What is a Natural Link?
Natural links are backlinks acquired without solicitation or payment by the site receiving the link. Websites and pages earn them when other sites find their content valuable and decide to link to it without any intervention from the blogger receiving the link.
Search engines consider natural links trustworthy and authoritative, and receiving one indicates your website provides valuable content that others find helpful. This makes them valuable to bloggers, as they have higher chances of passing high-quality link equity ja Sivujärjestys to the page receiving it.
Overall, natural links are the most desired type of inbound links you want pointing to your site and bloggers often strive to earn them to improve their rankings on search results pages.
Natural Links vs Unnatural Links
Natural links are the opposite of unnatural links. Unnatural links are links that are created to manipulate search engine results pages. For example, paid links, link farms, automated links, and private blog networks (PBN) are unnatural links.
Unnatural links are typically created using black hat SEO techniques that violate Google Search Essentials guidelines. These unnatural links may include additional black hat SEO techniques like hidden text and keyword stuffing.
Overall, it is best to avoid unnatural link building methods as they can cause Google to issue a manual action penalty against your site. When that happens, Google will demote your rankings or remove your site entirely from search results pages.
Importance of Natural Links
Natural links are a powerful indicator of a site’s credibility and authority. Search engines view them as a strong endorsement of your content and site, and earning them tells search engines that your content is helpful, trustworthy, and high-quality enough to be linked to.
This causes search engines to improve the page’s rankings on search results pages. Natural links are so crucial to SEO that pages and sites with high-quality natural links rank higher than those without.
This makes natural links the most desired type of backlinks. Bloggers strive to earn them to improve their rankings on search results pages. The whole point of black hat SEO is to disguise unnatural links and trick search engines into thinking they are natural.
Besides the obvious SEO benefits, natural links drive valid referral traffic to your site. Such traffic usually brings in high-quality audiences genuinely interested in your content. This improves your engagement, as these visitors are more likely to explore your site, share your work, and interact with your calls to action.
Qualities of a Natural Link
Natural links have specific qualities that distinguish them from unnatural and manipulative backlinks. So, when in doubt about the naturalness of a link, review it for these qualities. The more of these qualities a link has, the higher its chances of being a natural link.
1 Earned Organically Without Payment
Natural links are earned due to the value they provide to the publishing site and its audience. They are earned without any financial incentives or agreements between the sites providing and receiving the link.
Instead, the authors of the linking site typically find the content on their own and link to it because they find it helpful.
2 Originates From Relevant Pages and Content
Natural links typically originate from websites, pages, and content relevant to your topic. For example, a blog post about exercises might naturally link to a guide on yoga, as yoga is a form of exercise.
This relevance makes the link from the exercise article to the yoga article relevant and natural. It improves the user experience for visitors and signals to search engines that the link is meaningful and helpful to visitors.
3 Originates From Authoritative Sites
Natural links typically originate from authoritative sites and often point to equally authoritative sites. These origin and receiving sites may not have the same level of authority, and it is normal for one to have a higher authority than the other.
However, both sites are typically not engaged in manipulative link-building practices and are authoritative in their own right.
4 Points to Valuable, High-Quality Content
Natural links point from valuable and high-quality content and point to equally valuable and high-quality content. These links often originate from reputable sources that provide their audience with reliable and trustworthy information.
Similarly, they look out for pages and content that provide their audience with reliable information and link back to them. So, links from such pages signal to search engines and users that your page is credible and trustworthy, which improves your rankings.
5 Does Not Contain Tracking Parameters
Natural links rarely contain URL parameters. Specifically, they rarely contain URL tracking parameters used to track the origin of the click.
Such URL parameters typically contain utm_source indicating the link may be paid, sponsored, or part of a promotion. Esimerkiksi, https://yourdomain.com/product?utm_source=newsletter .
However, natural links can contain content-modifying parameters. These URLs indicate the webpage is dynamic rather than static.
Content-modifying parameters are common on ecommerce sites and can be easily identified by their lack of the utm_source. For example, https://yourdomain.com/t-shirts/?color=yellow.
Types of Natural Links
Understanding the different forms of natural links can help you identify your most effective method of earning backlinks and guide your content creation and link building efforts. Now, we will explore the various types of natural links, with examples of sites, webpages, and content on which they appear.
1 Editorial Links
Editorial links are in blog posts, news articles, and opinion pieces. These links are typically used to provide additional information about the content on which it appears. The publishing site usually discovers the editorial link during research and then links to it, as it provides additional context to its audience.
2 Directory Links
Directory links appear in online directories. These directories specialize in specific industries, topics, niches, or locations and are used by visitors who want to find specific resources or services. For example, the directory link below appears in an online directory of the most popular companies in the United States.
3 Resource Links
Resource links originate from sites and pages that curate helpful resources, tools, and guides for visitors interested in a topic or activity. The linking site is typically an authority on the subject and usually hosts the content on dedicated resource pages, which, in many cases, are titled “Resources.”
4 Social Media Links
Social media links are links posted on social media apps. These links are usually posted by users reviewing a product or service or discussing the content they found on some webpage. These links are typically nofollow. However, they can improve the brand’s visibility and attract direct traffic.
5 Review Links
Review links are generated when customers link to your product or service in their reviews. Customers typically leave these reviews on review-type blog posts, the review section of ecommerce sites, and review aggregator sites like Yelp and Trustpilot.
6 Citation Links
Citation links point to the source of information quoted in an academic or research article. These links follow an academic reference format and are usually published at the bottom of the webpage. For example, Smith, J. (2020). The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity. Journal of Environmental Studies, 45(3), 123-145.
7 Podcast Links
Podcast links are created when a podcast host or visitor mentions a website, or the podcast publisher includes a link to the site in the podcast’s description.
8 Forum Links
Forum links are included in the topics, questions, and comments posted on online forums and Q&A (question and answer) sites like Reddit and Quora. These links are typically set to nofollow, which reduces their ability to pass link equity and PageRank. However, they can be a great source of direct traffic.
