Niche link building has become a popular way to increase domain authority and has been divided into several types. So, how many types of niche edits are there? The main topic of this article is to explain how many types of niche edits there are to help improve your website rankings in the SERPs.
As a type of link-building strategy, quality niche edits work to provide fast results as they are quick to implement and remove the need to create fresh content. However, they can also be harmful if used poorly.
Let’s analyze the different niche edit link types and help you understand how they work.
How Many Types of Niche Edits Are There?
There are three different types of niche edits:
- White Hat
- Gray Hat
- Black Hat.
The term “Hat” is used to signify the approach taken to acquire niche edit backlinks. White hat niche edits are obtained through a “gentleman’s approach,” while black hat niche edits are acquired in an impolite way.
Each niche edit type is viewed differently by search engines.
Google, for example, has set specific restrictions concerning spam-oriented link building and often penalizes websites that use such strategies.
Therefore, for you to understand each niche edit link-building type, how it works, and whether it’s beneficial or not, we will cover and explain them in separate sections of this article.
If you’re hesitant to buy niche edits and guest posts to enhance your website’s rankings, our SEO packages provide a secure and efficient alternative to assist you in reaching your objectives.
White Hat Niche Edits
Niche edits that are considered “legal” in the eyes of search engines like Google are also called white hat. The process of acquiring white hat niche edits does not go against Google’s spam-oriented link-building policies.
Nevertheless, the term white hat doesn’t just apply to niche edits. It applies to all SEO-agreeable practices and should be a mandatory part of any off-page SEO strategy.
How are white hat niche edits acquired?
The white hat niche edits approach is the most organic of all three.
When we say organic, we mean it’s a manual approach to contacting site owners and asking them for a link back to your site.
This is done by researching and sending emails or other outreach contact methods to high-domain authority website owners.
Each message must be unique and personalized, so the white hat approach also requires a lot of “legwork”.
It’s time-consuming to find good websites within your niche and then write personalized emails to website owners, so SEOs often use gray hat methods, which we will discuss later.
However, another upside of securing a niche edit backlink is that the white hat approach can also build strong relationships with website owners. People love to be reached out directly as it gives them and their content a sense of importance.
Focusing on quality niche edit links is a link-building strategy that will provide the greatest results in the long run, as backlinks are one of the top three ranking factors used by Google.
Gray Hat Niche Edits
When talking about how many types of niche edits are there to help quickly improve your SEO rankings, gray hat niche edits immediately come to mind.
These practices are a combination of methods and strategies that go along Google’s guidelines and those that potentially violate them.
The key with gray hat niche edits is to use those techniques of acquiring them that don’t cross over to the forbidden side(against Google’s policies) but come close to it.
Gray hat strategies for niche edits and their downsides
Acquiring gray hat niche edits may not lead to being penalized by Google, but the risk is always there when implementing them.
In this section, we will go through three gray hat niche edit strategies and state why they should be used carefully.
Buying niche edit backlinks
The fastest and easiest way to build a robust off-page linking network is to buy niche edits.
Buying niche edit backlinks is considered both a gray and black hat practice.
If we follow Google’s guidelines to the letter, then buying niche edits is considered malpractice, but this can work differently in practice. That’s because Google has allowed the purchase of backlinks as long as they are marked as:
- nofollow
- sponsored
- UGC (user-generated content).
Here’s an example of a nofollow link attribute:
<a href=”https://www.example.com/” rel=”nofollow”> Link text</a>
Another downside of buying niche edits is that they can be quite expensive, with an average cost between $300-500 per link. So, you need to have the financial resources to successfully implement this strategy.
Creating low-value content
Creating quality content is one of the foundations of marketing and a sure way to attract traffic to your site and acquire niche edit backlinks.
If for high-quality content to make your niche edits stand out? Our SEO agency offers expert content writing services that can help attract the right audience to your website.
But the gray hat niche edits strategy that approaches content creation often focuses only on keywords. So, instead of providing visitors with unique and valuable information, this technique uses keyword stuffing to focus on driving short-term traffic and link juice.
Acquiring this type of niche edit, which leads to a page with poor content quality, will eventually result in a high bounce rate. This will trigger Google and other search engines to investigate the problem.
To avoid this, you must create in-depth content covering your target topic. Avoid keyword stuffing and focus on satisfying the search intent with your content.
Using private blog networks (PBNs)
Private blog networks, or PBNs, are sites that pass link juice to websites outside their network.
Even though this sounds like link scheming and black hat practice, it is still considered a gray hat strategy for acquiring niche edits.
But why is this gray hat strategy risky to use?
For example, a PBN network can have multiple high-authority but inactive websites. These websites may have been relevant in the past, but their role now is to serve link juice to main websites.
Combining the link juice from PBNs in moderation with other relevant websites is considered a safe approach.
On the other hand, relying solely on PBN networks to drive link juice through niche edits may trigger a search engine penalty.
You Might Be Interested: Guest Posts vs Niche Edits
Black Hat Niche Edits
Niche edits acquired using illegal SEO practices are considered black hat backlinks.
Using the black hat strategy to acquire niche edit backlinks violates the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
But if black hat link-building is bad, why do people continue to use it?
There are several reasons people still use black hat niche edits, which include:
- The fact that they are effective in the short term.
- They offer spam link builders an easy way to build links.
- They are not aware that the link is black hat.
The first two reasons are used deliberately by people to make financial profits in short amounts of time. They can use these backlinks on their own sites or sell them to third-party websites. Either way, it is a strategy that will eventually lead to serious search engine penalties.
The third reason is when people acquire niche edits but are unaware they are obtained through black hat practices.
This can result from buying niche edits from unreliable link-selling sites, so a gray hat can easily turn into a black hat strategy.
It is often a good practice to audit and check your website’s backlinks using Semrush or Ahrefs to see how many are toxic or spammy.
An example
Here’s an example of a website with many toxic backlinks from black-hat SEO strategies:
You can also easily spot black hat niche edits if you notice signs like:
- Low link costs
- Links that are guaranteed
- Quick results and turnaround time.
Conclusion
How many types of niche edits are there? As you can see, all three types of niche edits offer different ways to acquire backlinks.
However, if you wish to build a website with authority in the long run, you must avoid any black-hat SEO strategies coming your way. The dangers they bring far outweigh their potential benefits.
Instead, focus on white hat niche edit techniques and gray ones that are comfortably safe.
Now that you know how many types of niche edits there are to help you improve your SEO rankings, what is your opinion on each of them? Can they be used in combination, and why? Can you provide examples?
Let us know in the comments below.