Will Google Punish Me For Building Links?

In a previous post, I talked about the importance of link building for SEO (search engine optimisation). This is so important, that I feel I must repeat this one more time –

Link building or backlinks are the life blood of search engine optimisation. You must get backlinks to your website in order to rank well in the search engines.

We established that there are 2 main ways of getting backlinks to our website.

1. Naturally – By producing quality content that encourages other websites to link to us.
2. Unnaturally – By actively building links ourselves.

We also established the first method of getting backlinks naturally took a series amount of time and effort.

I therefore concluded that if you wanted to rank well in the search engines is was essential to start building links yourself. Before I continue let me just be clear. I am in no way against quality content. I would encourage anybody who has a website to always strive to produce high quality content. The problem is that if you spend a lot of time producing high quality content and wait for other people to link back to you, then you could be waiting a seriously long time before you move up the rankings. In the meantime your competitors will be overtaking you and you’ll miss out on lots of money.

Wait for people to link to you – Watch Your Competitors Overtake You

I started this blog to help people like you make money on the internet. I really want you to succeed. If you are intending on using SEO to drive traffic to your website then the reality is that must actively build links yourself. Of course if you combine quality content with active link building then you are giving yourself every chance of serious success on the search engines.

Now that we have that cleared that up, a question you may ask is,

‘Will Google punish me for building backlinks?’

Ladies and gentlemen I am here to tell – NO! Google will not punish you for building backlinks.

Now I realise that this information is contrary to what you may have heard in some internet marketing forums or from some other ‘SEO experts’. However it is my opinion that you will never be punished for building backlinks to your website.

How can I say that you will NOT be punished for building backlinks?

It is very simple. If Google punished websites for building backlinks then Google would have a serious flaw in its algorithm. In fact the flaw would be so serious then the whole fabric of the internet would be destroyed.

Let me explain.

If Google punished websites for building backlinks then I would be able to destroy my competitors extremely easily. Think about it, if Google punished websites for building backlinks then all I’d need to do is find my competitors websites and then pay someone to build backlinks to them. Sooner or later Google would punish them (by delisting them) and I’d get to number 1. In fact if there was a business I didn’t like such as Amazon, I just employ a team of people to build a huge number of backlinks to them and wait for Google to delist them. The whole fabric of the internet would completely collapse. Unscrupulous people could wipe out entire websites. See a competitor’s website at the top of Google, build backlinks to it and then wipe it out.

Now of course you know this is not how the internet works. Google is a multi-billion dollar company; they have shareholders to answer to. Why would they destroy the very thing that has made it so successful?

They wouldn’t!

Therefore it is totally logical to assume that you cannot be punished for building backlinks. Now of course the Google PR machine is always going to do everything it can to perpetuate the myth that you can be punished for backlinks. That way it encourages people to produce quality content and the web gets better and better. Remember the people who run Google are very smart, they know that they cannot punish sites for building backlinks because as I have just pointed out, it would destroy the very fabric of the internet. Google will never let you know this because it is in their interests to keep perpetuating this myth.

Doesn’t this mean that Google is open for exploitation?

Now you know that Google doesn’t punish websites for building backlinks, you may be thinking, doesn’t this mean that Google can be exploited? Surely if Google doesn’t punish websites for building backlinks then all I’d need to do is build backlinks to my site and I’d get up the rankings? If you’re thinking this then you are right!

This means that Google can be exploited!

You can build backlinks and you can get up the rankings. Now I know that this may sound like a dramatic statement, but guess what?

Most companies, businesses and people who do SEO know this!

People know that Google can be exploited by building backlinks and that’s exactly what they do. Those companies who occupy position 1 for competitive keywords have got there to some degree (I would argue by a large degree) through building links. They maintain their position at the top of Google by continuing to build links. Do you honestly think that companies who have got to the top of Google for extremely lucrative keywords such as ‘loans’ ‘Jewellery’ ‘Women’s Clothes’ have done it by doing producing quality content and waiting for sites to link back to them. Absolutely not! They have done it in some part by building links because they know it works and they know they will not be punished for it.

If you don’t believe me, as an experiment ask an SEO firm to prepare you a proposal for getting your website up the rankings for certain keywords. I absolutely guarantee that no matter what firm you speak to, every single one of them would come back with a proposal that in at least some part suggests a link building campaign. SEO firms actively recommend to their clients to build links because they know that Google can be exploited and that link building works. Smart internet marketers also know this. You as a smart person needs to understand that you will never be punished for building backlinks to your site because essentially you have no control over. So if you have a website and want to start getting up the search engines then start building backlinks right now.

Extremely Important Proviso About Link Building

I believe that you will never be punished for building backlinks to your website. However there is a smart way to build backlinks. You don’t want to arouse suspicion from Google and you want to make your link building look as natural as possible. There are many ways to do this, I highly recommend that you read this brief report,

Smart And Safe Backlink Building Guide

It is an excellent report that gives you lots of useful tips about how to make your link building look natural to Google.

It’s a blog post in itself but some quick tips include,

1. Varying Your Anchor Text. If you have a website targeting “Dog Training” don’t only use dog training as the anchor text. Make sure that you mix it up a bit. For example throw in “How to Train a Dog” “Best Dog Training” etc, even throw in a couple of “click here” or “this website” to make it appear natural.

2. Link To Other Pages Within Your Site – Don’t just link to the homepage, link to other pages in your site and consider linking to articles which in turn link to your site. You have to mix it up a bit to make it look natural to Google.

3. Use your domain name as the anchor text – When other people link to your site, they are not going to always use the exact anchor text that you want. People may well use your domain name, so you must try and replicate nature and use your actual domain as the anchor text. They key is to mix it up and make things look as natural as possible to Google.

Even More Important Proviso – Please Read Very Carefully

While I believe that you will never be punished for building backlinks, I would suggest that you CAN be punished by Google if you choose to link to the wrong sites.

Make sure that if you decide to link to sites you are only linking to safe and respectable sites. Google understands that as a website owner, you have the power to decide who you are linking to. If Google finds out that you are linking to some nasty sites, then you may well be punished for it, as you decided to link to those sites. So please be careful if you do decide to link to other sites.

I hope that you enjoyed this blog post and I hope I have dispelled a common myth. For reasons I have explained,

You will not be punished by Google for building backlinks.

To your massive success,

Guy

P.S. If you liked this post please consider linking to me.