I Wish Google Would Crack Down on Irrelevant Backlinks

Since backlinking is such a great way to improve search engine ratings, people stop at nothing to squeeze in a link – even if it is completely IRRELEVANT!  Just in the last two days, I have come across irritating ways people will try to include their backlink onto your site.

The Famous “Long Tail Keyword in the Middle of an Article” Tactic

I was reading an article that seemed interesting enough, then all of a sudden… I come across this irrelevant backlink embedded right in the middle of a paragraph.  For example, imagine reading an article talking about the benefits of having a home phone and suddenly, there is a sentence with an irrelevant keyword linking to a site about hair loss.  Can you be ANY more obvious about your backlinking trick?  Google needs to notice.

It is so obvious from the anchor text that they are trying to rank for some obscure keyword – like “model 301 brown hair dye.”  The sentence completely turns me off from the whole article!  I understand the benefits of backlinks, but can you at least make them relevant?

Why would you want to rank for something that obscure anyhow??  Judging from your poor SEO skills, I doubt I am impresses much with your site.  Just sayin’.

Embedding encrypted Code into a “Free” WordPress Theme

This one really irritates me because I don’t realize it until I have downloaded the theme.  What happens is devious people will add another obscure link, completely IRRELEVANT to the footer of the theme.  If you try to remove the links, you will get a message on the home page of your blog that claims you are not allowed to remove the links.  Grrr.  The code is encrypted so you CAN’T remove the links unless you can find the encryption and know how to remove it.  I am pretty decent with HTML, but I am not THAT good.

I just ended up getting another theme after sending a nasty note to the developer of the theme.  I guess you can’t really get anything for free. I found a great article on these encrypted footers  (this really is a RELEVANT link) that are found in many free themes.

The bottom line is, STOP trying to trick the system – in the end it won’t work.  Provide quality content and people will want to come to your site.  There is a difference in legitimate marketing and sleazy tactics to try to “fool” the system.  You may fool them for a little while, but it certainly is no long-term tactic.

Just like those scammers who still send the “your account has been hacked, send me your password” emails, people will eventually see through and ignore your scams as well.  Hopefully, Google will too.

This post is written by Julie McElroy

Julie is a non-guru interested in finding and providing inspiration for success in Internet marketing. She is also a freelance writer. You can read about writing topics on her Inspired to Write blog.


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