Last week, we published an analysis of anchor text used by the top ranking websites for highly competitive keywords on Search Engine Journal. In today’s post, we’re going to take those same examples to see what types of links they are obtaining and how you can do the same for your website while minimizing the risk of being hit by Google Panda or Penguin.

Keyword: Online College

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for online college obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• OnlineCollege.org: 85% links in blogs with 64% of links in a blog post or forum thread.
• Devry.edu: 38% links in blogs, 21% in web directories, 14% in news sites, and 9% in aritcle directories with 43% of links in a group of links and 39% in a short paragraph of text.
• Strayer.edu: 47% links in blogs and 22% in web directories with 53% links in a group of links and 32% in a short paragraph of text.

Keyword: Women’s Clothing

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for women’s clothing obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• Kohls.com: 58% links in blogs and 19% in Ecommerce sites with 33% in a blog post or forum thread, 30% in a group of links, and 29% in a short paragraph of text.
• Overstock.com: 50% links in blogs and 19% in Ecommerce sites with 38% in a blog post or forum thread, 29% in a short paragraph of text, and 27% in a group of links.
• ColdwaterCreek.com: 44% links in blogs and 28% in Ecommerce sites with 41% in a blog post or forum thread, 28% in a group of links, and 22% in a short paragraph of text.

Keyword: Real Estate

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for real estate obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• Realtor.com: 54% in blogs and 15% in Ecommerce sites with 35% in a group of links, 30% in a short paragraph of text, and 19% in a blog post or forum thread.
• RealEstate.com: 35% in blogs, 21% in web directories, and 14% in news sites with 47% in a short paragraph of text and 39% in a group of links.
• Zillow.com: 54% in blogs with 45% in a short paragraph of text, 25% in a group of links, and 24% in a blog post or forum thread.

Keyword: Mortgage

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for mortgage obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• BankRate.com: 54% in blogs with 45% in a short paragraph of text, 25% in a group of links, and 24% in a blog post or forum thread.
• Zillow.com: 54% in blogs with 45% in a short paragraph of text, 25% in a group of links, and 24% in a blog post or forum thread.
• MortgageCalculator.com: 75% in blogs with 51% in a blog post or forum thread, 24% in a short paragarph of text, and 18% in a group of links.

Keyword: Life Insurance

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for life insurance obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• Metlife.com: 50% in blogs and 19% in web directories with 42% in a short paragraph of text, 37% in a group of links, and 11% in a blog post or forum thread.
• Geico.com: 51% in blogs with 43% in a group of links, 20% in a short paragraph of text, 19% in an image, and 14% in a blog post or forum thread.
• Farmers.com: 46% in blogs and 25% in web directories with 52% in a group of links, 20% in an image, and 17% in a short paragraph of text.

Keyword: Payday Loan

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for payday loan obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• PaydayOne.com: 85% in blogs with 62% in a blog post or forum thread, 17% in a short paraphgra of text, and 11% in a group of links.
• CashFairy.com: 98% in web directories with 76% in a group of links.
• 1min-PaydayLoan.com: 84% in blogs with 97% in a blog post or forum thread.

Keyword: DUI Lawyer

What types of links do websites ranking on the first page of search results for dui lawyer obtain? Here is a quick analysis of types of main types of links obtained by these domains.

• DUI-Lawyer.com: 75% in web directories with 57% in a group of links and 31% in a short paragraph of text.
• Avvo.com: 64% in blogs with 29% in a short paragraph of text, 24% in a blog post or forum thread, 23% in a group of links, and 14% in an image.
• TopgunDUI.com: 38% in blogs and 29% in web directories with 40% in a short paragraph of text, 38% in a group of links, and 13% in a blog post or forum thread.

Major Takeaway

While some domains are still maintaining the top spots in search results with a majority of links from web directories, the majority of these sites are obtaining links in blogs and news sites. You can also see from the charts that although the majority of links are spread out through two to three different link types, many of these industries are trying to build a diversified link portfolio through press releases, social networks, personal sites, wikis, and other website types.

Competing with Panda / Penguin Friendly Links

So if you or a client share a highly competitive keyword from similar industries as those listed above, how do you compete to get your website to the top spot without risking penalization by Google Panda, Penguin, or other algorithmic changes? Here are some ideas.

• Create quality guest posts for blogs with strong traffic and communities vs. creating basic articles for blogs with little to no traffic. You’ll usually get a link back to your website in the author bio or author bio page. Use sites like Technorati and Alltop to find great blogs on a variety of topics.
• Leave valuable comments on posts from blogs in your industry with strong traffic and communities vs. spamming blogs for links. Consider clicks as your only goal for links from blog comments.
• Want links from major news and media sites? Try Help a Reporter Out (HARO). You can sign up to get free daily emails where reporters are asking for input from people in specific industries. Offer up your expert advice and you might end up with a valuable link from a trusted media outlet.
• Participate in forums related to your industry and, if it is in good etiquette, include a link in your forum profile signature. Don’t post in forums unless you have something valuable to say.
• Look for high quality web directories that are preferably industry specific. Make sure that they do not have categories where they accept links to adult, casino, or pharmacy websites.
• Look for high quality article directories that have traffic from actual readers (notable by the number of comments / social shares per article) and not just marketers posting links. Industry-specific or related article directories would be a plus.
• Aim for variety in your link building. Don’t just rely on blogs, forums, web directories, and article directories. Social should be a major component of your strategy, regardless of whether the links are dofollow or nofollow.

What other link building strategies would you suggest if your competitors had similar backlink profiles as the websites above? Please share in the comments!

The post The Types of Links Obtained by Competitive Industries and How You Can Obtain Them appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In the age of raw link data and hundreds of SEO metrics, we are improving the backlink analyzer concepts used in our  tool by providing:

1. Fresh & Complete Link Data [Aggregated & De-duped] from Ahrefs, MajesticSEO, SEOmoz, Blekko & SEOKicks.
2. Re-crawled & Classified On-Demand for You.
3. In an “easy to digest” UI.

I want to personally thank, all of our customers, who have provided the precious feedback that allowed us to revamp the inBound Link Analysis to a simpler & better link analysis concept, integrated with the most important features that any link builder needs.

The whole concept of the inBound Link Analyzer module is about simplifying the complexity of the link ecosystem. SEO and Link Building are getting more complex than ever, and having complex tools, will not help you, the user, in making more well informed decisions about your SEO day to day activity. Going through tens of thousands of raw links gives you almost nothing, that you can actually use in your backlink strategy plan.

Total link counts, nowadays only tell you 1% of the  ranking story of a site. That is why, you should focus on backlink segmentation and classification that will allow you to understand the  link profile of the analyzed site.

A few of our customers had early access to this upgrade, and they were enchanted by it (thank you all for the great feedback you provided). Here are some of their opinions on the old vs the new backlink analyzer:

Let’s move on to the actual upgrades that the tool got. Here is a list with all the new or redesigned functionalities of the cognitive SEO tool.

Based on the concept “A picture is worth a thousand words”, here are, all of the above, 18 features exemplified with screen photos and short descriptions.

First, I would like to thank you for trusting us in your SEO analysis adventures and would love to have you test the tools. You can get your free 14 day trial here!

We merged over 20 pages in one single dash with 36 charts and one big table with all your links. You won’t have to browse through tens of pages anymore, loosing time and wondering how to correlate the various link data. You can print the charts and also export link data from each individual table. The “big” page even loads quite quickly!

We added import functionality for Google Webmaster Tools data ( Bing Link Explorer and other link data providers ) so that you can compliment the data that we extract from all the backlink providers that we use, with the data that you love most. You can even import custom lists of links with the click of a button.

You will receive weekly mails with the new links that appeared in that timeframe. This works both on your site and your competitors and it builds out a link velocity graph inside the app. This is a great link intelligence advantage, being able to see how your competitors link profiles are evolving compared to yours, and at the same time, to have access to the exact links that create the evolution of thee backlink profiles.

Finding common anchor texts between your site and the competitors and visualizing anchor data has never been easier. You can easily use this data to understand the strengths & weaknesses of your link building plan, in terms of anchor text distribution. Spotting over-optimized anchor text is like a breeze now!

On each campaign re-crawl, we save different data points that allow you to see the evolution of your backlink profile. For example you can view the evolution of a link profile from the site type, point of view or from nofollow/dofollow links. Many more are data points are saved.

View the most linked pages of the sites that you analyze. You are also able to visualize how the referring domains vs links are acquired for each individual page of the analyzed site.

One single page where you can compare over 20 charts and correlate the most important seo metrics to tell you what makes the difference between your site and your competitors sites. It has never been easier to compare such huge amounts of link data in an easy to digest & fast interface.

In the Competitive Link Analysis area you will find the Winner vs Loser comparison, based on different link metrics. You can even apply different filters and the comparison will change dynamically. So many possibilities here! Link building and analysis is all about creativity and what you are looking to accomplish.

In certain situations you might only want to check the most important link from each referring domain individually. Keeps your analysis even more focused!

Easily compare and identify unnatural linking patterns using the common referring domains and common IPs. You can easily spot link networks from this chart alone!

Until now, you where only able to run subdomain analysis on the campaigns that you created inside cognitiveSEO. From now on your possibilities are endless because you can run both full domain analysis and subdomain analysis. If you want you can even run the analysis on a custom list of URLs.

Adding campaings in cognitiveSEO is  cleaner now. We splitted the campaign concept in two: One-time Snapshots & Recurring Campaigns. The big difference is that “Recurring Campaigns” will be automatically re-crawled weekly and also allow continuous rank tracking. “One-time Snapshots” are best for one-time site benchmarking & analysis and client pitches.

We were detecting in-Content links since the initial launch of cognitiveSEO in December 2011, but until now we missed to add this chart. We believe this is a great addition to our range of charts as this tells part of the story on how links were built to the analyzed site.

The Link History dimension was added. Now you can filter the links, based on a selected timeframe. You will be able to analyze only the links that appeared in the last 2 weeks for example. Great for detailed link velocity analysis!

MajesticSEO introduced a few months ago their New Trust & Citation metrics. We have integrated them in cognitiveSEO, in these beautiful charts that tell you what each point means and what it actually represents.

We did not work on this revamp, for 5 months, without taking in consideration our Enterprise users. Our system is scalable with dedicated servers and custom enterprise plans (contact us at support@cognitiveseo.com), to allow you to analyze millions of links on demand, with the detail and granularity that no other backlink analysis tool gives you.

The whole page, with all the charts, can be filtered dynamically, and you will get the entire page re-drawn with the new filtered data. For example if you only want to view the link profile of the backlinks that point to your URLs that contain the word “blog” and have a rating of 3 to 5, after you apply these filters your page will be refreshed and you will see only the filtered data & charts.

The link analysis dashboard is a really long page (“Extended View”). If this design does not fit you, we have the tabbed view, which we named the “Condensed View”. Either way, these are great link visualizations that will help you understand backlink profiles and allow you to make decisions faster.

The two biggest challenges of this upgrade were:

• Simplify Complexity
• Scale the system for Enterprise users.

I want to thank the entire team here for the continuos work that they have put into this new upgrade.

It was a real challenge and we hope that you will LOVE IT.  Get your free 14 day trial here!

Share any thoughts, ideas, issues … by commenting on this blog post.

Enjoy your link analysis!

The post Backlink Analysis Tool – Simplified Link Intelligence appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.