While not everybody agrees entirely on what makes a backlink high quality, there are several aspects that most SEO experts agree on.

First, most experts agree that a backlink needs to come from a trusted source. As authorities within every niche got where they are through hard work and effort, they’ll be more selective about who they endorse. In a way, Google likes links from authority sites as these authorities do Google’s job for it.

Second, a backlink should ideally come from a site that’s relevant to yours. If you sell nails in New York, there’s very little reason for a herbal remedy site in Asia to link to your site. When this happens, it can look to Google as if you were trying to manipulate its algorithm by making your site seem more popular.

Third, a backlink is more valuable when it comes from a site with a high ranking on Google. The search engines know it’s neither cheap nor easy to achieve a high ranking on them, which is why they expect such sites to be careful with who they associate with.

Several years ago, the quantity of backlinks a site had was fairly important. Google assumed if a site had lots of others linking to it, it was fairly popular and deserving of a ranking.

As you can imagine, this method of judging sites was open to abuse, and before long, thousands of low-quality websites were ranking highly on Google.

So Google decided to change its ranking criteria. It wanted to rank quality sites that users of its service would appreciate. One way it judges a site’s quality is through the quality of its backlinks.

Because Google now has a zero-tolerance approach to those trying to manipulate its search ranking, it punishes those using low-quality backlinks. These punishments usually come in the form of penalties and ranking demotions.

As Google is against the idea of people buying backlinks for their sites, quality links have to be earned.

The easiest way to do this is to offer value to your industry. By creating useful content, you’ll encourage authorities within your niche to link to your site as they feel their audience can benefit from your work. While this is effective, it’s slow.

Perhaps the most effective way of acquiring high-quality backlinks in a limited space of time is to network. If you’re able to guest post, post on authority sites, or appear with authority figures on podcasts or in interviews, you’ll acquire much-needed backlinks in next to no time.

Backlinks may look the same as one another, but they all function very differently. Some backlinks have the ability to rocket your site up the search rankings, while others have the ability to send it into search engine purgatory.

If acquiring backlinks is something you find difficult, why not outsource the task instead?

For 5 years, we’ve been helping websites acquire the quality backlinks they need to achieve SEO success. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help your site achieve similar results.