Link building is still crucial for search engine optimization according to the presentation. Quality link building through natural outreach to bloggers and websites takes time but can significantly increase traffic over months. Factors like anchor text variation, avoiding low quality links, and disavowing spam links are important to recover from search engine penalties. While some methods like paid linking don't work, case studies show companies that invest in developing quality external links over long periods can double their organic search traffic.

1. Is Link Building Still Crucial, Or A
Waste Of Time & Money?
Presented by:
Prashant Puri
CEO & Co-Founder, AdLift.com
@puriprashant

2. ME
2ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
Who’s this guy ?

3. Topics to Cover
3ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
• Is Link Building a waste of time ?
• What works
• What doesn’t work
• Penguin/Panda Recovery
@puriprashant

4. 4
Lets get back to the basics for a minute
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
• Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
• “In this paper, we present Google, a prototype of a large-scale search
engine which makes heavy use of the structure present in hypertext.”
ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
4

5. Quality Link Building
In the past, the page with the most high-quality, relevant links won.
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WINNER!
ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
5

6. Quality Signal Building
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Website Website
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WINNER!
Now, the page with the most high-quality, relevant signals wins.
Facebook
Twitter
Usage
Data
Local
Citations
Sentiment
Analysis
Latent
Symantic
Indexing
Avoiding
Over-optimization
ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
6

7. 3 Leading Sites in the “Shoes” Vertical
7ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
Debenhams
drives 5X the
amount if SEO
Traffic/Visibility

8. Links Work
8ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
Debenhams has
5X the amount if
External Links

9. Quality Link Building is What Actually Works
9ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
`

10. Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11
SEO Visits - Leading Mobile Website
SEO Visits
Sustainable SEO
requires scalable
long term
investment
A couple of slides in.
… I’ll give everyone
the latest..
Traffic Doubles in 2
months

11. What Doesn’t Work
11ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

12. Unnatural Link Building
12ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
Paid Linking -
Unnatural

13. Low Quality Directory Sites
13ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
Low quality links
counter
productive to
high quality links

14. Blog Rolls
14ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

15. What Works
15ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

16. The Ideal Anchor Text Variation
16ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
50%
20%
15%
5%
10%
Anchor Text Distribu on
Brand Keywords
Exact Match
Phrase Match
Click Here/Image
Irrelevant Non Brand

17. Quality Link Development Takes Time.. But it Works
17ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
1. Identify target sites
2. Follow bloggers on twitter
3. Comment (not spam) on their blog articles
4. Reach out with quality articles/opportunites
@puriprashant

18. Bonus Tip – Help The Bloggers fix Broken Links
18ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant
• Hey Blogger – I’m a frequent your site and noticed a couple of broken
links.. Thought you should know.
• Tools that help identify broken links
• Domain Hunter
• Xenu
• Screaming frog

19. Competitive Research – Acquiring Competitor Links
19ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

20. MajesticSEO Clique Hunter
20ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

21. OpenSiteExplorer
21ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

22. Penguin 2.0 & Penalties
22ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

23. What does a Penguin/Panda Penalty Look Like?
23ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

24. What Causes it ? The “Complete Link Building Solution”
Does
24ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

25. How To Recover ? Check for..
25ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
• Steeeeeep Link growth rate
@puriprashant

26. How To Recover ? Check for..
26ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
• Anchor Text Variation
@puriprashant
30
70
Anchor Text Segmenta on
Brand
Non Brand

27. How To Recover ? Check for..
27ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
• Spam Links - Build a spreadsheet that analyzes the following:
• Page Rank
• Domain Authority
• # on incoming links
• # of out going links
• Other paid links on the site
• Comments on the blogs
• Social presence
• Tools
• aHrefs
• OpenSiteExplorer
• MajesticSEO
• Google Webmaster
@puriprashant

28. How To Recover ? Reach out
28ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
• Reverse IP Lookup
• Email
• Call
TRACK EVERYTHING
@puriprashant

29. How To Recover ? Reconsideration Request & Disavow
29ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

30. So..Is Link Building is
DEAD ?

31. REALITY: You
can believe
what you like
Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11
SEO Visits - Leading Mobile Website
SEO Visits

32. REALITY: You
can believe
what you like..
But I like to
believe the DataJun-11
Jul-11
Aug-11
Sep-11
Oct-11
Nov-11
Dec-11
Jan-12
Feb-12
Mar-12
Apr-12
May-12
Jun-12
Jul-12
Aug-12
Sep-12
Oct-12
Nov-12
Dec-12
Jan-13
SEO Visits - Leading Mobile Website

33. About AdLift
33ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL
@puriprashant

34. 75 Million Search
Visits
Every Month, We Manage

35. About us & Our Achievements
ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL 35
• Founded in 2009, AdLift provides customized digital media strategy and search marketing solutions
for online businesses in the North American, UK and APAC markets
• AdLift has assembled a world-class technical team of search marketing experts from firms such as
Yahoo, eBay, and IAC
• 15+ person team – business development and account management located in Palo Alto, CA.

36. Acquire
Amplify
Advance
Prashant Puri
CEO & Co-Founder
AdLift.com
prashant@adlift.com
@puriprashant
ADLIFT CONFIDENTIAL 36
@puriprashant