Stealing Backlinks

SEO Strategist

Because they're the most crucial part of ranking a website, the best ways to obtain authority is stealing links. So you might be inclined to ask, "didn't your mom tell you stealing was wrong?" Furthermore can't we get in trouble for stealing?

Ok so we'll let you in on a little secret, it's not technically stealing. Then again you can't technically steal something such as a web domain's outbound links. If you can get a domain to point at your site as a result of one reason or another, you didn't take someone elses. However, because we are borrowing someone elses list of links there are a few things to be aware of.

Take Caution Stealing Links

Whenever you're conducting a link building strategy in this manner, be cautious so it doesn't backfire on you. What does this mean exactly, because didn't I just advise you in Stealing Links?

1. Some Backlinks are irrelevant, so even though they are giving your competitor direct juice, they may not necessarily be relevant to you.
2. Many Backlinks are considered to be blackhat. So even though they're providing benefit to your competitor now, they very well might be a penalty down the way!
3. Because you don't know honestly when your competitor initially acquired the backlink, it is quite possible that it is outdate and no longer passing authority to them.
4. Another reason not to focus too heavily on backlinks, and more on content, is because Google is starting to weigh social signals and other aspects higher. Google is well aware that many exploitations of links occur, and quite possibly could alter the playing field in such a way it isn't worth it.
   
   

Ok but seriously back to discussing backlinks lol!

So there's a couple things definitely worth mentioning about links to your domain that you can control to some degree. The first thing is the importance of the content being relevant in Googles eyes. Because the link wont pass authority if it isn't something related to your domains content.

If you can add a few hundred words to surround your anchor text or hyperlink with, that should seal the deal. Generally 450 words is a good starting point. Many instances such as free 2.0 web properties will arrise from time to time where you can control the content. 

On a final note, you want link juice to flow throughout your entire website, so make it a habit to use a different page on your site every backlink you point to your domain. Evenly distributed links combined with superior internal ones will rank you significantly better than simply pointing at your root domain.