3 SEO Tricks That Worked in 2016, But Not in 2017

SEO in 2017

From automated link building to guest blogging, the world of SEO is full of tactics to make your website ranking higher than the competition. Some of these SEO tactics are legitimate and fair, while others – well, let’s just call them ‘gray hat.’

These three SEO tactics were all the rage last year, dominating the SEO scene during 2015. This year, they’re – well, let’s just say that they’re still effective, but a little out of date compared to the SEO industry’s hottest new tactics.

SEO in 2017

Blog Commenting

Blog commenting has been a mainstay of online marketing for over a decade, and for more reasons than just its SEO value. Commenting on popular blogs is one of the top ways to establish your own blog, particularly in small industries and social circles.

Commenting for backlinks, however, is rapidly going the way of the do-do. Thanks to Google’s anti-spam filters and WordPress’s no-follow comment links, not every blog post is worth commenting on for a backlink these days.

 

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is an SEO technique that can be remarkably effective or a total waste of time, largely depending on your strategy. Because of spammers, many great blogs no longer allow anyone to guest post if their biography contains a backlink.

This has effectively relegated the typical guest blog post to low quality, low-PR sites that simply aren’t worth that much from an SEO perspective. Guest blogging is not a dead tactic, but the low quality guest blogging of years past certainly is.

 

International Links

During early 2015, some of the web’s biggest websites were ranking prominently in Google’s index using high-PR, low quality links bought from Chinese markets. These links were occasionally even on official government websites with PRs of 7,8, and 9.

While the high PageRank ratings made these links temporary winners, Google’s anti-spam filter quickly throttled the sites that were using them. Today, buying links that are in a foreign language or territory is more likely to hurt your site than help it.