Links are immensely important for SEO and make up the lion's share of "off-site SEO" (also called "off-page SEO"). Characteristics of a site's internal and external links can greatly influence its rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs).
Looking to learn about links, link building, link analysis, or off-site SEO? This page is your home base for resources created for all skill levels.
The One-Hour Guide to SEO
Can you learn SEO in an hour? Surprisingly, the answer is yes, at least when it comes to the fundamentals! From SEO expert Rand Fishkin, we present you a six-part series of roughly ten-minute-long videos designed to deliver core SEO concepts.
The Beginner's Guide to Link Building
Link building is one of the most essential SEO skills for marketers of all levels, and this guide will help you set the right foot forward.
When and How to Use Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Link Count Metrics
How can you effectively apply link metrics like Domain Authority and Page Authority alongside your other SEO metrics? Where and when does it make sense to take them into account, and what exactly do they mean? In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand answers these questions and more.
Should SEOs Care About Internal Links?
Learn how to analyze, optimize, and structure your internal links (and put the kibosh on out-of-date tactics) in this Whiteboard Friday.
SEO Rankings Drop: A Step-by-Step Guide to Recovery
There are hundreds of things that could cause your Google organic rankings to drop. Follow this handy guide to figure out what went wrong, and what you can do about it.
How to Prioritize Your Link Building Efforts & Opportunities
Link building is incredibly effective, but it's intimidating and frustrating, too. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand builds out a framework you can start using today to simplify the link building process for everyone involved.
Domain Authority
What is Moz's Domain Authority score, and how does it work? Learn in this article.
What is SEO?
What is SEO all about, and why do things like keywords, on-site optimization, and links matter when it comes to improving a site's search engine visibility and ranking? Learn the basics in this article.
Domains
Domain names are the unique, human-readable Internet addresses of websites. Learn about the different types of domains and SEO best practices for optimizing domains in this article.
URLs
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator), more commonly known as a "web address", specifies the location of a resource (such as a web page) on the internet. Learn how URLs work and why they matter in this article.
5 Takeaways from Earning Links in 130 Countries
Link earning isn't an equal opportunity game: it's far easier in some parts of the world than others. This post explores link earning tactics that are useful across the world.
How to Build a Killer Content to Keyword Map for SEO
In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand illustrates the process of creating your own content-to-keyword map to discover where to optimize, what content to build, and how to intelligently target keywords when you're auditing a site.
Republishing: How to Earn Greater Value from the Content You Create
With multiple platforms for publishing content, the changing landscape of guest contributions, and the concerns about duplicate content, republishing for SEO can be a quandary. In this webinar, we'll explore which channels and processes may be useful depending on the types of content you create and are re-purposing.
How Long Does Link Building Take to Influence Rankings?
The eternal question: How much time does it take for a link to affect rankings? Kristina Kledzik breaks out the entire process from start to finish.
How to Create 10x Content
Have you ever actually tried to create 10x content? It's not easy, is it? Knowing how and where to start can often be the biggest obstacle you'll face. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about how good, unique content is going to die, and how you can develop your own 10x content to help it along.
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20 Attributes that Influence a Link's Value
When it comes to the link building process, there’s a lot to keep track of — and that process today is pretty different from what it was a few short years ago. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand scores 20 different attributes that can influence a link's value.
Practical Content Skills to Improve Creativity and Idea Generation
In this webinar, you'll learn practical thinking skills and brainstorming techniques to drastically improve your idea generation for content and talks through examples of content projects from brands doing outstanding content marketing.
Content or backlinks: which to build first?
With limited resources, where should an SEO concentrate their time: on building backlinks or creating content? This post explores the options and opinions.
How Will Links Influence SEO in the Future?
With constant changes to how Google interprets and values links, and new signals on the rise in search rankings, what can marketers expect from links in the future? In this webinar we'll explore what you might see in the months and years ahead, as well as how links are impacting results today (and whether/how that's changed from years past).
15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs
Looking for some rules of the road when it comes to structuring URLs? This post provides some helpful guidelines.
SEO Basics: The Fundamental Signals Used to Rank Our Content Higher
This webinar dives into the SEO ranking signals we pay attention to when optimizing a piece of content here at Moz. From the overlooked to the obvious, this webinar walks through how a few basic principals improve almost any piece of content and help boost SEO success.
Subdomains or. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO
Subfolders or subdomains? 301 redirect or rel canonical? What about optimal link structures for SEO? Some of the basic questions are the ones that crop up the most frequently, and Rand tackles them in this Whiteboard Friday.
Your Start-to-Finish Guide to Using Google's Disavow Tool
This article covers practical know-how that will help you when using the disavow tool. These tips should help you whether you are an experienced SEO or a small business owner who is trying to clean up a few unnatural links.
Advanced Content Promotion
You've made your content, you've researched it, you've put it online and now it's time to start earning links and mentions and get that content in front of as many eyeballs as you possibly can. Learn how to get started with advanced content promotion in this Moz Academy video.
Internal Linking: A Scientific, Scalable Approach
Everybody recommends internal linking, but there's been little proof of actual effects on rankings, traffic, and conversions. In this webinar, you'll learn how to identify large-scale internal linking opportunities, point more authoritative links to target pages, and identify top keywords.
How to Build Links for International SEO
Getting links from foreign markets might be one of the most complex activities in an International SEO project. In this webinar, Aleyda Solis shares the best practices, relevant criteria, the process to follow, and the most common scenarios with examples in order to run a successful international link building process.
The Illustrated SEO Competitive Analysis Workflow
One of the most important activities for any SEO process is the initial competitive analysis - what you learn can help establish your overall strategy moving forward. Learn how to conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis in this post.
Link Audit Guide for Effective Link Removals & Risk Mitigation
This step-by-step guide aims to help users with the link auditing process relying on own judgment, without blindly relying on automation.
Local Link Building
Learn how to build your local presence through outreach to other local business, schools, and events in this Moz Academy video.
Website Architecture and Internal Links
In this Moz Academy video you'll learn about the role website architecture and internal links play in SEO.
How Search Engines Value Links
In the eyes of a search engine, what factors make a link more or less valuable? This Moz Academy video covers just that!
The Value of Seeking and Earning Links
This Moz Academy lesson dives into why link earning matters and how it differs from link building. Check it out!
How to Rank: 25 Step Master SEO Blueprint
When you are new to online marketing, the process of mastering SEO can be overwhelming. Despite the wealth of information, it’s often hard to figure out what to actually do in order to achieve search engine success. To simplify this process, we created this SEO blueprint. Think of it as an intermediate SEO instruction manual for beginners!
The Broken Link Building Bible
As a link building tactic, broken link building is an effective strategy that builds links through finding broken links, recreating that broken content, and helping webmasters replace broken links with your corrected link. Learn how to embark on your own broken link-building mission in this post.
How Many Links is Too Many?
There's a long-standing debate in SEO about the maximum number of links that you should place on any given page. This post dives one way Moz tried to quantify that maximum. Check it out!
SEO Today: Strategies to Earn Trust, Rank High, & Stand Out
Rand Fishkin on Skillshare
Rand is back with a second course on Skillshare! In 11 videos, he covers what drives real impact for your site in today's fast-changing world of SEO.
Introduction to SEO: Tactics and Strategy for Entrepreneurs
Rand Fishkin on Skillshare
Join founder and “Wizard of Moz” Rand Fishkin for a Skillshare class on optimizing your content and organically raising the web presence of your business and brand!
Creating Influencer-Targeted Content to Earn Links + Coverage
Most SEO campaigns need three kinds of links to be successful; targeting your content to influencers can get you 2/3 of the way there. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers the tactics that will help your content get seen and shared by those with a wide and relevant audience.
Blog Post Ideas: Maximize Your Reach with the Right Topics
With the ubiquity of blogs, one of the questions we hear the most is how to come up with the right topics for new posts. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand explores six different paths to great blog topic ideas, and tells you what you need to keep in mind before you start.
The Keyword + Year Content/Rankings Hack
What's the secret to earning site traffic from competitive keywords with decent search volume? The answer could be as easy as 1, 2, 3 — or more precisely, 2, 0, 1, 7. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand lets you in on a relatively straightforward tactic that can help you compete in a tough space using very fresh content.
Backlinks from Client Sites, Sites You Own, Widgets, & Embedded Content: How to Maximize Benefits & Avoid Problems
When it comes to certain kinds of backlinks, avoiding penalties can be a gray area. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand will teach you which rules to follow to keep you safe and help you benefit.
The Two-Part SEO Ranking Model
When it comes to improving search visibility, what ranking factors matter most? This blog post distills search ranking down to its essence.
The What, Why, and How of Pruning Your Website for SEO
Pruning or merging pages on your website is proving to be a valuable practice post-Google Hummingbird. In this webinar, Bill Sebald explains how this exercise can improve your traffic and boost your conversions, and shares the steps for performing it yourself.
How Visual Communication Can Make or Break Your Content Marketing Strategy
For all but the fewest of brand's, content strategy comes down to creating content—blogs, ebooks, infographics, etc. That's a losing game. This webinar walks through placing strategy at the forefront, allowing it to guide the discovery, design, and creation process.
Optimizing for Accessibility + SEO: Formatting & Link Overlaps
If you're optimizing for search engines, you're also affecting how people using screen readers and assistive technologies are experiencing your site. This post digs into on-page aspects that include formatting text, colors, links, and content that we can't see see but machines can.
Content Creation for the Real World
It's easy to talk about creating great content, but as anyone who's tried knows, it's not so easy in the real world. In this webinar we'll walk through a highly-actionable process for creating consistently engaging content across a variety of formats, with takeaways that any business can start using immediately to make their content marketing more effective.
Earning Links Through Audience Segmentation
This webinar discusses earning links through audience segmentation, enabling you to create the right content for your users.
How to Integrate PR into SEO Strategy
This webinar explores how traditional public relations can be used to build brand awareness and earn backlinks. We'll talk through goal & target market identification, messaging and positioning, media list creation, press release development, and pitching. Dive in!
Making 'Big' Content Work: Planning, Production, and Promotion
In this webinar, we'll show you how to make content that's bigger, better, louder and stand out in today's competitive content marketing landscape. We'll cover how to plan big content creation, manage its production, and promote it in all the right places.
The Science of Writing Must-Click Headlines on Social Media
In this webinar, we'll show you how to write irresistible headlines with a little help from sociology, psychology, and Buffer's own recent research. By the time you leave, you'll also have a game plan for A/B testing your own headlines and vetting potential content for proven success.
Pandas, Penguins, and Hummingbirds: A Guided Tour of the Zoo
In this webinar, Dr. Pete walks you through the basics of these Google algorithm updates - including how to diagnose them, what to do if you think you've been hit, and how to future-proof against the next animal encounter.
Is social networking really worth all the effort?
Is social media really worth all the effort? Can it actually influence - let alone benefit your SEO and search marketing efforts? See what the community's saying in this Q&A post.
Relationship Building for Links
Learn how relationship building can help with your link earning efforts.
How to Build Links to Your Blog - A Case Study
Read one marketer's story how he built up his blog's link profile from zero to hero.
12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post Every time
What makes a blog post work? This post walks through 12 things that can stop a successful blog post in its tracks.
Are press release sites useful?
Does publishing content like newsletters, eBooks, or whitepapers on press release sites actually help marketing and SEO efforts? This Q&A post explores the opinions.
"Design by" footer links of web development firms
Should web development firms put backlinks to their homepages in clients' footers? Is this practice helpful or harmful for SEO? If it's helpful, how can the benefit be maximized? Read what the community's saying in this post.
Top 10 PR Tactics and Strategies of Successful Content and Link Building
Presented by Lexi Mills at MozCon 2014
Everyone's had an outreach pitch rejected, but Lexi will show you that by slicing and dicing your content, you can turn those no’s into yes’s.
How to Be a One-Person Link Building Army
Presented by Mike Arnesen at MozCon 2013
Link building is hard work, especially on limited resources. Mike will go over how to use tools, automation, and relationships to build links with minimal resources.
10 Link Removal Pro-Tips That Will Change Your Life
Presented by Sha Menz at MozCon 2013
Many people think link removal is tedious and thankless work, high on effort and low on results. Sha will change your view with what she's learned while working with hundreds of clients. Laced with a heavy dose of TAGFEE, every one of these highly actionable tips will help you eliminate wasted effort, improve cleanup rates, and even generate new business and new friends while running your link removal campaigns.
Rapid Fire Link Building Tips for Your Content
Presented by Ross Hudgens at MozCon 2013
You've built your content and made it King. Now what? Ross teaches you how to take your content and turn it into links for your site. Whether you're just hunting for backlinks or building up social shares, you'll find all the tips to get your community engaged and building those links for you.
Really Targeted Outreach
Presented by Richard Baxter at MozCon 2013
We've all sent guest post pitches and "link building requests" and begged for precious links any way and anywhere we can. But, that simply isn't marketing. We have all the tools for a better way of finding our audience and determining what they love. Richard will show you a data-driven approach to marketing your brand to your target audience. No more guesswork, you'll know exactly how to get the right eyeballs on your content.
How to Earn Links without Doing Anything
Presented by Ian Lurie at MozCon 2012
Embrace your own awesome while kicking back and relaxing. Ian takes you through how to be so brilliant online that you'll be swimming in links.
Link Analytics Through API
Presented by Richard Baxter at MozCon 2012
Learn how an everyday inbound marketer can make use of simple APIs to discover more about your links (or potential links). Are they good or bad? What do they say about your site? Who?s got the good stuff?
Badass Excel Tips and Tricks for Your Data
Presented by Annie Cushing at MozCon 2012
Take your everyday data and turn it into comprehensive analytics applicable to all internet marketers. Even if you don't love analytics.
35 Ways to Get Links
Presented by Paddy Moogan at MozCon 2012
Paddy dives into 35 ways to get links. He goes out of the box, around the universe, and all the way back to MozCon.
How Relationships Drive Link Building
Presented by Jon Henshaw at MozCon 2012
MozCon Video Bundle
Did you miss this year's MozCon? Now is your chance to experience what everyone has been talking about! We have over 19 hours of actionable inbound marketing knowledge.
From Anchor to Asset: How Agencies Can Wisely Create Data-Driven Content
Presented by Heather Physioc at MozCon 2017
Creative agencies are complicated and messy, often embracing chaos instead of process, and focusing exclusively on one-time campaign creative instead of continuous web content creation. Campaign creative can be costly, and not sustainable for most large brands. How can creative shops produce data-driven streams of high-quality content for the web that stays true to its creative roots, but faster, cheaper and continuously? I'll show you how.
Up and to the Right: Growing Traffic, Conversions & Revenue
Presented by Matthew Barby at MozCon 2017
So many of the case studies that document how a company has grown from 0 to X forget to mention that solutions that they found are applicable to their specific scenario and won't work for everyone. Instead of building up a list of other companies' tactics, marketers need to understand how to diagnose and solve problems across their entire funnel. Illustrated with real-world examples, I'll be talking you through the process that I take to come up with ideas that none of my competitors are thinking of.
How to Get Big Links
Presented by Lisa Myers at MozCon 2017
Everyone wants links and coverage from sites such as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, but very few achieve it. This is how we cracked it. Over and over.
8 Can't-Miss Off-Page SEO Strategies to Build Your Online Reputation
Why does off-page SEO really matter? What's off-page SEO about besides link building? Check out this post to learn about the eight elements of good off-page SEO and how to amp up your own efforts.
The Best Types of Content for Local Businesses
Content is one of the best ways to show local searchers that you're an authority in your niche. But, creating that can content be overwhelming. What are some actual ways to make a difference, conversions-wise? Learn in this post.
How to Use Your Competition's "Top Pages" Data to Bolster Your SEO Efforts
By comparing top pages data from multiple sources against one another, you can get some really cool, powerful advanced SEO opportunities in your content and keyword targeting. Rand explains how in this Whiteboard Friday.
State of Content Marketing 2017 Survey Results
The State of Content Marketing Survey told us that 92% of marketers don't have a clear plan for content marketing. The only answer: the constant content approach. Learn more in this post.
Do We Still Need to Disavow in the Era of Penguin 4.0?
Now that Google’s Penguin 4.0 update is out, does disavowing links still matter for SEO? This post explores the answer. Check it out!
Google Algorithmic Penalties Still Happen, Post-Penguin 4.0
Thanks to Google’s Penguin 4.0 algorithm update, there is "less need" for link disavowal. But, there’s evidence algorithmic penalties DO still exist - and disavow files may still be useful when recovering from a manual penalty. Learn about one example in this post.
Rankings Correlation Study: Domain Authority vs. Branded Search Volume
How does branded search volume correlate with Domain Authority? This study takes a closer look.
Totally Excellent Tips for Righteous Local SEO
Presented by Greg Gifford at MozCon Local 2017
Learn about the latest updates to Local SEO, including the 2017 Local Search Ranking Factor study results. Learn how to be more successful at selling your services and setting client expectations for Local SEO. Then, based off the hot-off-the-presses LSRF 2017 data, learn exactly which signals matter the most for local visibility and how to optimize them.
How to Earn Links to Your Local Business
Presented by Rhea Drysdale at MozCon Local 2017
What’s the value of a backlink and how do you get links to your site today? This session will show you how to discover relevant and natural backlink opportunities to your website specifically from local press and media.
Are Words the New Links?
Presented by Mike Blumenthal at MozCon Local 2017
As we move towards a world of things & entities, Google has used started using non linked based signals for ranking. In several case studies we will look at factors that determine relevance and develop a model how Google might use them to determine rank.
Linking Internally & Externally from Your Site: Opportunities, Risk and Reward
Navigating linking practices can be a treacherous process. Sometimes it feels like a penalty is lurking around every corner. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about the ins and outs of linking internally and externally, identifying pitfalls and opportunities both.
5 Steps to Content Marketing Success
Content marketing isn't easy when it's done right, but when you have a solid process in place, you've got a much better chance of hitting a home run. Paddy Moogan takes us through his own 5-step process for making sure your content marketing campaign starts off right.
Marketing Innovations: Creative PR, Content, and SEO Strategies'
Presented by Lexi Mills at Mozcon 2015
Lexi shows you how to apply strategies used in emerging markets to grow the success of your PR, SEO, and content work from bathrooms to rock bands.
An SEO's Guide to the Insane World of Content
Presented by Matthew Brown at Mozcon 2015
Find yourself arguing whether or not SEO is just great content? Matthew will talk through a strategic and tactical journey of content strategy from an SEO's viewpoint and leave you with new tools and tactics.
Illustrated Guide to Advanced On-Page Topic Targeting for SEO
This post provides a simple framework for on-page topic targeting in a way that makes optimizing easy and scalable while producing richer content for your audience.
Disavow and link analysis
Disavowing links? This Q&A post covers important considerations before starting the disavow process, which links to disavow, and how to implement a disavowal strategy.
The Hidden Power of Nofollow
Obviously, for those of us who are trying to earn links, receiving a nofollow link can feel like a slap in the face. But these links have hidden powers that make them just as important as followed ones. Learn why nofollow links are more powerful than you might think.
How do you create and distribute content?
How much effort do you put into getting your content distributed? Do you have particular strategies for creating your content? What are they? This Community Q&A post explores this ideas and possibilities.
Are all paid links and submissions bad?
Are all paid link submissions dangerous, or can some be helpful? This Q&A post explores the ins and outs of this question.
12 Scalable Link-Building Tactics
Link building/earning is essential in online marketing, and not just because it improves your SEO. It also helps a website be discovered (click-through visitors), generate leads, and build a stronger online brand presence. This post examines 12 tactics you can use to improve your web presence.
How to Completely Ruin (or Save) Your Website with Redirects
When done right, 301 redirects can have awesome power. When done wrong, the results can be disastrous. Learn how to get the most benefit out of redirects in this post.
Disavowed: Secrets of Google's Most Mysterious Tool
Few Google products have produced more fear, rumors and speculation than the disavow tool. To better understand how the tool works, Cyrus Shepard used it to disavow 1000s of links and talked with dozens of SEOs who used it in attempts to recover from Google penalties.
How do I detect and remove bad links?
How can you identify "bad" links to a website? Once those links have been uncovered, how can you remove them? This Q&A post dives into potential techniques and solutions.