At SearchLove Boston 2017 we discussed how links have become a complicated and compromised signal and what we can do to make sure we stay safe and get the most from our links.

1. You, Google and Links:
It's complicated

2. Who dis ?

3. • 1997 made first website by typing in HTML 3.2 from a
fully written out page of pencil planning
• 2006-9 Swapped web design to become a
professional Adsense spammer earning £30,000 a
month for a while on 2 hours work a week
• 2010 Reached banned account number 7 and gave
up spam to start a link building agency
• Grew the link building agency to 200 offshore staff
• 2012 Link penalties arrived and repenting began
(loses even more of my hair)
• 2012 Founded Kerboo (as LinkRisk back then)
• 2017 Now finds himself talking to a room of clever
people about links

4. The debate

5. Today I would like to debate with you
the answer to that persistent SEO
question

6. Are links even worth thinking about
anymore?

7. Yes

8. But as the talk title suggests …

9. It’s complicated

10. My position is that links still have
a role to play in SEO success

11. That they now can get drowned
out some terms by other signals
and by Google

12. But that without paying them
some attention you put your
content at a severe disadvantage
from the start

13. How come I feel well positioned
to help with this debate?

14. I’m an SEO

15. SEO entry qualifications 101

16. Do you have a laptop?

17. Do you have an opinion?

18. You’re IN !

19. I come from a competitive SEO
background*
*read into that what you will

20. I had a large link building agency and
competed in many many very
competitive niches

21. Since 2012
I have been on the flipside of that
world

22. Helping found, design and run
Kerboo

23. Where we have since scored over 8
billion links for their LinkRisk

24. Helped thousands of sites recover
from problematic link related issues

25. Yes in the early days
some of those
problems were the
problems I’d sold them
in the first place

26. As now I sit with this ocean of link
data and client experience

27. And the biggest disavow database
outside of Google

28. Fine but it’s 2017 Paul….

29. The point I am making is: -

30. Whilst I am no data scientist

31. I’m a doer
With experience, perspective
and enough test data
to drown a hippo

32. Since the middle of last year I have
been working on trying to wrestle
with this topic and how to define or
show the value of a link

33. The state of links today

34. It’s 2017

35. “When I get links sometimes they
don’t seem to make much of a
difference”

36. But the presence of links seems to
be a persistent factor in ranking
visibility

37. What we have to decide is:-
“Is that just historical fact or do they
still play a part in why pages
perform?”

38. Why even care?

39. There was a time when links
dominated the marketing world

40. How links became the primary
signal

41. Teaching grandma to
suck eggs

42. The original mechanics of links as a
signal

43. We started with Backrub
PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1)
+ ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

44. “OMG this fat bloke just rolled out
the PageRank algo at
SearchLove “

45. We seem to have forgotten that when
we think about links

46. The basic mechanics still apply
“total equity into a page / total
number of links out”

47. If we assume that equity still flows in
the same basic way

48. Then raw link equity alone is too
blunt a signal

49. Citation flow follows that core logic
for the flow of equity across the link
graph

50. Trust flow is a modified version of
Citation flow to take into
consideration the proximity of known
trust

51. That’s an important point

52. Google quickly moved from the raw
PR number to using that as a
baseline and modifying their opinion
based on other signals

53. For a long time those signals were
drowned out by the reliance on the
raw PageRank

54. Because PageRank took the place of
human opinion

55. But we ruined the signal

58. Links and link schemes became the
way we manipulated Google

60. We compromised the signal

61. Google couldn’t rely on it alone

62. It has taken them a long time to
reduce their reliance on links as a
signal

63. Because it was so important to them

64. In longer tail Google really only had
our influence on the signals to make
sense of the world

65. Nobody ever naturally linked to a
page about ladders

66. And Google has always had some
ways to make sense of the world
without links

67. And there are whole niches that don’t
rely on links

68. p0rn

69. They introduced LOTS of ways to
stop and negate manipulation

70. Penguin
Payday
Pigeon
Top Heavy
Pirate
Panda
Mobile friendly

71. Google have looked to find cleaner
signals to help

72. Signal diversification

73. Not only have they massively
expanded and developed what they
take into consideration

74. They have much more human
opinion for real now

75. Search quality raters

76. And that human element
*In combination with other signals
Has helped Google reduce their
reliance on links

77. And at the same time the way search
is delivered has changed

78. The rise of the machines

79. Feb 2016

81. No ill informed
opinions on AI
were given by
the fat bald
bloke on stage
I’m in
marketing….

82. The persistence of the human layer

83. Prepare to learn how boring my
life is…

84. Company accounts
2015

85. Who ?

86. The quality raters…
• Lionbridge 2015 accounts
• 100,000 outsourced professionals
• Referred to as ‘geoworkerz’
• 12% of the total revenue was on the Google
contract

87. An ongoing relationship
• In 2014 there were an estimated 40,000 across
4 outsourcing companies doing search or ads
quality review
• No sign of changes in the volume of the contract

88. The role of raters is really two fold

89. They qualify at page level (PQ) that a
page achieves what it says it does

90. They qualify the quality of the SERP
delivered for a phrase

91. As the rating process starts with a
SERP

92. Whilst the quality raters have no
influence on links as a signal

93. They remain part of the way Google
calibrate and train the machines

94. • Links are a compromised signal
• Links are less influential when taken in isolation
• Google have more reliable replacements for the human
opinion of a page
• The AI now rules how the actual SERPs are delivered

95. Links no longer dominate as they
once did…

96. Given the link signal is unreliable
what do we still believe?

97. First principles

98. It is clear that…

99. Links play a role in ranking

100. In longer tail they play a much
larger role than competitive or
brand terms

101. Google has moved away from a
reliance on them as the most
important signal

102. They provide relevance and
qualification for ranking by the
machines

103. And that the machines now take
a much larger role in the actual
delivery of results

104. Opinion based on observation

105. Links play a role in the judgment of
your sites trust

106. Having legacy links in your profile
that demonstrate intent to manipulate
are your
LinkDebt

107. Your LinkDebt contributes to the
success and the failure of your
organic visibility

108. Links play a role in determining
relevance

109. Links qualify that a site is worthy of
further consideration during the
ranking journey

110. So if they can’t rely on links alone
are they relying on an overall
trust and authority metric?

111. “we don't have anything like a
website authority score.”

115. If links don’t have a boost from an
overall authority score for the
domain…

116. Why doesn’t a raft of links from
bloggers beat one great link from
a trusted source?

117. Well in general it seems clear that
equity alone is not the only factor

118. Its not about ‘natural’

119. Its about Google’s
PropensityToTrust

120. Perceived intent is key

121. Its clear that there is trust involved
but that trust comes from the overall
mix of signals rather than just one

122. The types of links we should be
looking for…

123. • We are looking for links that do not demonstrate
an ‘intent to manipulate’
• From sites that are likely to be trusted
• And which have actual equity to pass us
• And which will maintain that equity and status in
the future

124. What proof do we have that links
still count?

126. We track newly discovered links
DAILY for tens of thousands of sites

127. We crawl them and we score them

128. An increase in links does still have a
positive impact on the visibility of
lower terms

129. In head terms it doesn’t seem to
have the same impact unless its in
the presence of a more complete
marketing effort

130. And …

131. Not caring about your legacy link
issues still plays a role in
suppressing success overall

132. But link penalties aren’t a thing
now?

133. Sorry ‘bout dis

134. I ran some of the stats from Kerboo
on manual actions (link penalties)
applied

135. I tried to remove the actions against
anything other than brand* in our
penalty figures
*I tried to remove the general spam

137. Its also true to say that many people
doing cleanup even now are seeing a
benefit above the insurance value
alone from doing so

138. And there is evidence everywhere
that links still count to some degree

139. Evidence that links count
towards visibility

140. Reavow tests

141. There are very very few times we
can turn signals on and off in SEO

142. But this is a unique opportunity

143. Kev Gibbons

144. https://www.blueglass.co.uk/blog/rem
oving-disavow-file-seo-test/

145. The conclusion here is that removing
the disavow turned links back on and
rankings improved

146. Links in isolation improved
visibility*

147. * Plus he increased the risk again
And possibly introduced a bunch of
red flags and things that could
impact rankings in future

148. That’s just one test though… proves
nothing Paul

149. Sigh…
Let me share with you some
examples of that AT SCALE

150. We have done >25 of these projects
to date

151. They have all been positive for the
site in question

152. Reavow as an SEO tactic
• 45 million links + in the profile
• 28,000 entries in a disavow file
• Previously penalised domain mostly recovered
now
• We reviewed the disavow activity and chose to
reavow some

154. What and how we reavowed
• We worked in sections
• We initially qualified based on link metrics
• We then manually reviewed based on INTENT

155. We also tried to maintain a net gain
in total disavow row count

156. For me that is clear evidence of the
fact that links do contribute to
improved visibility still

157. It wasn’t brand search changes
It wasn’t other obvious marketing
activity

158. It was links…

159. Reavow is an important thing to
consider

160. But its massively dangerous if
managed badly

161. And yes I know ‘reavow’ isn’t really
the right word

162. Factors affecting the ability of
links to pass

163. Given that links do still influence
visibility what might prevent them
doing so ?

164. Disavow weight
Reason 1

165. Disavow activity could be used to
qualify a link for further action or
attention

166. But only crap links get disavowed ?

168. All disavowed in Kerboo’s data more
than 100x each

169. At Kerboo we use
PropensityToDisavow

172. Its logical that the same data
could provide Google with signals
of trust at domain level

173. Negation through the action of
Penguin*
*no penguin picture slide as we have all seen enough of those damn birds
Reason 2

174. For the record…
I STRONGLY believe we have
underestimated the impact of
Penguin real time so far

175. Penguin is a complex beast now

176. Previously….

177. Penguin was a flag applied to the
domain

178. Since Penguin 4 …

179. Penguin 4 is real-time
• Penguin 4 is now part of the core ranking
algorithm
• That means it runs in ‘real-time’

180. Penguin 4 is more granular
• Rather than site level
• Penguin 4 operates at page level

181. Penguin 4 removes the ability of
problematic links to pass equity

182. By removing the equity from those
problematic links the ranking ability
of the page is reduced

183. That’s GOOD right ?

184. It means things are harder to
understand

185. So why haven’t we seen a major
impact?

186. To explain that we have to work
through the mechanics of how
Google apply this

187. Real-time is defined in an interesting
way

188. Real-time for you and I means: -

189. As soon as something changes its
implemented there and then

190. That’s NOT how Google uses the
term real-time

191. Real-time for Google means: -
“Once we crawl the page again”

192. How Penguin is applied

193. Each time “Page A” is crawled

194. Its Penguin status is apparently
recalculated

195. BUT real-time Penguin operates by
removing the ability of spammy links
to pass equity

196. So in reality…

197. Real-time Penguin relies on the
signals from the linking sites on
whether they are spammy or not

198. And that status is only updated for
THEM when they are crawled

199. WHAT ????

200. Lets look at a pretend example

201. • The linking domains for Page A each
have a status on whether they pass
equity or not.
• Determined by Penguin or another
algorithm.
• But only updated when they are crawled
(like all Google signals are)

202. • Over time this status is updated as the
linking pages are recrawled
• This can take some time

203. • Over time it may well be the case that
more and more of a link profile gets
negated by Penguin

204. Page A will only feel Penguin as the
links pointing to it are updated

205. Those links are assessed and
updated as they are recrawled by
Google

206. That process can take MONTHS to
fully apply

207. Which means …

208. Changes to the Penguin algorithm
can take a while to implement across
the link graph

209. Google Penguin changes will
only be felt slowly

210. As that link graph is slowly updated

211. “But surely the link graph is always in
a state of update so it shouldn’t
matter?”

212. True but we have been made to
expect the changes will apply in real-
time

213. Google real-time and our
real-time aren’t the same thing…

214. And its likely that links that lose their
ability to pass value will never regain
that ability

215. So it becomes a slow eroding of the
total link equity pointed at Page A

216. As that eroding of the link equity
happens the rankings for that page
will slowly slip

217. And to make matters worse…

218. The fact that it applies once the links
are recrawled means any changes
we make are hard to attribute to
Penguin

219. A change we make today that
worsens a page’s links might not be
fully felt for weeks or months

220. Link profile, crawl dependent issues
are felt slowly and are therefore
harder to diagnose

221. Or people assume because it didn’t
happen in “real-time” it isn’t really
caused by Penguin

222. Meanwhile Google is slowly eating
away at the link profile

224. “IF Google are just removing the
ability of some of my bad links to
pass value – surely I can just throw
stuff in and hope it sticks for a
while?”

225. No, No you can’t ….

226. You’d be ruining your trust and
opening up a major link debt
issue for the future

227. TLDR:
Penguin might be eating your link
equity slowly, all you’d see is a
slow decline in ranking

228. Lack of relevancy to the
user intent sought by the
machines
Reason 3

229. Link relevancy is more important now
(topical and co-citation) than ever
before

230. Crazy SEO experiment warning

231. • I took a number of sites I control
• I went through the link profile for
relevance NOT intent or quality
• I disavowed those links that didn’t
contribute to relevancy

232. Guess what happened?

233. The target pages
ranking popped

235. A summary of the link picture in
2017

236. It’s clear that links haven’t gone away
but…

237. Their role has changed somewhat

238. Links qualify your trust

239. And in many cases they still exert
their influence from equity alone

240. We never see the true link picture

241. You can no longer view raw link data
and assume you can understand or
compare

242. • We never get a complete view
• So much of the profile is subject to negation
through external factors

243. • Never have all the links
• Can’t see disavow activity on other sites
• Can’t see negation through Penguin
• Can’t see lack of trust through disavow weight
• Plus other signals now compete for the status of
primary signal

244. Links used to take the place of
the user.

245. Links now qualify the user data

246. • Its hard to diagnose changes in the link graph
• Its hard to attribute risk and value
• So much is hidden to us

247. It is clear
that they still play a role

248. Trying to define their value

249. Since mid 2016 I have been trying to
build a new metric for Kerboo

250. Caveat:
This is purely about link value
itself and takes no notice of all
the other reasons why a site
might perform or fail

251. Traditional link value
• Link equity via CF / PageRank style
• Modified link equity measure like TF
• An aim to show true authority like DA / PA

252. Building LER
We have a rather unique mix of modifiers to
play with

254. Letting the idiot play with numbers…
• Take the basic mechanics of the link equity for
the link
• Dampen or boost that based on known or
assumed trust signals
• Negate portions of its value via the potential
negation factors we discussed earlier
• Qualify that opinion with humans

255. Running the LER across profiles
changed how I look at the whole link
profile

256. • Take a link profile
• Ask people to vote on what the best links are
(definition: most important for SEO only)
• Run the LER calculation across them
• Scratch head…

258. Running the LER calculation
across the profile highlighted
links that weren’t as obvious
before

259. Sites like this
rise to the top

261. LER helped me reaffirm that I
need to look again at links that
can pass equity and be trusted

262. Think about the passage of equity

263. Feels like an old fashioned way to
view the world
But I’m finding it hard not to at least
think about it a little more again

264. “But I want links that send traffic”

265. So do I but I also want links that…

266. • Send traffic
• Send equity
• Show no intent

267. So…

268. • Think about Intent
• Think about how likely Google are to trust the
link
• Think about traditional link mechanics

269. Don’t fall into the cycle of intent
again…

270. If we all chase the same types of
links their intent increases and
their trust decreases

271. What is ideal today is LinkDebt
tomorrow

272. Intent is your risk

273. Links are important

274. But they are one of many signals

275. Their role is to qualify

276. They qualify a page is worthy of
consideration

277. They qualify trust and intent

278. They qualify the user data

279. If you pass those tests they help
boost your visibility

280. But ONLY as part of a more complex
ranking journey

281. Links aren’t Google’s primary
ranking factor

282. Huh?

283. Being the right page to match the
true intent of the user is the
primary ranking factor

284. Links just help your content
become visible to the machines
for consideration

285. And in some cases links are the
loudest signal

286. And in some cases other signals
are as loud

287. Links shouldn’t be forgotten

288. But they’re a function of other
marketing activity

289. Without links you are still going to
find it hard to compete

290. Even if you’re relevant

291. But if you’re relevant then links
are part of the mix of trust and
confidence to rank

292. How much they influence
depends on many many factors

293. Niche
Competition
Brand influence
Trust
Negation from Google

294. It’s complicated people

295. It’s not going to get any less
complicated

296. But we will adapt and succeed

297. Its what we do….

298. Because
WE ARE SEO’s

299. Thanks for listening
@pauldavidmadden
Kerboo.com