Chapter 24 — Exercises

Work these in order; they graduate from recall to applied judgment. Items marked † have worked solutions in the answers appendix. There are no answers in this file — that is deliberate. Use a real prospect, your own site, and free tools (Google Search, Google Alerts, a broken-link checker extension, Search Console) wherever an exercise says to.

A. Recall and definitions

  1. † List the four questions you ask to evaluate a link opportunity, in order, and give the one-line heuristic that folds all four into a single gut-check.

  2. Define link relevance in one sentence, and explain why it is the first filter rather than authority.

  3. In your own words, distinguish an editorial guest contribution from a guest-posting link scheme. Name the four things that actually separate them (hint: it is not the byline).

  4. † Define broken-link building and explain, in one sentence, why it earns a better response rate than a cold "please link to my guide" email.

  5. What is an unlinked mention, and why does reclaiming one convert into a link more easily than most outreach?

  6. Define a private blog network (PBN) from the detection-and-risk side. Why is fabrication built into its very premise?

  7. † Name the six examples of link schemes that Google lists in its spam policies (you may paraphrase).

  8. Define anchor-text distribution, and name the six anchor types described in the chapter.

  9. Explain the difference between a stray reciprocal link (harmless) and a link exchange scheme (a violation). Where is the line?

  10. What does over-optimization risk mean? Give the one-sentence version a colleague would remember.

B. Applied reasoning

  1. † A vendor emails you: "Guaranteed placements on DA 50+ sites, \$120 each, keyword anchor of your choice, delivered in bulk." Identify every red flag in that single sentence and explain what each one tells you.

  2. Your client insists "guest posting is dead because Google penalizes it." Correct the misconception precisely — what did Matt Cutts actually indict in 2014, and what remains legitimate?

  3. A link from an irrelevant but "high-authority" (DR 78) general-news aggregator versus a link from a relevant, modest (DR 24) county builders' association. Which do you pursue for an HVAC company, and why? State what each can and cannot do for you.

  4. † Explain why the healthiest anchor-text distribution is an output of earning links rather than an input you set — and why "managing your anchor ratios" is itself a warning sign.

  5. A colleague says, "Everyone buys links and gets away with it, so it obviously works." Rebut this using (a) the concept of survivorship bias and (b) the concept of expected value.

  6. Why does Google's December 2022 use of SpamBrain to neutralize (not just penalize) spammy links change the economics of buying links even before any penalty is considered?

  7. Give two reasons a link that sends real referral traffic is valuable independent of whether it moves your rankings at all.

C. Diagnose the problem

  1. † Diagnose why this isn't working. A local plumber has spent six months and \$3,000 on link building. Rankings are flat, then suddenly drop. Their link report shows: 300 new referring domains in six months; 90% are unrelated "business directories" and foreign blogs; anchor text is 55% "emergency plumber [city]." Diagnose what happened, name the likely mechanism, and say which chapter covers the cleanup.

  2. A content creator earned one excellent guest article on a respected industry publication and expected a ranking jump. Nothing moved. Explain why this outcome is normal, not a failure, and what a single guest post can and cannot do.

  3. A site's traffic is fine, but its "resource-page outreach" has earned zero links in 80 emails. List three plausible reasons rooted in the tactic's real constraints (not "the emails were bad") and one that is about the emails.

D. Do it on your own site / with free tools

  1. † Audit your own links. Using a free tool (Search Console's Links report, or a free tier of a backlink tool), list your top five referring domains. For each, score it on the four evaluation questions from §24.1. Which would you want even if Google didn't exist?

  2. Set up Google Alerts for your brand name (and one common misspelling). Over one week, note any mention that names you without linking. Draft the one-sentence, low-friction reclamation request you would send.

  3. Prospect like a link builder. Choose one topic you cover well and run two of the resource-page search operators from Figure 24.2. Record five real resource pages, and for each write one sentence on whether your page genuinely belongs there.

  4. Open a relevant resource page and run a free broken-link checker on it. Did you find a dead outbound link? If so, describe the replacement you could offer and draft the helpful notification.

  5. † Mine a competitor. Using a free backlink tool tier, look at one competitor's referring domains. Sort them into "replicable and relevant" versus "ignore" (junk/one-time). How many replicable sources did you find, and what are the top three?

E. Rewrite / fix

  1. † Fix the plan. A junior marketer proposes this anchor plan for a new service page: "80% of new links should use the anchor 'AC repair Cedar Hills' to rank for it." Rewrite the plan into safe, defensible guidance, and explain the change.

  2. Rewrite this outreach line to lead with the other site's benefit: "Hi, I run an HVAC company and I'd like a link from your resources page to boost my SEO." Then explain what you changed and why.

F. Read the report / interpret

  1. Read the report. You are handed a prospect's profile: relevance high, DR 41, but the page ranks for nothing, gets ~zero organic traffic, and the site publishes any submission for \$60. Score it, decide, and justify the decision in two sentences.

  2. † Two anchor distributions cross your desk. Site X: Branded 44% / URL 20% / Natural 19% / Generic 9% / Partial 6% / Exact-match 2%. Site Y: Exact-match 38% / Partial 25% / Branded 15% / URL 10% / Natural 7% / Generic 5%. Which profile was earned and which was engineered? What is the single most telling number, and what — honestly — can you not conclude from these percentages?

G. Spot the myth

  1. Spot the myth. For each statement, say whether it is a myth or defensible, and correct the myths: (a) "Exact-match anchor text is the fastest way to rank for a keyword." (b) "A DA 70 link is always worth more than a DA 30 link." (c) "Comment links are a cheap way to build ranking signals." (d) "For a local business, community links are too small to bother with."

H. Ethics and risk judgment

  1. † Ethics judgment. A client who is short on cash asks you to set up "a few extra sites we control to link to our main site — just to get started faster." Walk them through your refusal: what the tactic is, why it violates Google's guidelines, how it gets caught, and what you would do with the same budget instead.

  2. You could "sponsor" a newly-invented local "award" whose only real output is a do-follow link to every business that pays the fee. A genuine youth-league sponsorship costs the same. Which do you choose, and what principle from §24.5 decides it?

I. Rivertown Strategy-File extension

  1. † Extend the Strategy File. Rivertown's Millhaven branch is the newest and has the fewest links. Using only the four white-hat pillars from Figure 24.5, draft a five-item, Millhaven-specific link plan. For each item, name the pillar, the anchor-text choice, and the one honest limitation. Do not address the inherited spammy links (that is Chapter 26) or NAP/citations (Chapter 25).