Link building used to be plagued by so many black-hat tactics including link farms paid link schemes and also hiding the links and spammy content, but after the Penguin update in the Google algorithm, it’s more focused on the quality content and the white-hat tactics that go along with it. But, that doesn’t mean that the debate is over. Some SEOs do think that it’s over, and any form of link building doesn’t work, and the best way to do it is to not do it. Others say that it’s a valuable and legitimate strategy if used correctly.

Well, it depends on who you talk to. Some have a contentious attitude towards this, and that’s because it may not even add value to the site.  Some old SEO advice that you write content for may not be generated for users, but instead link building and the search engine.  You shouldn’t build your links because you think they’ll bring a value, but you want to build these links to drive the targeted traffic.

You should look at some of the link building practices that look spammy, and how the rise of “arbitrary metrics” have blurred the link between what works, and what doesn’t.  You should also look at the fact that lots of times, internal linking is limited, and you should be investing in the content, rather than the link building.  The argument of that it doesn’t work is usually focused on building a better user experience, and be obsessive about the matching user intent, and the ultimate goal of that is genuinely to provide a result that’s good, and you should always, no matter what, aspire to be the authority in the field, and it’s better to earn than to build.

But, some people like to have links to build and distinguish the high-quality content in these competition niches.  The problem is that a lot of it isn’t seen, and if you don’t reach out directly or socialize, you’re missing out on linking.  You should look at how you secure these, and you can figure out, via networking, how you can build links into content that you already have, and how you can prevent people from missing out on your links.

Building links are something that, if you do choose to use this type of means to generate support, should be done in a way that is organic. Don’t’ try to farm links from anyone and everyone. Instead, you should make sure that the links you’re building are real, authentic, and actually generate a good result form this.

So are they bad? Not necessarily. Lots of people do believe that they are doing the right thing with linking, but if you’re creating spammy content and bad links, you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot, so always make sure that if you do choose to link, you do it in a way that not only benefits you but the other users of the site too.