SEO Link Building & Off-Page 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What does 'link velocity' refer to in SEO?
- The speed at which a page loads after being linked
- The rate at which a site acquires new backlinks over time (Correct answer)
- The number of links on a single page
- The click-through rate on inbound links
Correct answer: The rate at which a site acquires new backlinks over time
Link velocity measures how quickly a website gains new backlinks, and an unnaturally sudden spike can trigger Google's spam filters.
Question 2: Which of the following is an example of a 'nofollow' use case as intended by Google?
- Editorial links earned from press coverage
- Paid sponsored links in a blog post (Correct answer)
- Links from a site's main navigation
- Internal links between category pages
Correct answer: Paid sponsored links in a blog post
Google's guidelines require that paid or sponsored links use the rel='sponsored' or rel='nofollow' attribute to avoid passing PageRank artificially.
Question 3: What is the primary SEO risk of participating in a private blog network (PBN)?
- Slow page load times across linked domains
- Manual or algorithmic penalty for unnatural link schemes (Correct answer)
- Lower anchor text diversity
- Duplicate content on linked pages
Correct answer: Manual or algorithmic penalty for unnatural link schemes
PBNs violate Google's Webmaster Guidelines as a link scheme and can result in a manual action or algorithmic penalty that tanks rankings.
Question 4: In the context of link building, what is 'broken link building'?
- Fixing internal 404 errors on your own site
- Finding dead external links on other sites and suggesting your content as a replacement (Correct answer)
- Removing toxic backlinks pointing to your domain
- Creating 301 redirects for old URLs
Correct answer: Finding dead external links on other sites and suggesting your content as a replacement
Broken link building involves identifying dead links on third-party pages and pitching your relevant content as a replacement, benefiting both parties.
Question 5: Which metric best indicates the quality of a linking domain's overall authority?
- Domain Rating (DR) or Domain Authority (DA) (Correct answer)
- Bounce rate of the linking page
- Number of outbound links on the linking page
- PageSpeed score of the linking domain
Correct answer: Domain Rating (DR) or Domain Authority (DA)
Domain Rating (Ahrefs) and Domain Authority (Moz) are composite scores that estimate a domain's overall backlink strength and authority.
Question 6: What is 'anchor text over-optimization' and why is it risky?
- Using too many images as anchors instead of text
- Having an unnaturally high proportion of exact-match keyword anchors (Correct answer)
- Placing anchor links too deep in body content
- Using anchors longer than 10 words
Correct answer: Having an unnaturally high proportion of exact-match keyword anchors
An anchor text profile dominated by exact-match keywords looks manipulative to Google and can trigger Penguin-related penalties.
Question 7: What is the purpose of a 'link reclamation' campaign?
- Building new links from competitor sites
- Recovering unlinked brand mentions or fixing lost/broken links pointing to your site (Correct answer)
- Auditing internal link structure for orphan pages
- Redirecting expired domains to boost authority
Correct answer: Recovering unlinked brand mentions or fixing lost/broken links pointing to your site
Link reclamation involves finding unlinked mentions of your brand or previously earned links that broke, then requesting they be converted to or restored as active backlinks.
SEO Link Building & Off-Page 2
What does 'link velocity' refer to in SEO?