SEO for WordPress: “How I hit page #1 of Google in 27 days!”

Chapter 9 - Tiered backlinks (Backlink Pyramids)

Tiered backlinks (backlink pyramids) are when you build backlinks to your backlinks. This sounds confusing, but it’s really simple. Other websites that link directly to your website are considered tier 1 backlinks. Websites that link to the tier 1 pages are considered tier 2 backlinks.

For example, let’s say I created a Facebook Fan Page that links directly to my website. That would be considered a “Tier 1” backlink because it links directly to my website.

Next, let’s say I created three articles on HubPages that link to my Facebook fan page; that’s considered “Tier 2” links because HubPage links directly to my Facebook fan page instead of directly to my website.

You should create tiered backlinks for a few reasons:

Help Google find your tier 1 backlinks

Make your tier 1 backlinks more important

Protect your website from lesser quality backlinks

A whitehat backlink pyramid will consist of quality backlinks on tier 1 and tier 2. So if your tier 1 backlink are on Facebook, and your tier 2 backlinks are on a quality article directory like HubPages, then it’s a whitehat pyramid.

A blackhat/greyhat backlink pyramid is almost the same. A blackhat pyramid consist of a lot of low quality backlinks on tier 2. For example, my tier 1 backlink would still be on an authority website like Facebook, but I would create 2,000 backlinks on tier 2 using a lot of spun articles on auto approve article directories. The spun articles aren’t linking directly to my website, they’re linking to my Facebook fan page, so my website is technically safe.

Facebook isn’t going to get penalized because I sent 2,000 backlinks to my fan page; Facebook probably has billions of backlinks from all over the place. The only thing that will happen is that Google will find my Facebook fan page faster due to all the links pointing to my page and index it.

The entire point of tiered backlinks is to create a “push” for your tier 1 links. Your tier 1 links should only come from authority websites. Your tier 2 links can come from wherever you want, but if you want to be 100% ethical and “whitehat”, you can use social bookmarking websites for your tier 2 links. (Diigo, Digg, Folkd, Delicious, Google+, Reddit, etc…)

Summary & Action Plan

Build backlink pyramids to help Google find your backlinks. Your tier 1 backlinks are links that point directly to your website. Your tier 2 backlinks point to the tier 1 backlinks.

Your tier 1 backlinks should always consist of high quality, authoritative, and relevant websites. Your tier 2 backlinks can consist of lesser quality backlinks, but if you want to be 100% safe and whitehat, use social bookmarking websites for tier 2 backlinks. Done.