Parasite Link Building: are they Good for SEO?15 min read

Parasite link-building, when used ethically and in conjunction with other SEO methods, can yield outstanding results for your online presence and SERP performance.

In the articles, we explain

• how parasite link-building works
• its benefits
• how to develop, implement, and monitor your parasite SEO strategy.

Let’s get to it!

TL;DR

• Parasite link building is an SEO strategy where you place content on websites with higher domain authority like YouTube, Medium, and Quora to leverage their domain strength for higher search rankings.
• Parasite SEO strategies can quickly boost domain authority, increase referral traffic, and yield faster results than traditional SEO.
• To start with, use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to identify high-authority websites for hosting your content, focusing on site authority, backlink quality, and relevance to your niche.
• Next, produce valuable content that aligns with user intent to attract both search engines and users, leading to increased visibility and traffic. Conduct keyword research and optimize your content for SEO using tools like SurferSEO and Yoast, ensuring high quality and readability.
• Share and promote your content on social media and forums, engage in guest posting and use outreach to amplify your content and build links.
• To track the performance of your content, use Google Analytics and Search Console and adjust strategies as needed.
• Parasite SEO is controversial because people often question its ethical integrity. That’s why, always ensure content quality and transparency, avoid manipulative practices, and consider the potential impact on host sites to stay within ethical boundaries.
• In addition to parasite link building, employ a mix of content marketing, guest blogging, influencer outreach, and other SEO tactics for a comprehensive approach.
• For those interested in a tool to automate link monitoring and manage link-building partnerships, check out BacklinkManager.

 

Understanding Parasite Link Building

Parasite link-building is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that involves placing your content on high-ranking websites with the aim of piggybacking on their authority to gain higher search rankings.

The term “parasite” comes from the idea that you’re essentially leeching off the host site’s authority.

This technique offers multiple advantages, such as enhancing domain authority, generating more referral traffic, and achieving quicker results compared to traditional SEO methods.

But how exactly does this work?

You find a website with high domain authority.

Then, you write and publish an article targeting a specific keyword you want to rank for on Google.

Due to the domain’s authority, such sponsored posts often land in Google’s top 10, allowing your sponsored article to start receiving search traffic. Within this sponsored article, you include links to your product or service, thereby generating referral traffic.

It’s important to note that additional link-building efforts might be needed for the sponsored article, especially if the competition is high.

For instance, take the case of Dmytro Sokhach.

They published a sponsored article “Link-building companies” on Search Engine Land. The article is currently ranking in the top 5 on Google for keywords like “link-building companies” and “link-building agency.”

It’s important to highlight that his link-building teams at shared.domains and editorial.link have built external links to this article. The authority of the domain alone was not enough due to high competition.

Benefits of Parasite Link Building

What can you gain from parasite link building?

Let’s have a look at a few key benefits!

Boosting Domain Authority

By leveraging high domain authority websites, parasite link building can significantly enhance your link profile and bolster your domain authority, resulting in higher rankings for your target keywords.

So, instead of spending countless hours trying to build your website’s domain authority from scratch, you capitalize on the high domain authority of established websites.

Increased Referral Traffic

Parasite link building can help you channel targeted traffic from authoritative websites to your site.

This is simple:

Users can find your content on the website more easily because of their higher authority. If they find it engaging and valuable, to navigate to your website for more such content.

Faster Results

One of the primary benefits of parasite link building is its ability to deliver faster results compared to conventional SEO methods on new or low-authority websites.

In fact, some case studies have shown that parasite link-building can produce noticeable results in as little as 3 to 12 months.

Identifying High Authority Websites for Parasite Link Building

When developing your parasite SEO strategy, the first step always involves identifying appropriate high-authority websites to host your parasite content.

How do you locate these websites, and what factors should guide your selection of a host site?

Start with a Google search to research the topic you wish to rank for and analyze the top-ranking pages.

Focus on websites that allow external contributors and investigate what type of content they rank for. If it’s relevant to your niche, make a pitch to see if you can contribute.

Research Tools and Techniques

For more in-depth insights, use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush. This will enable you to assess them in terms of

• the overall site authority
• the number and quality of backlinks
• linking root domains

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that can be used to find high-authority websites for parasite link-building by analyzing backlink profiles, website authority, and content quality.

You can use Ahrefs for this purpose in different ways:

• Site Explorer – use the tool to research your competitor’s backlinks. Simply enter a competitor’s domain and look at their backlink profile to see which high-authority sites are linking to them. Filter the backlinks to show only those from high Domain Rating (DR) websites. DR is a metric used by Ahrefs to gauge the strength of a website’s backlink profile.
• Backlink Profile Analysis – great for analyzing the backlink profiles of the high-authority sites you’ve identified to ensure they have a healthy link profile. A site with a high DR but a spammy link profile might not be a good candidate.
• Link Intersect Tool – use it to find sites that link to multiple competitors but not to you. These sites are likely to be high-authority and relevant to your niche.

Semrush

Semrush is another powerful SEO tool that can be used to identify high-authority websites for parasite link-building. It provides a suite of features that can help you analyze market trends, backlink opportunities, and keyword strategies.

Here’s how you can leverage Semrush for parasite link-building:

• Domain Analytics – use the feature to investigate the backlink profiles of your competitors. Enter a competitor’s domain to see which high-authority sites are linking to them.Apply filters to narrow down the backlinks to those that come from sites with a high Authority Score, Semrush’s metric for determining the overall quality and SEO performance of a domain.
• Backlink Analytics – with this functionality, you can dive deep into the backlink profiles of potential high-authority host sites to ensure they have a robust and clean link profile.Analyze the types of backlinks (text, image, form, etc.), their attributes (follow, nofollow), and the overall health of the backlink profile to avoid sites with spammy or toxic links.
• Backlink Gap Tool – the tool allows you to compare your backlink profile with those of your competitors. Identify websites that are linking to your competitors but not to you.These sites are potential targets for your parasite link-building efforts, especially if they have a high Authority Score and are relevant to your niche.

Assessing Website Relevance

Choosing a website for parasite link building necessitates that it aligns with your target audience and niche.

A relevant website not only guarantees that your content will be of superior quality and offer value to the readers but also ensures that the backlinks you acquire will be of the highest quality and relevance.

This, in turn, will improve your website’s visibility in search engine results and boost your domain authority, allowing you to rank higher for your target keywords.

Creating Effective Parasite Content

Having identified high-authority websites for your parasite SEO work, it’s time to create effective parasite content.

The challenge lies in creating top-notch content that will strike a chord with your target audience and the host website.

Keyword Research

Identify relevant medium and long-tail keywords with low competition to target in your content. By targeting these keywords, you can optimize your content to rank higher on search engine results pages and drive targeted search engine traffic to your website.

How do you do it?

Again, use tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to conduct keyword research and uncover the most suitable keywords for your parasite content.

Ahrefs

• Content Explorer – use it to find popular content within your niche that’s hosted on high-authority sites. Search for a topic related to your niche and then filter the results by Domain Rating to find high-authority sites.
• Keyword Explorer – useful for finding keywords that are relevant to your niche and have a high search volume but low competition.

Semrush

• Keyword Analytics – use it to discover valuable keywords within your niche. Look for keywords with high search volume and low competition that are relevant to your content.
• Keyword Magic Tool – use this feature to uncover a wide array of keywords tailored to your niche. Aim for those with substantial search volume yet manageable competition.

  

Content Optimization

Optimize your content for search engines without over-optimizing or keyword stuffing.

Focus on creating high-quality content that is engaging and readable for readers while incorporating relevant keywords naturally and avoiding excessive repetition.

Additionally, ensure that your content is optimized for on-page SEO techniques, such as meta tags, header tags, and keyword-rich URLs.

To aid the optimization process, use tools like SurferSEO and Yoast.

 

SurferSEO

SurferSEO is a tool designed to help optimize web content for better search engine rankings by analyzing various on-page factors.

Here’s a brief explanation of how you can use SurferSEO to optimize your content:

• Content Editor – inputting your target keyword into SurferSEO’s Content Editor will generate a content score and provide real-time suggestions to optimize your content for that keyword based on what’s working well for the top-ranking pages.
• SERP Analyzer – use it to understand the top pages for your target keyword. SurferSEO will analyze factors like text length, keyword density, and the structure of the content, giving you insights into how to structure your own content.
• Content Planner – for a broader content strategy, use the Content Planner feature to get ideas for content clusters based on your main keyword. This helps in creating a comprehensive content strategy that covers all relevant topics.

Yoast WordPress Plugin

The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress is a widely used tool for optimizing on-site content for search engines.

Here’s how you can use Yoast to enhance your SEO efforts:

• Focus Keyword -for each post or page, set a focus keyword or keyphrase. Yoast uses this to analyze your content and provide suggestions for improving optimization for that specific term.
• SEO Analysis – Yoast conducts an SEO analysis based on your focus keyword. It checks for keyword density, distribution, meta description integration, and the presence of the keyword in the title, slug, and subheadings.
• Readability Analysis – the plugin evaluates the readability of your content, offering feedback on sentence length, paragraph length, use of passive voice, and transition words. This helps to make your content more user-friendly.

Quality and Value

Create original, well-researched, and valuable content that appeals to readers and host web pages. Conduct comprehensive research on the topic and ensure that your content is accurate, current, and offers value to the readers.

Promoting and Building Links with Parasite Content

With your high-quality parasite content ready, the next phase involves its promotion and link-building.

What are the effective ways to promote your content, and which strategies can be employed to build backlinks?

Here are a few options.

Social Media and Forum Promotion

Share your parasite content on social media platforms like:

• Medium
• Quora
• Reddit
• LinkedIn
• Niche forums

By sharing your content on these platforms, you can tap into their existing user base and drive targeted traffic to your own website.

Outreach and Guest Posting

Reach out to influencers and website owners for content amplification andguest posting opportunities.

By forming relationships with these influencers and publications, you can leverage their authority and audience to gain visibility and backlinks for your parasite content.

Guest posting is a particularly effective method, as you can create high-quality content for other websites in your niche, providing value to their readers while simultaneously building backlinks to your own website.

Monitoring and Tracking Progress

It’s essential to monitor and track the progress of your parasite link-building efforts to ensure their success and minimize potential risks.

Google tools

Use tools like Google Analytics and Search Console t o track the performance of your parasite content, examining key metrics such as traffic, engagement, and conversions.

By establishing goals and tracking events, you can:

• Measure the efficacy of your parasite content in driving website visits, user engagement, and conversions
• Identify the sources of traffic to your parasite content
• Analyze user behavior on those pages

This will help you track the success of your content and make informed decisions for improvement.

BacklinkManager

BacklinkManager is a dedicated link-building tool designed to help SEOs monitor acquired links.

How does it work?

Thanks to 24/7 link monitoring with a two-factor link tracker and alerts, you get instantly notified about status changes of your links. So if your link disappears or changes status from dofollow to nofollow, you’ll know straight away.

It gets even better!

With BacklinkaManager, you can easily manage link exchanges and relationships with your linkbuilding partners. The link-matching tool that’s coming soon will make it even easier to identify new link-building opportunities.

Want to know the best part?

The tool is free to use, so you can start tracking up to 250 backlinks without spending a cent. No credit card details are needed, just sign up!

 

Ethical Considerations and Risks of Parasite Link-Building

Parasite link-building, while a recognized SEO tactic, sits in a gray area ethically and can sometimes cross into black-hat SEO territory, which is against search engine guidelines. Here are some ethical considerations to keep in mind:

• Quality of content – ethical SEO practices involve creating high-quality, valuable content for users. Parasite link-building can be seen as unethical if it involves spammy or low-quality content that doesn’t provide value to the reader.
• Manipulation of search rankings – search engines aim to provide users with the best and most relevant content. Using high-authority sites to manipulate search rankings can be considered unethical as it may not serve the user’s best interests and violate search engine guidelines.
• Misuse of platforms – many platforms that could be used for parasite link-building have their own terms of service that prohibit manipulative practices. Using these platforms in a way that they were not intended could be considered unethical.
• Potential harm to host sites – if a high-authority site is penalized because of outbound links to low-quality sites, the parasite link-building practice has directly harmed another entity, which is an ethical concern.
• Transparency – ethical marketing practices are transparent and honest. Parasite link-building can be deceptive if it misleads users about the nature of the content or the relationship between the host site and the linked site.
• Long-term strategy – ethical SEO is sustainable and focuses on long-term results. Parasite link-building is often short-term and may not provide lasting benefits, which can be misleading to clients or stakeholders if presented as a long-term strategy.
• Risk of Penalties – engaging in practices that can lead to penalties not only affects the website involved but can also damage the reputation and trust of any associated brands or individuals.

Alternatives to Parasite Link Building

While parasite link building can prove a powerful strategy, it’s vital to explore additional SEO strategies alongside or as alternatives to this technique.

These include:

• Content marketing – create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. High-quality content can naturally earn backlinks and social shares.
• Guest blogging – write articles for reputable websites in your industry. This can help you gain exposure, build authority, and earn quality backlinks.
• Influencer outreach – collaborate with influencers in your niche to promote your content. Their endorsement can lead to natural backlinks and access to a broader audience.
• Creating shareable infographics – design and publish infographics that present data or information in a visually appealing way. These often get shared and can generate backlinks.
• Social media engagement – actively engage with your audience on social media platforms. Share your content and participate in conversations to increase visibility.
• HARO (Help A Reporter Out) – use services like HARO to respond to journalist queries. Providing expert insights can lead to high-quality backlinks from news sites and publications.
• Local SEO – optimize your website for local search queries, get listed in local directories, and engage with local community events for backlinks.
• Testimonials and reviews – write testimonials for products or services you use. Businesses often publish these testimonials with a link back to your site.
• Webinars and online workshops – host webinars or online workshops. Promotional efforts and follow-up content can result in backlinks from attendees and partners.
• Press releases – for newsworthy events, write and distribute press releases. If picked up by media outlets, this can lead to high-quality backlinks.
• Podcast appearances – appear as a guest on podcasts where you can share your expertise. Podcast hosts often provide backlinks to their guests’ websites.

  

Conclusion

Parasite link building is an innovative and effective approach to boosting your website’s search engine rankings and driving targeted traffic.

However, it’s crucial to balance this technique with ethical SEO practices and monitor progress to ensure long-term success.

If you want to see how you can use BacklinkManager to keep track of your hard-earned backlinks, book the demo!