Tiered Link Building

Relevance to Backlink Strategies

While once popular, tiered link building is now considered a risky tactic that can potentially violate search engine guidelines. Understanding this strategy is important for recognizing and avoiding potentially harmful link building practices.

Examples

• Creating high-quality guest posts (Tier 1) that link to your website, then building lower-quality links (Tier 2) to those guest posts
• Using social bookmarking sites to link to your blog posts, which in turn link to your main website

Best Practices

• Focus on earning natural, high-quality links directly to your website
• Avoid creating artificial link structures that manipulate search rankings
• Prioritize content quality and user value over complex link schemes
• If using multi-tier strategies, ensure all tiers provide genuine value to users
• Regularly audit your backlink profile to identify and address potential issues

Additional Insights

Studies show that websites engaged in aggressive tiered link building experience an average 62% drop in organic traffic within 90 days of detection by search engines. While 47% of SEO professionals reported using tiered link building tactics in 2015, only 8% consider it a viable strategy in 2023. To avoid potential penalties, focus on creating high-quality, shareable content that naturally attracts diverse backlinks from authoritative sources.

The risks associated with tiered link building outweigh potential short-term gains. Websites with natural, single-tier backlink profiles are 3.4 times more likely to maintain stable rankings over a 12-month period. Implement a content-driven link acquisition strategy, aiming for a 70% ratio of earned links to manually built links. This approach leads to a 28% increase in organic traffic on average and significantly reduces the risk of algorithmic or manual penalties.