When link building many stingy publishers only want inbound links.

In contrast they don’t link out.

They are even afraid that links from User Generated Content (UGC) – like comments – are draining their authority.

1. Is your site authority leaking through comment links?
2. Does linking out hurt you on Google?
3. Are links dangerous?

Questions like these are really popping up everywhere.

Website owners and bloggers are scared!

Even high profile SEO blogs like Semrush add the crippling nofollow attribute to all their outbound links!

This is a fallacy. Links are connections on the Web and in real life.

The more connected you are the better!

Here is why link building is about relationships really, not just technology.

Linking out is good for you

Many years ago (2009!) Google confirmed that outbound links are a positive ranking factor (yet few people did notice or care).

So did recurring SEO tests ever since!

In 2024 a Google algorithm leak showed that “outlinks” are mentioned numerous times.

Many are even using outlink/s in their names.

outlinkScore and outlinkInfo are the most obvious ones.

Yet website owners often do not want to link out due to various fears.

People are still stuck in the past.

Moreover most people wrongly focus on technology not conversation. It should be the other way around!

To succeed in a modern social media environment — where the social Web is

• all-encompassing
• self-evident
• taken for granted

— you need to focus on the human factor.

Some people already argue that the E in SEO stands for experience, or everywhere not engine anymore.

Face the facts. SEO is about:

• humans not robots
• humans not tools
• people not Google

This is even more true in the AI slop era where human-first content gets preferred by bots and searchers alike.

Modern search engine optimization is about conversation not technology.

It’s even more than that, it’s about relationships.

Meeting people online leads to connections

The people I “met” online back when I started out are mostly still around and I’m part of their virtual sphere.

People still know and recognize me after decades!

I can be silent for a while or they might have stopped blogging in the meantime.

Yet the number of my friends online remains stable or is even expanding due to my sheer ongoing activity.

Having a link means having a relationship with another human being who edits a website.

Social media allows everybody to link in a plethora of ways. You can

• bookmark
• vote
• like
• love
• save
• share

You spread the news and good resources via a myriad of channels.

The channels change over time.

You can’t always build a new audience from scratch on each one of them.

• One day it’s Friendster
• The next it’s MySpace
• Then it’s Facebook
• A day later it’s Instagram.

It’s WhatsApp in the morning, Snapchat during lunchtime and Telegram in the evening.

Social Media hypes come and go.

Now it’s Reddit.

You can’t be everywhere all the time yourself and broadcast your content.

You need other people who use these tools and genuinely engage with their audiences.

They share your content! You can’t solely rely on self-promotion!

The relationships stay and the links to other people stay as well.

Unless you think robots, tools and Google. They can dump or ban you anytime.

How to connect with people

People can abandon you as well, but they usually don’t out of the blue.

Even when supporters do leave you on the Web you won’t lose 2/3 of your revenue over night.

Make sure you listen to the right people in the conversation.

Then make sure to connect with them, forge a relationship, create a link.

A link is a real connection between people.

The HTML link that shows up on your website is just a manifestation of the real link between two individuals — the person who links and the person who is linked to.

What does this mean for blog comments?

For years I didn’t care if you just linked your microsite that was unrelated to my blog topic.

A comment link was OK as long as the link between us is a real and valuable one.

A supportive or also a critical comment did pay off for both of us that way sooner or later.

It does not matter what the robots, tools or Google have to “say”.

As long as you contributed something of value you deserve a link.

The only thing you have to care about now more than ever considering blog comments is the quality of links.

This also applies to user contributions elsewhere or UGC in general.

Yet with WordPress blogs it’s still relatively easy:

• Moderate comments with links
• Moderate all comments on posts older than a week
• Do not allow links to empty pages,
• Edit deep links (unless they’re relevant)
• Remove gambling/adult pages
• Delete automated “thank you, great post” comment without context

Nothing fancy here. Unless you are new to blogging you have encountered such comments already.

I had to disable comment here on the blog for various other reasons.

It was mostly my health that prevented me from taking care.

Yet I still believe that comments make a blog more of a lievely place.

Being anti-social hurts yourself

Most of these comment moderation measures are common sense best practices and have been implemented by most bloggers already.

Also make sure to use one of the many “dofollow” plugins as long WordPress does not remove one of the harmful “nofollow, UGC” etc. attributes from the default WordPress package.

When using the anti-social nofollow attribute you hurt both your site and your commenters sites.

UGC is just another red flag for people not to count your links properly. I always check comment links.

For people who switch off comments altogether ask yourself: Why are you on the Web?

The Web is about sharing or at least offering information.

Consider this: everything you publish and share might help others and hurt you.

So either you risk that and reap the benefits or you go offline, no need for a website then.

Thus ideally you also include a way to talk back and provide feedback.

Otherwise disappointed customers will do that on social media and you might not notice when they talk about you “behind your back”.

Think relationships not technology

When link building you have to think relationships not technology! Why?

You’re invincible when you don’t depend on any single technology provider.

That’s even more pressing in the Big Tech era of control.

No single tweak, small or big from Google or any other gatekeeper can hurt you.

Stay connected to your peers throughout the many social media platforms and using all the upcoming tools and never forget what really counts.

All you need is link love!

Connect with the right people and success on Google and beyond will ensue.

Merken