It usually comes up when they want to know the total number of links their site has gained through a link-building strategy, or when they start using backlink analysis tools like Ahrefs or Majestic SEO and realize, to their shock, that their competitors have tens or even hundreds of thousands of backlinks, while they have only a few thousand.

The answer here is short and straight to the point:

The number of backlinks does not matter at all. What truly matters is the number of referring domains, the unique websites linking back to you.

Of course, the quality of those domains matters too, as does the type of website and whether it is relevant to your niche, but that is a whole different discussion.

Why the Number of Backlinks Doesn’t Really Matter

Think of it this way:

You get a backlink from Site A, placed inside a guest post. That gives you one link from Domain A, pointing to your website from within an article. Pretty straightforward so far.

Now you get another backlink from Site B, also via a guest post. So far, the setup looks identical to Site A.

But Site B has a completely different way of handling its content and internal structure. For example, your article, the one containing your backlink in the first paragraph, might be listed in multiple categories. On top of that, Site B may use indexable tags, pagination, archives, and author pages, which could automatically create dozens of additional pages where your backlink shows up multiple times.

Now, do you really think those dozens of extra backlinks, generated this way (which is very common), count for more than a single backlink from a well-structured site that does not multiply its content across pages?

Absolutely not.

Different Anchors, Different Backlinks From The Same Domain

You might be wondering: What if I have multiple backlinks from the same site, but each one uses a different anchor and comes from a different article?

In that case, Google does not completely ignore the second link, but its link equity, meaning the value it passes, is significantly lower. From a single domain, the first link carries the most weight, the second contributes less (but not zero), and by the third or fourth, the value keeps dropping.

That said, take all this with a grain of salt, because there are plenty of nuances and exceptions in how this works.

You might walk away from this thinking you only need one backlink per domain. Not at all. That would mean building a strategy with hundreds of websites, each linking to you only once, and that would not look natural either.

So, keep things balanced and aim for a natural link profile.

Or, to put it simply: buy your links, but do it naturally. 🙂

The post Domains vs. Backlinks: What Really Matters for SEO? appeared first on VladSand.

What Exactly Is SEO Cannibalization?

In case someone has no idea what cannibalization means, let me take a short moment to explain it.

Cannibalization happens when your website ranks for a keyword with a different page than the one that’s actually supposed to rank, the one that’s properly targeted for that keyword.

This usually happens when you have at least two pages that are very similar for various reasons:

• They have similar meta titles
  
• They have similar visual titles (H1 headings)
  
• Or the content itself is very similar
  

When pages share at least two of these elements, they end up cannibalizing each other (meaning they compete against one another for the same keywords). In other words, inside those meta titles, headings, or content, the targeted keywords start overlapping. As a result, search engines don’t know which page to show for a given query.

In most cases, the website ends up downgrading all the pages involved, and effectively, none of them has the full ranking potential anymore. This phenomenon is one of the most common reasons why websites fail to rank properly.

Why No One Talks About External Cannibalization and Why It Matters

There’s another type of cannibalization that’s at least as common as internal content cannibalization. These are called external cannibalizations, meaning issues created when inexperienced SEOs or people who don’t understand how to build a proper link-building infrastructure or strategy end up using the same anchor text for different URLs.

And to be honest, the reason no one talks about it is that most people don’t even take it into consideration, and it simply never crosses their mind that this aspect could actually cause harm. First of all, cannibalization audits are done far too rarely, and secondly, most SEO specialists don’t even realize there could be issues in this area.

What Happens When You Use the Wrong Anchors in Link Building?

Example:
An SEO specialist wants to promote the URL https://site.com/green-laptops/, but on the same website, there’s also the main category: https://site.com/laptops/.

If that person uses the anchor text “laptops” instead of “green laptops” in their link-building strategy, there’s a good chance that https://site.com/green-laptops/ will start ranking for the keyword “laptops” instead of https://site.com/laptops/, or might even completely outrank it.

Of course, there are many nuances to consider here:

• The non-targeted URL (the wrong one) might have multiple incorrect anchors, not just one.
  
• The correct URL (https://site.com/laptops/) may have more targeted anchors than https://site.com/green-laptops/, but if the linking websites pointing to “green laptops” have much higher authority, then even a single misplaced anchor can cause cannibalization and permanently damage your rankings (and I’ll explain below why I said permanently).
  

How Common Is External Cannibalization?

Honestly, very often. I frequently run targeted audits for cannibalization issues, and in many cases, I find this exact problem, wrong anchors, which end up ruining entire sections of a website.

I usually notice this after completing the initial on-site cannibalization checks and seeing that there’s nothing wrong with the content itself. The next step is to analyze the external backlinks for the cannibalizing expressions, and that’s when I find what I don’t want to see: anchors placed incorrectly.

Can You Fix External Cannibalization Once It Happens?

This brings me back to what I said earlier, that a website can be damaged permanently, and here’s why I used those harsh words.

First of all, because once the issue exists externally, it’s no longer in your control. You might have placed an external link (or maybe someone else did it without your consent) using the wrong anchor text. In most cases (and I’ve seen dozens), it’s extremely difficult to convince the site owner or webmaster to change that anchor to the correct URL.

This happens mostly because the sites where links are placed usually do this constantly, it’s part of their business, and they don’t have the time or motivation to stop making money just to fix a link they added two years ago. Of course, I’m not saying it’s impossible; sometimes you do come across webmasters with common sense who’ll actually help you out.

How to Avoid External Cannibalization in the First Place

The main problem occurs because the people creating the link-building strategy don’t know the website well enough and are very superficial when planning it. They don’t perform internal research to see which anchors fit better for certain URLs, or, more precisely, which URLs fit better for specific anchors.

So, My Advice Is:

• Know the website well if you’re an SEO specialist.
  
• If you’re the site owner and you’ve outsourced your link-building strategy to an agency or freelancer, make sure you provide all the necessary details. If you want to promote a specific category, show them the subcategories as well. Don’t leave everything in the hands of so-called “specialists,” because most of them just want to get the job done quickly, collect their money, and go home.
  
• And, of course, last but not least, have some basic SEO common sense when creating a link-building strategy, because as I mentioned above, even a single misplaced anchor can destroy a business.

The post Content Cannibalization vs. External Linking Cannibalization: What’s the Real Difference? appeared first on VladSand.

But a link building strategy really has to be, at its core, “a strategy” . Today I will cover the two main areas of a link building strategy, namely: how to choose the URLs and how to create the anchors that are part of the link building strategy.

How to Select the Right URLs

Number of impressions

This is not the most important criterion, but it is the most consistent. It will be part of the other criteria presented when selecting URLs. Choose the URL based on the number of impressions received within a specific time period.

There is no point in adding a URL with very few impressions, unless it is a Hero URL (we will discuss this type of URL below).

URLs with non-brand keywords

For a correct analysis of the link building strategy, the brand name must always (absolutely always) be excluded, because the brand modifies the average position of the URL, and the average position of that URL is not the real one. We target organic traffic on non-branded keywords unaffected by the domain’s own name.

Average position

First, we look at the average position of the URLs we want to include in the link building strategy.

The average position must, of course, correspond to the selected time period. As a rule, we always select a short period. One week, or a maximum of three weeks, is ideal.

It is not correct to choose longer periods such as 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months to see the average position of URLs, because that average is NOT REAL. It is not real simply because it is spread over 12 months. You need the true and latest average position to know the current ranking of that URL.

The average position for selecting URLs in a link building strategy in order to achieve real results is:

• 4–7 to have a chance, after receiving links, to enter the top 3
• 10–12 to have a chance, after receiving links, to enter the top 10.

Value of URLs without backlinks

Consider that you have a URL with an average position of 7 achieved only through its content value, age, etc. Imagine what an additional link to this URL could mean.

Therefore, besides selecting URLs in a link building strategy based only on average position, also include URLs that have potential but no backlinks. Potential here means a decent position and a good number of impressions.

Hero URLs (Strategic Targets)

In addition to URLs that have a position we want to push forward (for example 4–7 or 10–12) or URLs without backlinks, of course a strategy also needs targeted URLs (if applicable).

These are the URLs that are in the client’s focus, for which there is a clear desire to rank.

Naturally, these URLs, as well as the others above that already have backlinks, should be chosen carefully and with a comparative analysis of the competition. For example, if we already have 20 backlinks with relevant anchors for a URL and we see that for the main keyword the competitors ranking above us have only 2 backlinks, it obviously makes no sense to spend resources acquiring more links in that area, because it is clear that backlinks are not the trigger for that type of keyword.

Tools and Methods for Gathering URL Data

You may have wondered by now: “Ok, you talk about average positions, number of impressions, etc., but how can I extract all these data?”

If we are dealing with a small presentation website, you can rely on the well-known Google Search Console to extract these data.

But, as the title of the article suggests, here we are talking about a link building strategy for e-commerce sites, so we will need more advanced tools that can extract URLs with details such as average position, number of impressions, etc., and at the same time allow very easy filtering.

We can use “Search Analytics for Sheets,” a Google Sheets add-on that is very easy to use for extracting data from Google Search Console (you need to be logged in to the site’s Google Search Console account for the tool to pull details from the site’s GSC).

Or we can use Screaming Frog, leveraging the Search Console API, which helps us see in real time, while crawling the site or batches of URLs we provide; data such as number of impressions, average position, CTR, etc., essentially all the data from Google Search Console.

To see the number of backlinks for URLs, tools such as Ahrefs or Majestic SEO can be used. (For example, in Ahrefs you can input batches of URLs and it will tell you how many domains link to each respective URL.)

How to Choose the Right Anchors

We are now at the stage where the URLs have been selected and that part is done. The next step is to choose the anchors. Below is how these anchors should be selected and created.

Where to Find the Best Anchor Opportunities

The safest way to see which anchors a URL needs is again Google Search Console, the fundamental tool of any SEO campaign. We look here, with external tools or manually, at which queries each URL ranks for (of course, as mentioned above, non-brand queries).

Any URL will have from a few to dozens or even thousands of queries it ranks for. Sort by number of impressions and then look at the average position.

Naturally, human judgment is required to exclude queries that are not related to the URL, queries that are too general, or queries clearly assigned to another URL on the site but for which your URL also received impressions.

Be careful: if you use in the link building strategy anchors that should be used for another URL; or if that other URL has the keyword in its meta title and overlaps with that anchor, you can create unintended cannibalization (URLs competing for the same keywords). Cannibalization caused by a poorly executed link building strategy is much harder to fix than internal cannibalization from duplicate content.

Types of Anchors to Use

Anchors with prepositions

It is a must for anchors to include prepositions if they are longer and not “one-word”. Without prepositions you may end up with anchors such as “Muscle building steps” instead of “Steps for building muscle,” or “Online personal brand building steps” instead of “Steps for building a personal brand online.”

As you can see, anchors without prepositions sound forced, unnatural, and clearly crafted for link building purposes. This can trigger algorithmic penalties such as Google’s Penguin update.

Generic anchors

Anchors like “click here,” “read more,” or “this link” are necessary for a natural link building strategy. They should represent about 1 in 10 anchors in a link building strategy, but ideally used only if the URL already has a backlink targeting the main keyword with a focused anchor.

Image anchors

Again, to stay safe and avoid the patterns typical of most link building strategies, it’s good to place links on images as well. Ideally, for maximum effect, the image should have an alt tag containing the main keyword of the URL.

Naked URLs

Naked URLs are simply the URL itself. This type of link should be used for naturalness and to avoid giving search engines any hint that you are deliberately pursuing a link building strategy.

Very natural long anchors

For maximum effect nowadays you should use anchors that target the main keyword but also include a naturally phrased sentence around that keyword.
Example: if you want to target the anchor “cheap laptops” in a link building strategy, you could use the following anchor: “I went specifically to a store to see if they have offers and find cheaper laptops.”

Short anchors

Literally, the use of short anchors such as “cheap laptops,” concise and to the point, but they should not be overused.

Percentage of URLs Targeted in a Link Building Strategy for an E-commerce Site

Category pages

The most important set of URLs on which a link building strategy for an e-commerce site should focus is category pages. Categories contain the most searched and relevant expressions and, of course, where competition exists. Therefore, about 80% of the entire strategy should focus on categories.

P.S.: Links to filters (if you have indexable filters) can also work here. You can treat filters in a link building strategy the same way you treat a category.

Product pages

Product pages are relevant in an e-commerce link building strategy mainly for naturalness. This ensures the site does not receive links only to categories and allows ranking for Hero products you specifically want to promote. A share of about 10% on product URLs is a reasonable percentage.

Links to the homepage

Backlinks to the homepage add naturalness, strengthen the brand, and more recently also help in the LLM area.

Anchors for homepage links should be used like: “website.com,” “Website,” “https://website.com,” “WEBSITE,” or combinations of generic anchors plus brand such as “read more on Website.com”.

Recommended Brand Anchor Percentages

Currently it is very important to have a percentage of URLs containing the brand in the anchors within link building strategies. As noted above in “Choosing the Anchors,” keep in mind that for every type of anchor presented you should naturally include the brand; except for generic anchors and naked URLs.

Brand anchors count heavily for naturalness and brand growth, especially for e-commerce businesses competing in crowded markets. Usually, on forums, blogs, etc., a person who naturally writes an anchor and adds a backlink also includes the brand.

Therefore:

• 20–30% of the anchors in a link building strategy should contain the brand for naturalness and E.E.A.T.
• 50% of all anchors should contain the brand if the goal is ranking in LLMs (Large Language Models), which place great emphasis on brand notoriety and trust.

To see what percentage of anchors on your site contain the brand name, I recommend using Ahrefs in the Backlinks Profile > Anchors section.

There you can filter the anchors containing your site’s name and calculate what percentage of all anchors currently include the brand.

For example, the Amazon site has a total number of anchors of 359,476,711
And a number of anchors containing “Amazon”: 74,715,513 → this results in a percentage of 20.78% of anchors containing the brand.

That is fine. But keep in mind that your site is not a huge brand like Amazon and therefore requires a higher percentage in link building strategies, exactly as mentioned above.

Note: you may see many fake anchors, patterns of anchors created by spam scrapers, so if you notice such patterns, filter them out to reach the most realistic percentage possible.

P.S.:
It should go without saying, BUT any URL included in a link building strategy must be indexable.

What does indexable mean?

• It must not be noindex
• It must not be canonicalized to something else (it should have a self-canonical)
• It must not redirect to something else
• It must not be a soft 404
• It must not be blocked by robots.txt

The post How to Choose URLs and Create Anchors for an E-commerce Link Building Strategy appeared first on VladSand.

Questioning the real value of the Disavow File

Let’s get back to the subject, because we strayed a bit with history.

The disavow file, at least for me, has never had any clear value. I mean, it only helped me and seemed to make sense once in its entire history of use, namely around 2012, after Google Penguin came into the SEO world. 

(A small side note for those who don’t know what Google Penguin is: it’s a Google update that basically acts as a link police. Sites that use spammy backlink methods fall into its filter and get penalized, either physically with a direct message in Google Webmaster Tools, or algorithmically, without you realizing it, but you can tell something negative is happening to your site, by an instant drop in organic traffic)

A single successful case

Returning to the topic for the second time: the only time it seemed to make sense to create a disavow file was after Google Penguin was rolled out and I had a client, a gift-basket site, which until Penguin had only directory links, packages of hundreds of links bought all at once on a single anchor, etc. (basically, the kind of practices common back then).

This site was penalized (algorithmically, so without a message in GSC), and because it was post-Penguin, I said clearly the problem was there, in the area of spammy links, so I created a disavow file with hundreds of spammy sites linking to this site. The site recovered its lost traffic in about 2 months after uploading the file.

Is it still worth creating a disavow file nowadays?

Normally I would say no, because creating a disavow file can backfire on your site, even if it is done correctly.

You might add sites with a perfect profile for a disavow file: spammy, toxic, etc., but if these sites are old, your backlink profile has only 20 domains and these are 300 domains, Google can be dumb enough to take your disavow file into account (which it should), but the shock for the site of having so many domains disavowed can be so big that the site might simply drop in rankings.

So is a disavow file worth it, or is it too risky?

If you have a site with traffic and it falls into the class described above: very few clean domains, many spammy and toxic ones, but old and well-established, it’s better to leave it alone and not bother creating a disavow file, because anyway, most of the time, Google knows how to figure out which sites are toxic or not.

Can Google simply ignore the disavow file?

Yes, most of the time it doesn’t take it into account. As I said, I believe that in more than 150 cases of creating a disavow file, it only worked once.

When and how to create a disavow file if you really want to take this step?

First of all, for beginners, here are the technical steps:

Create a simple .txt file (UTF-8).

On each line, write:

domain:site-name.com to disavow an entire domain

or the full address of a page if you only want to block a single link.

You can add comments with # (Google ignores them).

Save the file and upload it here:

https://search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links

And so you don’t have to do everything by eye, use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, or even Google Search Console to build your list. For example, in Ahrefs go to Backlink profile and start filtering by DR, anchors, etc.

What should you add to the disavow file?

I’ll start by telling you what not to add.

First of all, do not add domains that simply have a Domain Rating of 0. This is a practice used by many amateurs who have no idea about SEO and don’t understand the concept of SEO or a site’s value. Many people think that if a site with Domain Rating 0 links to your site, it’s bad.

That’s pure nonsense. Let me give you an example:

If you have an online bookstore, and a book enthusiast has a site where they talk about books, but the poor guy created his site just 2 months ago and links to you… Should I put this site in the disavow file? No. Not at all. That link is probably better than one from a Domain Rating 30 news site that has nothing to do with your niche, so don’t make this mistake.

So what kind of sites should you add to the disavow file?

First, look at the TLDs.

If you see TLDs such as: .xyz, .top, .club, .online, .site, .space, .pw, .gq, .cf, .ml, .ga, .tk, .work, .icu, .bid, .men, .win, .click, .loan, .download, .party, .science, .cam, .monster, .fun, .in, .pk, they are most often not natural links to your website, so consider adding them to your disavow list.

Manual inspection of unfamiliar sites

Then go through the sites one by one, even if there are thousands (yes, you heard right, even if there are thousands). Open the sites that don’t look familiar and if you see strange languages, Chinese, Russian, etc., and your site is in English, straight to the disavow file.

Scraper and directory listings

Also, if the sites you open are the kind of site listings that scrape the entire internet and add your site to a list of hundreds or thousands of links, straight to the disavow file.

Sites with adult or shady ads

Next, if you find sites that seem normal but inside have only links and strange banners to adult sites or potency sites, those kinds of ads go straight to the disavow file as well.

Don’t blindly trust “toxic” flags from tools

Another side note for those who add to the disavow list sites that certain tools flag as toxic. Never rely on such tools. I have seen many sites flagged as toxic when that was not the case.

Check anchor text for spam attacks

And last but not least, you need to check the anchors through which those sites link to your site.

There are bad actors, “SEO agencies” that intentionally spam the entire internet by placing fake anchors on decent sites, but anchors that can harm your site, especially through spammy content. For example, see the image below showing the kind of anchors pointing to this site:

Monitor backlinks regularly

If you catch this type of site early, you’ll need to add it to the disavow file. That’s why I recommend checking your backlink profile weekly, for your own site or your clients’ sites. Catching issues early is much better, because as I said earlier, if you wait for years, even a toxic and spammy site can take root and there may be consequences if you intervene too late with a disavow file (assuming Google will even take it into account)

That being said, I believe it’s still better to avoid creating any disavow file and to let old Google separate the good sites from the bad ones, because if we examine 100 successful organic sites right now, I assure you that 99 of them have spammy links and no one has paid them any attention.

The post The Disavow File – Is it really worth creating it? appeared first on VladSand.