Affiliate Marketing: Is It The New Snake Oil For Google SEO?

Google Search Advocate John Mueller said – in a rare case of annoyance – that any SEO advice that mentions “link juice” should not be trusted. Is it or not?

I wondered about the context and doubted if it was true. There are different opinions.

After Barry Schwartz shared the news on LinkedIn, a lively debate ensued. Even Moz and SparkToro founder Rand Fishkin weighed in on the comments saying, “Maybe link juice is real after all. Maybe you should all write more about it!”

On link juice and bad SEO advice

When he dismissed contact juice, Mueller was answering a question about outgoing contacts. He basically ignored the original question and only responded to the unpleasant mention of “link juice”.

While Mueller is usually neutral in his tone this time he came close to a rant on Twitter:

This is nothing new. He repeats what he has expressed in the past more than once.

Here’s a similar quote from his Twitter account back in 2020:

So is link juice such a hateful term? Is it like the “snake oil” margin that SEO practitioners keep offering? Let’s look at the bigger picture.

Snake oil: A popular type of panacea in SEO

There is a reason why the SEO industry has had a bad rep for many years. Metaphorical snake oil has been sold in various ways and many websites have been damaged by misguided SEO advice or tactics.

The proverbial “snake oil” – a synonym for misleading promises of miracle cures for all manner of ailments – has often been compared to SEO.

Even in 2022, we see far more #seohorrorstories being passed around on Twitter and other social media than inspiring success stories. SEO experts themselves, not just outsiders, instead focus on that negative news.

Of course, the SEO industry isn’t the only one guilty of selling snake oil or spreading the word about it.

I had many clients ask me about unethical SEO practices over the years. To this day, you have to be very firm in your ethics in order not to get caught up in a downward spiral of shady SEO techniques. I also regularly receive requests for paid links and other similar offers in the mail.

The history of link juice

When Google started in the crowded and messy search engine market, it had a revolutionary ranking algorithm that used what is known as “PageRank” to determine the authority of a website. It was named after Google co-founder Larry Page, not (just) the “web page” itself.

SEO experts started using many different slang terms for PageRank – “Google juice” or “link juice” being the most popular.

In the early years since its inception, Google performed quite well by PageRank alone and its market share grew continuously.

First generation search engines such as AltaVista, Yahoo and Infoseek were easily gamed by using:

Once Google grew large enough to dominate the market, unethical SEO practitioners mainly focused on artificially inflating the number of incoming links (also known as backlinks) so that Google would rank them higher

PageRank became less and less a guarantee of high quality search results leading to Google starting to add more ranking signals to the algorithm over time.

As link juice became more abused, Google continued to add more ranking signals, sophisticated technologies like AI and quality concepts like E-AT.

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How does link juice work?

We will not go too deep into the topic of link juice, as others have done before us. An evergreen guide from WooRank is still worth reading for a quick overview. Their visualization is particularly self-explanatory.

In theory, the website authority of the outbound website is spread more or less equally to the pages it links to.

But in reality, the process is much more complicated and the value of a link depends on many other elements including:

Is content the new link?

By 2019, Google has shifted its messaging to focus on quality content. From the outside, the pivot seems to suggest that “content is the new link.” Eventually, one of Google’s main SEO documents that focused primarily on links was updated to primarily cover content.

For a long time, Google representatives have been wary of the industry’s emphasis on link building. Instead, they underline the need for quality content every time the question comes up.

Now, Google tends to overemphasize content to make people more aware of it and underrepresent links so SEOs stop obsessing about them.

In Google Search Essentials, the “key best practices” section mentions content six times including overhead while links are mentioned only three times:

In my opinion, we have to put both trends into perspective and make sure we find the middle ground.

Links are still very important but their impact will diminish over time, while the importance of content is constantly increasing.

So, is link juice real?

Although the colloquial term link juice sounds a bit sly, the concept behind it (Google’s original algorithm) is still valid and is used to determine the authority or value of a website and page.

It is a huge oversimplification of what is now a very complex Google algorithm which includes a number of checks and balances (as summarized by Kaspar Szymanski) ensuring an accurate ranking that is less prone to manipulation.

At the end of the day, you still have to attract links to your website or other content of similar quality will outrank you in organic search results. So, while using the term affiliate juice may sound a little old-fashioned, it’s still not complete snake oil.

What do the experts say? Fishkin isn’t the only one to talk about link juice.

Brian Lonsdale, Co-Founder of Smarter Digital Marketing Ltd, maintains:

While Pierre Zarokian, CEO at Submit Express / Reputation Stars added:

What terms should be used instead of link juice?

You can say a lot of things to refer to link juice without sounding like a back alley drug dealer.

Jessica Levenson, Global Head of Digital Strategy & SEO in NetSuite and Oracle, makes it pretty clear:

What else can you say instead? Some of the more professional terms include:

Daniel Foley Carter, Director of Assertive, explains:

If that’s too boring or too technocratic for you, you can follow Brent Payne’s advice:

Link equity is not enough

However, when you use a synonym for “link juice”, remember that the concept is on the way out and doesn’t work on its own like in the early days.

When I started in SEO in 2004, it was still common to list empty websites.

You could even get thin content pages to rank for competitive keywords just by directing link juice to them. In 2022, that is a rare exception – if possible.

Focus on creating great content to attract great links

As always, the truth is to be found somewhere in between. While Google de-emphasizes connections in their algorithm and public rhetoric, its technology still relies to some extent on connections.

It is still very difficult to get organic search visibility on Google through content alone. But once that content is endorsed by links from authority sites, the likelihood of getting visibility on Google’s top sites grows significantly.

So how do you get there without buying paid links or otherwise gaming Google? There is a well-travelled path by now. It has worked for many content SEO practitioners.

Create ‘linkable assets’

For many years, website owners wanted to buy SEO services instead of creating content that could actually earn links. I lost many potential clients by explaining that I cannot artificially inflate the position of an empty site that has only self-promotional material as its content.

Linkable assets are any type of comprehensive, valuable and unique resources that are likely to be recommended by other publishers. Detailed guides, exclusive survey results, and breaking news are some examples.

Attract links naturally

Once you have published content that is worth linking to, ideally you have to sit and wait until people notice and link to you.

This, of course, is the theory. In practice, you will probably be ignored unless you already have an established audience.

In such cases, you must at least mention experts in your content who already have an audience. They can help you get the ball rolling.

Reach out to ‘linkaratis’

Influencers, journalists and industry experts are usually very busy and once established social media mentions may not be enough to get their attention.

Good old email outreach is your tool of choice then. So-called linkaratis are often open to helpful suggestions that match their interests.

When you choose the right people and focus on a few instead of mass mailing hundreds of strangers, you’ll get some initial traction until others notice you organically.

The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Staff writers are listed here.

Tadeusz Szewczyk, also known as Tad Chef, is a professional blogger and SEO since 2004. Although based in Berlin, Germany he has covered blogs, social media and searching for a global audience starting in 2006. In 2007 he launched his own blog – SEO 2.0 – and has also been published on a number of other marketing blogs ever since. In recent years he also wrote for many clients’ social media accounts. You can connect with Tad on LinkedIn and Twitter or visit his website and read his blog about social SEO.

What are link building mistakes?

Building links with low quality content Another common link building mistake is to backlink authority sites with a thin, low quality article. You shouldn’t just focus on finding authority and relevant websites in link building. Remember that you also need to focus on creating content worthy of those backlinks.

What are the rules of effective link building? 7 Golden Rules of Link Building for 2022 and beyond

7 Golden Rules of Link Building for 2022 and beyond. …
Link Relevance, Link Location, Useful Content. …
Domain Trust. …
Use natural anchor text. …
Building NoFollow links. …
Links on Juicy pages – Links to Traffic. …
No spam! …
Don’t buy links for PageRank (or DR or DA)

Why is link building difficult?

Link building is difficult because it is time consuming and difficult to get links with low domain authority (DA). These links may not even affect your website’s SEO ranking. On the other hand, acquiring high DA connections is even more challenging. Link building is essentially like buying real estate.

Is it hard to build backlinks?

Conclusion. At the end of the day, building backlinks is hard work but the result is worth it. Domain authority is one of the most important SEO ranking metrics and backlinks are the proven way to build that authority. The more valuable your content, the more people will link to your website.

Is link building easy?

It is very difficult to build links to low value web pages, but when you start with something truly valuable that people find useful or worth sharing, link building is a much easier endeavor. Not to mention, in the long run, you increase the likelihood that you’ll get links you didn’t ask for.

How long does it take for link building to work?

In most cases, the results of link building efforts begin to appear within three to 12 months. However, it still depends on a few essential factors.

What is link building and its type?

Briefly, link building is the process of establishing relevant hyperlinks (usually called links) to a website from external websites. Link building can increase the number of high quality links pointing to a website, increasing the likelihood that the website will rank high in search engine results.

What is the link building? The definition of link building Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your website. A hyperlink (usually called a link) is a way for users to navigate between pages on the Internet. Search engines use links to crawl the web.

What is link building and its benefits?

Link building leads to higher ranking metrics and SEO scores If you are familiar with SEO, you will understand terms like Domain Authority (DA), Domain Rating (DR), Page Rank (PR), Alexa Rank, and etc. By building backlinks you will increase these metrics and your website will benefit, in terms of health.

Why is link so important?

If the content of a page gets someone talking, it indicates authority, credibility, and/or trustworthiness. So, links on pages are like votes of trust, credibility and authority. The more links a page gets, the more votes they get, which can improve their ranking.

Is link building still important?

If you’ve been wondering about the place of backlinks in modern day SEO, know this: they’re still one of the most critical ranking factors for a website and yet 95% of websites don’t have any in truth backlinks going to them, even in 2022!

Which is the best link building type?

Backlinks are the most important type of link, but outbound links from your website to other websites can also improve your website’s search ranking. In a list of 200 Google ranking factors, Backlinko ranked external link quality at #35.

Which is the most powerful type of backlink?

The most powerful backlinks are dofollow links. Dofollow backlinks are backlinks that pass the SEO juice of the site giving the backlink to the site getting the backlink.

What is the best link building approach?

What is the most common link building strategy? Guest blogging is one of the most popular link building strategies. It’s about creating quality content that people want to link back to.

What is the best type of link SEO?

Arguably backlinks have the biggest impact on a website’s SEO. The more inbound links you have pointing to your site from other resources, the better off you are. There are many different types of backlinks.

What are link building packages?

What Is A Link Building Service? A link building service is provided by an SEO agency which usually finds relevant websites that your target audience visits and places links back to your website. This is usually done by promoting your website content through manual outreach to as many relevant websites as possible.

Is link building worth it? Link building is a big ranking factor in SEO. It increases your traffic, sales, and where you land on Google search results. Link building is just a hyperlink from one website to another. But, it shows Google and other search engines that your content is informative, useful, and worth showing to its users.

What is a link building plan?

Link building is the practice of building one-way hyperlinks (also known as âbacklinksâ) to a website with the aim of improving search engine visibility. Common link building strategies include content marketing, building useful tools, email outreach, broken link building and public relations.

What is link building and why it is important?

Link building is a strategy that gets web pages to link to each other by acquiring hyperlinks from other websites and applying them to your own website. It helps users navigate between different pages on the Internet. They also help search engines to crawl between the pages on your website.

What do you mean by link building?

Link building is a search engine optimization technique that increases your search engine ranking. Links are one of the main ways search engine algorithms determine the relevance of a page. Having a good number of links to a website shows that the content there is valuable.

What is link building example?

It means that when you publish a blog post, for example, other relevant websites will pick it up and post it alongside a link back to the source. Some sites republish the full thing, while others publish an excerpt and a link to the full post on your site.

What is link building benefits?

What is importance of linking?

What does link building mean?

Link building refers to the marketing efforts to get links from other websites to your website. It is considered one of the most powerful tools to achieve higher rankings for your website in search engines.