Auto- generated links in SEO

August 30, 2007

Natural links are one of the most important factors that are used to determine PageRank by search engines. However, some webmasters misunderstand it. It is not just about the quantity of the links, but also about the quality. For example, a website with higher ranking contains about 4000 backlinks while a lower one may contain over 8000 backlinks. This is possibly because some of those 8000 links are auto-generated.

Usually, there are two types of auto- generated links:
1. Spamware generated links
2. Programs provided by some domains for automatically adding links

It states clearly in Google webmaster guidelines: “Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”

Once your site has been detected by using auto-generated links, you may be penalized in the following ways:
1. No credit is given to auto-generated links.
2. Negatively affected on sites ranking
3. Removed from SERPs in some serious cases.

Therefore, to build a natural healthy website, you should focus on creating strong content and building natural links.

Lili
SEO Programmer