The stories about Links from this period, ranked by likely impact on a single site.
Ranked by estimated impact on a single site, not by publication time.
Google signals that its fight against SEO spam is expanding to new kinds of platforms, tools, and services.
Links
Links from other websites remain one of the strongest signals search engines use to judge which pages deserve to rank. They are also where small sites most often go wrong — either ignoring links…
Ranking & Algorithms Links
Link volume tells only part of the story. See what separates earned authority from spam, recycled ideas, and pitches destined for the trash.
Links
A persistent piece of SEO folklore holds that a backlink only counts meaningfully if it comes from a site in the exact same niche or topic as yours — a cooking site needs links from other cooking…
Links
Anchor text — the clickable words in a link — used to be one of the most heavily gamed ranking signals in SEO. Sites built entire link networks around exact-match anchor text, and search engines…
Ranking & Algorithms Links Policy & Penalties
A domain's backlink history is often the single biggest factor in its potential value, which makes a thorough review essential before any purchase decision.
Links
Reciprocal link exchanges, link directories, and mass "add your link here" campaigns were common SEO tactics in the industry's early years. Search engines have spent two decades getting better at…
Links
Assembled from our own archive of 1,108 stories, which currently runs from 4 October 2023. Ranking is by the impact score described on the front page — an estimate of how much a story is likely to affect one website, not a measure of how much attention it got.
The archive only holds what it has seen. Periods before it started are empty rather than quiet, and it gets more complete every week it runs.
