Link Evaluation Survey 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Links, seemingly the currency of rankings, and a white-hot area right now what with all the recent de-indexing of certain link networks, GWT Warning messages being sent to over 700,000 webmasters and the ever decreasing effectiveness of low-rent link building tactics.

So just what is a “good link”? We know what we look for in a link for our clients but we wanted to survey as many members of the SEO community as we could to get a real idea of the kinds of methods and metrics that SEO professionals all over the globe are using to assess the quality of a link.
What do we look for in a (link) partner?

We analyse a prospective linking partner for our clients based on three different areas:
The strength of a link – despite the shifts in link building practices, it is vital to assess a link from a strength point of view. This means utilising one or several or your preferred metrics, for us this is PageRank, mozRank and domain authority.
The quality of a site – just what is a high-quality website? We assess a website based on the overall user experience and the apparent policies of the website being evaluated. This includes things like a suitable number of adverts relative to content, well-written and well-constructed pages, and ensuring the website doesn’t appear to be overtly flogging its sidebars or footers.
The relevance of that website – some argue that the relevant link is a myth but we are still keen advocates of links making sense from a user’s perspective and that is the key to relevance. Obviously in some industries it is near on impossible to get links from directly relevant websites (unless you’re talking about the SEO community where knowledge, links and interactions flow freely between competing businesses!) because they are in the same industry and often are unwilling to link. This is why we look for natural crossovers between industries and topics to help extend the reach of our clients.
Show me the results

We opened the survey and saw just over 500 individuals complete it – thank you to everyone that took part and hopefully you’ll find this data interesting.


Link Evaluation Survey 2012 infographic By Orange Line SEO

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Link Evaluation Survey 2012 infographicBy Orange Line SEO