The link king

We explain THE REAL HISTORY

Before the arrival of a formidable penguin, many netlinking techniques were used to optimize website rankings. Learn more about netlinking and the Google Penguin penalty!

Netlinking, a true pillar of SEO

What is netlinking?

Netlinking, or link building, is an organic search (SEO) technique aimed at demonstrating a website’s popularity to search engines through the number of external links pointing to it. To boost a site’s authority, one must acquire more quality external links. This is an indispensable SEO strategy for improving a site’s positioning in search engine results.

External links, an essential ranking factor

SEO professionals have always sought to understand the secrets of Google’s algorithm. Regarding backlinks, or external links, Larry Page and Sergey Brin had already provided a significant lead by revealing the fundamental importance of link structures and anchor texts in Google’s ranking system.

The paper “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” written by the two founders in 1998, details that external links are one of the components allowing Google to display the most relevant search results for the user: this technology is called “PageRank.”

PageRank is a crucial component of Google’s algorithm

While it is no longer possible to access this specific data point, it was once widely exploited by SEOs. This facet of the Google algorithm analyzes the structure of external links and their anchor text to define the popularity of the page they refer to.

To summarize, the more a page receives links from sites whose pages have a high PageRank, the more relevant and promoted that page is intended to be. This was precious data for SEO experts, as it allowed them to identify strategic sites at a glance based on their score.

The different methods of netlinking

Over the years, various link-building techniques have emerged. To obtain external links, it is possible to follow Google’s recommendations—namely, creating attractive, high-value content likely to be shared naturally via a link: this is known as “link baiting.”

Another method consists of directly purchasing external links from a netlinking platform across various media outlets to improve a site’s ranking.

A major problem for Google: External link spam

Google’s algorithms, however, take a very dim view of “artificial” links. Netlinking strategies saw various abuses: over-optimized link anchors, private blog networks (PBNs), mass spam in forum comments, directories, or even via press releases were exploited for many years.

The PageRank system was thus put to the test: how could Google rank the most relevant pages on the SERP despite abusive netlinking techniques?

The arrival of a penalty named Penguin…

The implementation of the Google Penguin algorithmic filter dealt another heavy blow; less than a year after the rollout of Google Panda, the SERPs were once again turned upside down. The target this time: dishonest netlinking techniques and external link spam.

Objectives of this new algorithmic filter

Google Penguin’s mission is to penalize sites featuring abusive and Black Hat netlinking strategies, targeting fake and over-optimized external links. The goal was to sift through artificially boosted websites to present users with more relevant and high-quality search results.

Spammy netlinking techniques have since become obsolete, and many website owners are suffering the consequences…