Backlinks? Worth the Effort?

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   geekystonerposted 4 years ago

   Aside from the classic "Write good Articles" what is the best way to get backlinks? My top two articles get half their traffic from Pinterest. I make a Top 10 list and just go down the list and pin the photos at the end. And are backlinks worth the trouble? I used to make websites like 8 years ago and I know at that time I would spend hours going through social bookmarking sites for backlinks. Worth the effort?

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      NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I say no. Seems you're better off getting backlinks organically. Other people supposedly have success with it, especially Pinterest. Also, you could get penalized by Google if the links are unnatural.

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   Marisa Writesposted 4 years ago

   Social bookmarking sites still survive, but only because there are enough old "how to make money" blogs still giving out the old advice.  They are a complete waste of time these days and can even be harmful.
   
   The same goes for Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest pages/groups where you can post links  to your articles.  If all people are doing is posting links to the same site, with no other content, Google sees that and will penalise your article for links from such pages.

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   lobobrandonposted 4 years ago

   Social bookmarking is not worth the effort. There are people who would say otherwise and they usually have services where they do this for you or they are just not updated on current trends as Marisa pointed out.
   
   If you build your own links, make sure to keep them as natural looking as you can, reaching out to someone for a link is fine that is just networking. Paying for a link on a website that publishes content just to build links for others is eventually going to get your pages penalized as Nate says.

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      eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      So should we delete all the links from our posts on Pinterest? I didn't realise it could penalise our articles. I get about 100 views a day from Pinterest according to GA, but Pinterest stats say only 109 in the last 30 days. So most of them are presumably from secondary pins.

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         Shesabutterflyposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I get quite a few views from Pinterest as well. I find that views are better if I actively pin a few pins (not mine, I have not written a new article in a while) each month.
         
         This month I only had 193 from Pinterest, compared to closer to 300 if I actively work on networking. I don't know if activity level really matters, but I always seem to do better if I'm actively using Pinterest and adding new pins to my boards.
         
         I'm guessing that's because my repins will be shared with followers or brought up to the main pages for more people to see so the likelihood of my boards being seen and browsed through is higher. That is purely speculation though as I have no idea how Pinterest actually works or how they decide which pins appear in the main pages or in searches.
         
         Pinterest was my main source of traffic after Google most months in 2019 though, so I think it's definitely worth it to network Pinterest if the topics are popular there.

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            Marisa Writesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            If you have genuine boards where you post a variety of stuff, that's not a problem at all.

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            Ladymermaidposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            I find Pinterest to be a good source of traffic as well. With so few articles getting hits unless they sit at the top of Google I think we do have to take advantage of social networking to squeak out a few extra visits to our articles. Social networking sites work best when you share your own but also reshare other articles as well. Simply having the profile to promote your own can be nothing shy of spammy.

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               lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               Definitely. It is very important that the terms backlinks, social media sharing, and social bookmarking are not confused.

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         wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         HP data indicates that Pinterest is my third largest source of traffic over the past month (or week or day, for that matter).  I'd be loathe to dump that without pretty good proof that it is actually hurting my traffic.

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            divacratusposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Agree. I get good traffic from Pinterest too. I do not want to ditch that yet.

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         Marisa Writesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I said "if all people are doing is post links to the same site", then it can be viewed negatively by Google.   If you are using Pinterest as it's meant to be used, linking to other pages and not just to your Hubs, there's no problem.

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            eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            People never repin any of the articles I pin from here so I reckon I've earned a shadow ban from Pinterest from excessive HubPage pins.

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         lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Social sharing is not equivalent to building bad links. Social media is meant for sharing stuff. I was referring to paying to build links on certain websites which are essentially link farms.

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      OldRosesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Pinterest is a good, steady source of traffic for me because I write about gardening, a very popular topic on Pinterest.
      
      The best way to use links is to link your articles on HP.  For instance, every time I mention composting in an article, I automatically link to my article on composting.  I learned that from you, Brandon!  It's worked really well for me.

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         wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with this - interlinking our articles can be a good source of traffice.
         
         Dengarden is my second largest source of traffic, after Google dot com.  Bigger than Pinterest, bigger than Bing, bigger than google android, and it's nearly all from linking my hubs together.

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            OldRosesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Me too!  but I think most of that traffic is coming from the links offered at the bottom of articles rather than from author generated internal links.

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            lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            If you are looking on Google analytics, I believe those would show as direct or if someone visited a second of your hubs through another which they got to from Google it would show as Google.
            
            When you get a link from Dengarden it says that you got a visitor from a page on Dengarden, but one that does not have your analytics tracking.
            
            If you are seeing HP stats, then it could all just be termed Dengarden, not so sure how their tracking system is built up.

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         geekystonerposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I was just told on another post to remove in internal linking because HubPages doesn't like it. ??

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            OldRosesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            You can't link from a niche site BACK TO HubPages.  You can link FROM Hubpages to a niche site and since my articles are moved within a few days from HP to Dengarden, my links go from Dengarden to Dengarden which is allowed.

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            bravewarriorposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            I heard that too. HP/Maven doesn't want us linking to other articles. Not our own or anyone else's.

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               theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               It's fine to link from network article to network article. It's also fine to link to references.

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                  bravewarriorposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  Good to know. Thanks.

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      3. 77

         lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I do quite well on Pinterest too. Social bookmarking is not the same as social sharing. Social bookmarking is where people pay someone to end up sharing your social media posts.
         
         Basically they share an article of yours on say Facebook and then they have a bunch of accounts that then like and share this facebook link across their fake Facebook walls. I should have clarified that.
         
         Building internal links is really good. I tend to do it within Dengarden and not just my own articles (not as often as I should) because then the whole domain does better.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 4 years ago

   My view is to not to put too much effort into creating backlinks. HP are good at that sort of thing, and backlinks aren't everything, like they used to be years ago.
   
   I personally still pin stuff on Pinterest though, tweet occasionally, use Instagram. The main aim has to be getting a reasonable ranking through a good article and then letting stuff be linked to organically?
   
   That's my approach anyway.

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   CYong74posted 4 years ago

   I think Google will only impose penalties when you spam URLs on social media, or if you get accounts of low repute to mass share your URLs. For a start, if you do either, Facebook might ban your URL for a variety of days.
   
   As for backlinks, I think it really depends on your topic. Most of my top performers have few backlinks but still do well, but only because of low competition. For commerce and popular topics, though, I think it still matters.
   
   It has a lot to do with domain authority too, I feel. Generally, if you're published on a highly rated domain, backlinks matter fewer.

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