SEO Link Building 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is 'link velocity' in the context of SEO?
- The speed at which a page loads after following a link
- The rate at which a website acquires new backlinks over time (Correct answer)
- The number of internal links on a single page
- The PageRank flow speed through a link
Correct answer: The rate at which a website acquires new backlinks over time
Link velocity refers to the rate at which a site gains new backlinks over time, and an unnatural spike can trigger Google penalties.
Question 2: Which link building tactic involves reclaiming links from pages that mention your brand but don't link to you?
- Broken link building
- Unlinked brand mention outreach (Correct answer)
- Link reclamation from 404s
- Competitor gap analysis
Correct answer: Unlinked brand mention outreach
Unlinked brand mention outreach involves finding sites that mention your brand without a hyperlink and asking them to add one.
Question 3: What does 'Domain Rating' (DR) measure in Ahrefs?
- The relevance of a domain's content to a specific niche
- The strength of a domain's backlink profile on a 0–100 scale (Correct answer)
- The number of pages indexed on a domain
- The average traffic a domain receives monthly
Correct answer: The strength of a domain's backlink profile on a 0–100 scale
Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' metric that scores the overall strength of a website's backlink profile on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.
Question 4: A site gives you a backlink, but adds 'rel="ugc"' to it. What does this mean?
- The link is from a paid placement
- The link was generated by user content such as a comment or forum post (Correct answer)
- The link is flagged as untrustworthy by the site owner
- The link passes full PageRank
Correct answer: The link was generated by user content such as a comment or forum post
The 'ugc' (user-generated content) attribute signals to Google that the link was created by users, like comments or forum posts, and should be treated cautiously.
Question 5: What is the primary risk of participating in a Private Blog Network (PBN)?
- Higher hosting costs
- Manual or algorithmic Google penalties that can deindex your site (Correct answer)
- Slower page load times
- Reduced organic click-through rates
Correct answer: Manual or algorithmic Google penalties that can deindex your site
PBNs violate Google's Webmaster Guidelines, and participating in one risks severe manual penalties or algorithmic deindexing.
Question 6: In link building, what is a 'link gap'?
- A broken link on your website
- Backlinks that competitors have but your site does not (Correct answer)
- The difference between dofollow and nofollow links
- A period of time with no new backlinks acquired
Correct answer: Backlinks that competitors have but your site does not
A link gap refers to backlinks pointing to competitor pages that do not point to your site, representing an opportunity to acquire similar links.
Question 7: Which type of content is most commonly cited as a 'linkable asset'?
- Product category pages
- Author bio pages
- Original research, data studies, and comprehensive guides (Correct answer)
- Thank-you pages after form submissions
Correct answer: Original research, data studies, and comprehensive guides
Original research, statistics, and in-depth guides naturally attract backlinks because other content creators reference them as authoritative sources.
SEO Link Building 2
What is 'link velocity' in the context of SEO?