is made up of a keyword phrase or partial match anchor text, e.g. the Brian’s SEO That Works.
vi). Generic – Don’t use any keyword or brand in your anchor text, e.g. visit the site. You could also use just your URL as anchor text, e.g. http://marketingprofs.com
Avoid unnatural link profile penalty
A lot of things can trigger manual penalty from Google. You may not control your links 100%, but the ones you can, do your best to get natural links – if you can earn it that would be better.
Links from article directories (or content mill sites) and paid links are classified as manipulative by Google.
In fact, Google wants you to report paid links when you find one. This tells you that Google doesn’t want it.
For this single act, in 2012, Google de-indexed a search agency, Iacquire, for buying links for clients. Obviously, it was the sites the benefitted from the links that suffered a penalty, but the agency. I’m thinking that this was a manual penalty, not automated.
Several other sites were penalized for over-optimization or issues related to unhealthy link profiles.
This wasn’t a case of dofollow or nofollow links, but a question of how natural the links were. There are 17 types of link spams to avoid if you want to steer clear of Google penalty and build a natural link profile.
Conclusion
There you have it. An in-depth analysis of links, and how to balance follow vs. nofollow links – thus, building a natural link profile that will impact your search rankings.
Remember that the rules are not set on a stone. No one truly knows the right ratio for dofollow and nofollow links. Google hasn’t announced the ideal ratio yet, and I don’t think they will ever do that.
The most important thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter whether you get an indexable link (dofollow) or a link that just take dust and doesn’t get followed by search spiders, provided the link helped the user, such a link will be valued by Google.
What do you think? What ratio is your dofollow vs. nofollow links?
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