Valuable Links are Editorially Given – Matt Cutt

[ViperDove]

Have you ever wondered what links Google considers to be valuable?
In this video, Matt Cutt said that link building via WordPress themes, widgets, etc. are not valuable because they’re not editorially given. And such links should be avoided. He said “Ask yourself – did the webmaster freely and actively choose to link to me? If not, the link may not be valuable”.

 

[SarahRTW]

I think he makes a very good and valid point. I can't find anything in that video with which to disagree. There's a lot of bad SEO/Link building sites and strategies and valuing legit techniques such as editorially given back-links makes much more sense than weighing them equally with link banks or the like.

 

[wowtgp]

Yep, you have to ask this question often. Did he or she give you the backlink out of his will?

That's why guest blogging is one of the best ways to build backlinks.

 

[MorgUK]

Very good point, I keep an eye on the Webmaster videos as they come straight from the big guy himself... Google.

 

[gates]

I don't think that backlinks of that context will never become completely irrelevant, G can adjust it's algo to fine tune only so much but if they completely stopped allowing links like they say they are search engines would start placing content not related to search queries/ take too long to index into the natural search.

 

[MoBowen]

I think this kind of advice applies to people who are in the spammy links business. There are too many gray areas for Matt Cutts' advice to apply to everybody.

Footer links aren't just good for SEO, they DO deliver traffic, and I'm sure Google is well aware of this. For example, I found an awesome WordPress designer because of a "Designed by" footer link at the bottom of her clients webpage. Likewise, if you design an awesome looking site for me, and you ask for a link in my footer, then I'm going to give it to you. That is my editorial choice, even though it's in a position that Google doesn't like.

I look for strategies that are going to deliver buyers to my sites. If Google likes it and they give me rank, great. If they don't, no love lost. (And I don't use any black hat techniques, nor have I ever been penalized.)

I learned a long time ago that if you live and breathe for Google, you set yourself up for disaster. I'd rather have trickles of traffic coming in from 1,000 different sites, than have 1,000 visitors coming directly from Google.

 

[jessman]

So editorial links, such as the links that come from guest posting on different sites? Not too sure what else would qualify as an editorial link. But if that's the case, it seems to be another link type that is already easily manipulated at all.