So, you’ve managed to build a great backlink profile for your website and it’s now on top of the Google list? Kudos on that! However, it doesn’t mean that you can just sit back and relax. Your work is far from over.
Securing valuable backlinks is just one piece of the SEO puzzle. To sustain your high Google ranking, continuous monitoring is essential to ensure they consistently contribute value to your website, rather than diminish it.
Broken Backlinks
Even though broken links can happen for multiple reasons, their consequence is always the same: embedding non-existent or inaccessible pages can seriously harm your website’s Google ranking.
Search engines penalize sites with numerous broken links as they disrupt the user experience and hinder the crawling and indexing process. Regular link maintenance is essential to preserve SEO performance and user trust.
Of course, you can learn how to find and fix broken links yourself. However, if you want to save time and optimize your efforts, you can choose one of the automated tools, such as Ahrefs, SEMrush. They work by regularly scanning your website’s backlink profile and alerting you to any links that lead to non-existent or inaccessible pages.
Such proactive monitoring helps maintain a healthy backlink profile and SEO performance and makes any investment in those automated scanning tools worthwhile.
Updates in Search Engine Algorithm
What works great for Google today will not necessarily do the trick tomorrow. Search engines constantly update their algorithms and change the rules for good backlinks, which can directly impact your visibility and website score.
If you want to stay on top of your game, familiarize yourself with the most up-to-date Google requirements. Look out for official announcements on Google Search’s core updates and reports from reputable SEO news websites, such as Search Engine Journal or Search Engine Land.
With every algorithm update, check your backlinks for:
- value – links you had before may become less important and new types of links may become more valuable,
- penalties – if your backlinks look spammy to the updated algorithm, your website could be penalized, hurting your SEO,
- relevance – the new algorithm may change the way it evaluates whether a given content is relevant or not. Your existing backlinks may lose their relevance.
| DID YOU KNOW…? A famous real-life case of a Google penalty due to spammy backlinks involved the well-known online flower retailer, Interflora. In 2013, Interflora was penalized by Google for engaging in manipulative link-building practices. In 2023 Google’s algorithm has become even more sophisticated at detecting and ignoring toxic backlinks. This means that even if you don’t receive a manual penalty, the algorithm may devalue or ignore your spammy backlinks, affecting your site’s ranking. |
Ownership changes
Domains can change their owners. It happens all the time. The question is – how does it affect your link-building strategy and your SEO results? Normally, it will depend on the reputation and the intentions of the new owner.
If the website you’ve linked to your content has changed its agenda and lost its reputation, it can lead to a loss of trust and damage to your backlink profile. What’s more, if the new owner decides to alter the website’s content, focus, or branding, it may make your existing backlinks irrelevant to your SEO.
| DID YOU KNOW…? A real-life example of how new ownership can deteriorate a website’s credibility is Digg. This social news platform lost its reputation following a change in ownership in 2012. Under new ownership, unpopular changes alienated users, causing a decline in its community-driven image and user base. The website’s reputation and influence never fully recovered. |
If you want to avoid any potential damage resulting from ownership changes in your embedded links, keep a close eye on their domain reputation score (you can use Google Postmaster Tools for that).
Competitors Mistakes
Broken links can happen to everybody, not only you. What if they happen to your competitors? If you are fast and smart, you can turn it into a huge advantage for your website visibility. Here’s how:
By continuously monitoring your biggest competitors for any broken links to their content, you can quickly spot any 404 or 410 errors. In such a case, make sure to reach out to the websites that are linking to your competitors and offer your own relevant, high-quality content as a replacement for the now-broken link.
| DID YOU KNOW…? There are many FREE online checker tools that you can use to detect broken links in your competitors’ content (and in your content as well). Some of the most recommended include: Ahrefs, Sitechecker, Broken Link Check, Dr Link Check, Broken Link Checker (a plugin developed By WPMU DEV) is also highly appraised. |
To increase your chances for such a convenient link swap, put effort into developing a systematic outreach plan to approach the websites linking to them. It’s a smart way to turn your competitors’ misfortune into an opportunity to strengthen your own backlink profile and boost your SEO efforts.
| Quick Checklist for Successful Linking Partnerships: – Personalize your outreach message – Highlight mutual benefits – Offer competitive content – Connect on social media – Suggest guest posts – Follow up on your emails – Focus on building long-lasting relations rather than one-time benefits |
User experience
Backlinks have a huge impact on the user experience on your website. Valuable links from reputable sources can enhance the quality of your content, provide additional resources, and create a more informative and engaging environment for visitors.
Backlinks can help users navigate between related content more efficiently. Strategically linking related posts within a website can improve UX metrics, and boost your rankings in search engine results over time.
On the other hand, inappropriate or broken backlinks can severely disrupt the user experience. Clicking on broken links is very frustrating, and so is finding that the linked website is irrelevant, obsolete, or toxic. It is very easy to get discouraged and search for information somewhere else.
Remember not to take your users’ loyalty for granted. Work hard on earning it by constantly monitoring and updating your backlinks. It is a sign of respect for the people who chose you.
| DID YOU KNOW…? According to User Guiding, 88% of online customers say they wouldn’t return to a website after having a bad user experience. |
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In the competitive and constantly evolving world of SEO, keeping a close eye on your links and adjusting your strategy is essential. Regularly checking your backlinks for quality, staying updated on trends, and watching what your competitors do are some of the things that will help you stay visible online.
