The Shark Tank

Link building has been the holy grail for ranking on Google SERPs for a long time. As such, this ranking factor has been manipulated by some site owners who engage in spammy or automated link acquisition to rank with little regard to user experiences.

This problem is among the many that Google’s 2024 core update seeks to address.  Google said it will remove 40% of low-quality, unoriginal content, shaping a new age in the SERPs. The update has ruffled quite some feathers in the SEO scene, with high volatility in ranking being reported from all quarters.

Natural Link Building Is the Way to Go

The best chance of ranking in the SERPs following the update is to get natural backlinks. So, while you may have to continue with your link-building efforts, you want to be sure that you are acquiring high-quality, relevant links from authority sources.

Manual and natural link-building takes time and effort so you must invest in outreach and building relationships with authoritative industry players. Following the new update, it is not only the number of updates that will matter; the quality will, too.

Ordinarily, an authoritative site will prioritize serving its visitors quality and helpful content. So, if you hope to get backlinks from such, your content has to meet a certain threshold in quality and value. Google algorithms will now consider such backlinks to be of high quality and a critical factor in ranking.

Limiting Spam Is Not a New Process

A link is considered spammy if it violates Google’s guidelines, which is the case with bought backlinks. Google is now leveraging AI using a system known as SpamBrain, which is designed to recognize patterns of spammy links and consequently devalue them.

Google’s initial attempt to limit spam came in its 2021 policy that saw a significant cleanup of the SERPs, but the current update is poised to make it even cleaner.

Why You Want to Avoid Spammy Links

If users quit clicking on links on a site due to poor UX, google interprets such actions as indicative of spammy links, which will translate into your site getting a hit.

So, while buying links may seem like the fastest way up the SERPs, your gains will be short-lived because Google has better systems now for catching violators, and you will eventually suffer de-ranking, which can be pretty difficult to recover from.

Adopting a Working Strategy

Every link-building strategy is unique, but there are some fundamental practices that you must adhere to, such as focusing on relevance. Relevance means the link must lead to information that the user may need based on the page they are on and is an excellent way of driving targeted traffic to your site and, ultimately, higher conversion rates. The content linked back to must also be original and helpful to ensure visitors who get to your site through backlinks stay longer and are more likely to return.

Having SEO partner such as BluShark Digital, who has been in the industry for a long time and has a record of happy clients, do the time-consuming natural link-building for you is the best way of staying at the top of the SERPs.

If your site is affected by Google’s March update or are afraid of a potential decline in rankings, contact us for help turning around your site’s performance and revenue.