Current Developments in Link Building

Obtaining inbound connections to your websites from outside sources is a strategy known as link building, and it has a long history full of interesting advancements and amusing stories.

Here, we'll give you a "Brief History of (Link Building) Time" and a sneak preview of some cutting-edge techniques for acquiring relevant backlinks for your website. After reading this post, you'll fully understand how much easier (and far more genuine) link building is now. Let's start now.

Link Building: What Is It?

Building inbound links to the pages on your website is the main goal of the search engine optimization (SEO) method known as link building.

You may increase the likelihood that search engines will rank your content higher by creating these high-quality links, which communicate authority and trust (SERPs).

Nearly as long as SEO itself, link building has been a practise. Link building has seen several changes throughout the years, some of which date back to 1995. But, like most things in the natural world, link construction has undergone several evolutionary changes, some of which are more confusing than others.

How Link Building Began

Link building is not created equal. Some variations of the approach were dishonest and dubious in ways that could never pass the strict standards Google has now.

Although legal, other iterations of the plan required a lot of effort and time to carry out. Fortunately, there is a lot simpler method available now, which we shall discuss more. Let's take a moment to reflect on the past and how far we have come.

Link farms and Web Rings

Web rings, which are regarded as the forerunner of link building, refer to the practise of website owners posting connections to relevant websites on their own websites. These "loops" or "rings" of online material forged a straight line across the distinctly non-linear internet.

However, this tactic gained popularity in the mid-1990s when the web was still a relatively undeveloped medium and there was less competition for consumers' attention than there is now. Though far less frequently than in the early days of the web, web rings are still utilised.

You would be right to believe that this is an unexpectedly altruistic marketing strategy. For both searchers and digital marketers, search engines back then were crude, perplexing places. Businesses and publishers became friends as they cooperated to achieve their shared objective of grabbing online users' attention.

For instance, if a web user in 1995 wanted to learn how to build a bicycle, they might visit one educational website and be pleasantly surprised to find that what they selected linked to another dozen websites that also provided a thorough explanation and step-by-step instructions on how to build a bike.

Today, a user searching for "how to make a bike" may come across 8 million organic results on Google that provide the information they are seeking for, but they may also come across results that have spammy outbound links that go to entirely unrelated websites.

Link farms appeared shortly after web rings became widely used. A link farm is exactly what it sounds like: a collection of websites that connect to one another in an effort to appear more prominently in early search engines.

The Inktomi search engine was essential to the success of this plan. The Google of the late 1990s was Inktomi. Inktomi had two indexes and depended on link popularity to determine search engine rankings. A small number of listings were maintained in the primary Inktomi index (in the millions). Therefore, websites that didn't keep up with the required quantity of inbound links to their content were removed from the main index.

Early SEO adopters started building networks of websites that could "farm" connections to and from one another to address this nerve-wracking issue. This offered a sort of safety net—safety in numbers—and maintained the number of inbound connections between these sites constant.

Results from Inktomi's index were also used by emerging search engines like Yahoo! So, if your website performed well in Inktomi, it was likely to do well in Yahoo! as well. Early internet firms were able to effectively retain their position in the search engine indexes by banding together as a result of this and the reliance on link popularity.

You might argue that Inktomi gave these link farms the ideal amount of land and rich soil.

Early search engines were confusing, but in 2022, the World Wide Web will effectively be limitless. This benefit has the potential to frustrate searchers. Your backlink profile has to be packed with relevant, authoritative links if you want to avoid confusing and perplexing today's internet searchers.

For digital marketers, web rings and link farms were simple answers to a challenging issue. In reality, they paved the way for link exchange, the subsequent generation of link-building techniques.

Link Swapping

Although link exchange and web rings may sound the same, there are several significant distinctions between the two.

Link exchange offered a directory of these links, unlike web rings, which only created microcosms of similar information on the web by connecting from relevant websites to one another. The procedure of reciprocating links was sorted and arranged to make it more simpler for digital marketers at the time.

This not only expanded on the current web ring method, but the procedure also got automated thanks to a number of technological advancements and businesses. Tony Hsieh created the LinkExchange application, one of the most well-liked link exchange programmes, in 1996.

An early LinkExchange banner ad offers free assistance in helping you promote your website. Tony Hsieh, the originator of LinkExchange, eventually rose to become CEO of Zappos. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

LinkExchange eliminated the time-consuming human elements from connection development. When another website connected to one's and requested a reciprocal link in return, the programme would notify the first website owner. Additionally, it would confirm that the links had been shared as intended.

The problem with link exchange as a strategy was that anybody might establish a mutually beneficial connection. For instance, model plane websites and bicycle websites may exchange connections. Although it could have been a better ordered approach, traditional web rings were considerably cleaner and more user-friendly.

Imagine visiting a website to discover how to rapidly replace a flat bike tyre and finding instructions for building a model Wright 1905 Flyer instead. Talk about a mess!

However, you can't always hold these early link builders responsible. They were trailblazers only attempting to spread the word about their websites. There are still SEO strategists that advocate link swaps, however this is no longer the accepted practise in the sector.

Through the use of email, the process was then further mechanised.

Website directories and early email outreach

If you've heard of "email outreach," you probably have an image of an outreach professional emailing highly relevant publishers to solicit connections to their website. Email outreach may fit this description now, but it had a different meaning in the middle of the 1990s.

Web developers started expanding on the automation that platforms like LinkExchange introduced to web rings as a way to make life even simpler for marketers. After all, completing a web form for each and every reciprocal link you wanted was still rather onerous.

Email outreach is here. During this time, email outreach made it straightforward to ask for connections from reliable websites by just sending out a single mass email. This was revolutionary for webmasters who were weary of having to do so much typing and clicking only to acquire one reciprocal link to their site, even though it was considerably less focused than the email outreach of today.

Creating Links in the 21st Century

The internet era in which link building was used by publishers to assist one another wasn't very long-lived. By the early 2000s, you could ask a search engine almost any question and get hundreds or thousands of answers.

This frequently resulted in an online experience that was highly diverse. If you search for "best running shoes," you may land on a reputable website with a tonne of beneficial outbound connections to other websites. Or, you can click a link on a page about running shoes and wind up on a page about the Boston Red Sox's history, leading you down a rabbit hole.

Website directories also gained popularity during this period. Website owners might request that directories like Yahoo! Directory, DMOZ, and AOL's directory mention their website (to name a few).

Some businesses, like Yahoo!, maintained both a directory and a search engine in the mid-1990s, adding another layer of complexity. A lot of these hybrid search engines and directories were combined into one service.

For marketers and website owners, some of these directories were free, while others, like Yahoo! Directory, required a fee to examine the website that was applying for inclusion in the directory.

Through trial and error, users improved their IT skills and raised their standards. This is presumably the reason Ask Jeeves was such a well-liked search engine until the firm was disbanded in 2006. Who doesn't adore the concept of having a virtual butler deliver them all the answers to their most pressing queries, after all?

Broken Link Technique

Only a small number of the techniques utilised in the early days of the web, such guest blogging, were carried over into link building when it entered the twenty-first century. By the early 2000s, link building technique and pedagogy had advanced to a highly sophisticated and structured state.

SEO specialists started to question, "Why concentrate only on generating new links? Why not enhance what is currently in place? As a result, the broken link approach was developed.

What's not broken, why repair it? Why not try to remedy the problem? The broken link approach serves and serves this objective.

Link creation takes time. You must establish a rapport with the publisher, make a lot of cold calls, and perhaps even purchase a few connections.

It normally takes less time to find broken inbound links and contact the publisher to have the link fixed, plus it's usually free.