Indago Digital has launched an independent review of the current scope of link building tactics used in the marketplace with a view to set the weak apart from the strong, and break down those difficult grey areas in between. This visual guide – framed as a periodic table – is a subtle nod to the templates presented on SEO success factors from Search Engine Land and Content Marketing from Econsultancy, as well as other lesser-known examples.

Guidelines on Google’s own Webmaster Blog remind us that basing a strategy around link building, although a pivotal asset as a ranking factor, is not to be executed without purpose, and that assembling a portfolio of links for the sake of it can in fact have a detrimental impact on the performance of the website they are pointing to.

A great deal has changed in how search engines value back-links, with the focus shifting from sheer quantity to relevance and trust of the site linking out. And throw the relevance of contextual content, user experience, mobile integration, localisation, and personalisation of search into the mix and it becomes obvious that marketers have other ranking factors to be mindful of. Some experts may argue that a website can rank without the presence of links, however, ranking difficulty will vary from one industry to the next, hence the theory put forward.

It’s fair to claim that the best link strategy should only target sites where you would naturally expect a link to appear, which is why brands are activating content as the vehicle to naturally contextualise the process. Out with the spam and in with the relationship building, where a link is purely a by-product of a great opportunity explored. Where link begging is perceived as old hat, link earning has taken power.

There is no set playbook to educate brands on how to transcend from the former to the latter and this leap in application is what led us to introducing a classification system for the range of tactics.