Judging by some of the links to diy.com, the website of B&Q, there has been some buying going on. Of course we don’t know this for sure but the links look unnatural and are next to links for things like “home insurance” etc so they appear to be paid links.
What stands out to me is the fact that whoever has been buying the links is doing it in a really stupid way. For instance they are linking to the homepage with the anchor text “wardrobes” when the homepage doesn’t have that word in the text. They do this with countless different terms all with links to the homepage instead of a category page or directly to a product.
Aside from being a total waste of money we can’t see any reason why a site like this needs to buy links. They could rank for anything with some half decent on page optimisation.
As modern SEO is rapidly evolving the days of old-fashioned link building seem to be quickly disappearing. The “old-fashioned” methods are still very popular with many SEO’s and can still add value to a website rankings, but the fact is there’s only so far it can take you.
Traditional link building methods such as directory submissions, article marketing and competitor backlink analysis are commonly used and while this can be effective for improving rankings in an uncompetitive industry it’s not something you can rely on heavily when faced against well-known brands with expensive online and offline marketing budgets. Quality directory/article links are now few and far between, even the links once considered strong now seem to be fading away.
Competitor analysis can be excellent to highlight industry specific links which can add weight towards search rankings, you certainly shouldn’t ignore this opportunity but if your main tactic is to copy a competitors link profile you can never expect to outrank them yourself. Even if you manage to replicate all of their inbound links (which is extremely unlikely as many will be natural links and others you might not find through backlink searches) they still have the advantage that the age of those links will be older and the weight passed towards improving search rankings will be greater because of this. (Continue Reading…)
