Backlink Audit: A Guide to Link Profile Analysis in SEO

SEO Adelaide

A backlink audit is a critical part of any SEO Adelaide strategy. It helps you understand how well your website is doing, what needs improvement and where the opportunities for new links are. 

A good backlink audit can help you identify issues with your site that is preventing it from ranking well in search engines and also show you where there are opportunities to gain more links.

What is a link profile audit?

A link profile audit is a process of analysing your website’s backlinks for SEO Adelaide strategy. It’s a way to find out which links are helping you and which ones are hurting you. It also helps you identify who is linking to your site and why.

Backlink audits can be done manually or with the help of software like Ahrefs Site Explorer or Moz Pro Site Crawl (both for paid accounts), they will also provide information about backlinks and their quality.

The backlink audit is a good place to start when you are trying to identify your site’s strengths and weaknesses. The process of auditing your backlinks can be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. If you have a lot of links, the best thing to do is pick a small subset at first and work on improving them.

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Why is a link profile audit important for SEO?

The first and foremost reason for the importance of link audits is that links are one of the most important ranking factors for search engines. They’re also a measurement of authority, trust, relevance, popularity and user experience.

Backlinks are a key component in determining how well your website will rank on Google. Links from other websites can boost your organic traffic significantly to help you reach more customers or clients.

When you perform a link audit, you’ll be able to see which links are pointing to your website and which ones need to be removed. This will help you clean up your backlink profile and improve its overall health.

How to do a link profile audit step-by-step.

Now that we have an overview of our link profile, it’s time to go through each one individually – starting with those that are deemed ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ for SEO Adelaide purposes. This step may not be necessary for every website, but if it’s relevant for yours, then read on!

Step 1: Find all your backlinks.

To find all of your backlinks, use a tool like Ahrefs, Majestic or Moz. It’s best to use a mix of both Domain vs. URL and Domain vs. Domain methods (the latter is also known as the Backlink Index).

The Domain vs. URL method involves comparing the URLs of your web pages against their corresponding domains in order to find any links that might be missing from your link profile. This method will allow you to identify exact URLs where you have no incoming links—such as if someone has linked to page A on your site but not page B on the same domain (or vice versa). 

The Backlink Index allows you to see how many backlinks each website has relative to its popularity online—and whether there are websites linking out that should be linking in instead!

Step 2: Separate good vs. bad links & remove all toxic backlinks

  • Once you’ve gone through the list and removed any obviously harmful links, it’s time to analyse the remaining ones.
  • One of the most important steps is to identify toxic backlinks. A toxic link is one that has a low-quality score, as well as other negative metrics such as:
  • Linking root domains with low PageRank (PR) or Domain Authority (DA) scores. You can find out these metrics by using tools like SEO Toolbar or Ahrefs Site Explorer;
  • Links from spammy pages or sites that have been penalized in search results due to low-quality content;
  • Links from websites with bad user experience, such as popups and unresponsive websites;
  • Links from irrelevant pages (i.e., if your company sells weight loss products, then an article about weight loss won’t help your rankings).

Step 3: Submit the disavow file to Google.

You can submit a disavow file to Google once per domain. To do so, you’ll need to use the Disavow Links tool in Search Console’s Diagnostics area (you might need to add it first). In many cases, simply uploading a spreadsheet with links will be enough for Google to remove the links in question from your profile. 

If that doesn’t work, you may have to submit manual requests for removal by emailing a copy of your disavow file along with supporting evidence that there were no issues when you submitted it initially.

Google will then check through your data and remove any bad links from its index after 30 days unless there are extenuating circumstances preventing them from doing so (e.g., ongoing investigations into potentially harmful activity).

Step 4: Monitor the link profile on an ongoing basis.

Monitoring the link profile on an ongoing basis is an important aspect of link building.

The best way to monitor your site’s link profile is through a tool like Ahrefs, which allows you to track all of your backlinks and get alerts when new ones are added.

You should also check Google Search Console regularly to see if they have any warnings or messages in regards to your website’s backlink profile, as this can be indicative of potential benefits with your SEO Adelaide service, such as too many low-quality links or unnatural linking patterns.

Conclusion

A link profile audit is an essential part of an SEO strategy. It’s a great way to find out how your website’s backlinks are performing and whether they could be improved in any way. It can also help you identify toxic links that could harm your rankings if left alone. So if you have time on your hands, go ahead and do it!

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