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To be an efficient SEO professional, I need to learn the tricks of link building, which is basically a culmination of several different skills – content, sales, programming, psychology, and traditional marketing techniques. The important thing is SEO is link building, and we all are familiar with this fact. But do we all know that online giant Google has just changed up its linkbuilding rules? Probably not! Google has recently introduced two more link types that are going to affect search engine optimization techniques. Let’s get into Google’s requirements, along with two newly introduced link types.
What is Google’s new link policy?
If you are buying a link or a website owner is paying you for a link, Google now wants you to mark it as a sponsored link. Along with the text of the site, you need to do it through the link attribute; i.e., Rel=”sponsored”
If you are building links through any user-generated content, the Google authority want you to mark the links with the link attribute, i.e., Rel=”ugc”
The same set of rules will be applied to you if you are a website owner. Suppose, you have a forum on your website and the content published in it is user generated. So, the links that users have placed should contain a rel=”ugc”.
However, the use of Rel=”nofollow sponsored” is suggested to you if you are willing to use a combination of the above.
Which are the essential things for link building?
- Determine the value of that link
- Unlinked brand mentions
- Reclaiming broken links is also recommended
- Sponsor genuine things
- There is nothing wrong in asking or outreaching, especially when the linking is properly done. So, don’t hesitate to ask/outreach
- Create original and information-rich content
What is the purpose of this update?
You may ask why Google introduced these attributes. Well, adding these attributes will enable Google to get a clear idea on the technique of analyzing the link when it comes to indexing or search optimization and whether they should crawl the concerned link or not.
When will the update take place?
The change we are talking about will go into effect from March 1, 2020. However, the old links are not supposed to be modified. The links that were nofollow can just be left as nofollow. You are also open for the future if you want to use nofollow instead of ”sponsored”.
How the new update will affect search engine optimization?
Google follows an algorithm that is sophisticated and hard to understand, but is it perfect? Not at all! As per blogger and SEO expert Neil Patel, Google is doing this because it will make their job easier and enable their algorithm to understand the link types along with the purpose behind their use. So, the change will help the online giant tighten things up and make things more accurate.
Besides, it will provide them with more signals on if the URL linked to should be potentially crawled or ignored. Yes, the online giant is already identifying forum, wikis, and other types of user-generated content, but the recent update is likely to tighten the security and give more accuracy to their algorithm. Henceforth, the web users will focus on building a great product or service, creating an amazing user experience, and the other things their nearest competitors are not doing.
