4 Important Backlink Rules to Remember
- 100% of backlinks can't be to one domain. You must show a diversity of sources. For every 1 link to your brand blog, you should have at least 2-3 links to other reputable sites.
- For Brands: You can only add 1 link to your brand's website per 500 words. (IF your article is 2000 words, you can add 4 links to your brand blog)
- You must include links to other HackerNoon articles and reputable sources within your article so that the article is unbiased and doesn't look like an ad.
- Changing or adding promotional backlinks after publication is grounds for a permanent ban and the removal of all your articles. If you're unsure if a link change is ok, send your editor a note in the story settings.
For Individuals growing their personal blogs: You can only add 1 link to your personal blog, or affiliate partnership landing pages, per 500 words. (IF your article is 2000 words, you can add 4 promotional links to your brand blog or landing pages you have affiliate partnerships with).
Do’s
Do link various concepts in your story to relevant HackerNoon articles.
Internal linking helps with on-page SEO for both your article and the articles you link to. You are encouraged to link to your own past HackerNoon articles that are relevant to your current piece.
Do link the legitimate sources you got quotes from.
Another important point is linking to legitimate sources. This is both for user experience and for SEO. Showing search engines that you're linking to reputable, well-known websites can help your rankings and bring more views to your piece. On the other hand, linking to spammy unknown promotional websites will hurt your piece and we will remove such links.
Do link the research studies, and papers that you are getting your analysis from.
Research papers and studies from reputable companies are great places to link to!
If you have AFFILIATE LINKS in your post, do add a discliamer under your intro. Here is a sample:
Note: The links in this article include affiliate links to Amazon. You won’t be charged anything extra for clicking on these links, but you will be supporting me if you do choose to purchase something through one of these links. Thanks!
Do credit the person who took the Unsplash photo (or any image you use).
Even if it isn't required by some platforms (such as Unsplash), it's nice to give credit to the person whose image you're using for free.
The Do’s of Canonical Linking (’first seen at’ section)
At HackerNoon, we allow users to add canonical links to help strengthen the domain of their personal blogs ex: dansmith.com, mytechthoughts.com . We 100% support helping the little blogs grow!
However, we do not allow canonical linking to social media platforms, forums, or blogging platforms (dev.to, medium, Dzone, medium, tumblr, medium, etc.)
For Brands:
You can’t set a canonical link to a domain owned and operated by a brand from your personal account. If your company wants a canonical link, you must make a brand account for the company that owns the domain.
In some rare cases, we will let company executives and submit publish content from their company’s blog (if they’ve authored them) without a canonical link to it. The source of the story will be added to the bottom of the article.
Heavily limit the number of Medium links you use.
Don'ts
Don’t sell promotional backlinks, we will find you, and we will ban you.
Don’t link random, out of place words, to a site you’re trying to promote. We will find you and we will ban you.
Don’t submit poor-quality content just so you can advertise a business link. We have human editors, who will catch you and ban you.
Don’t include links to Amazon.
HackerNoon is running multiple projects to try to get more revenue and create a better user experience for everyone. One of those projects is an Amazon affiliate program. Unfortunately, Amazon discourages websites from running affiliate links from multiple accounts. Our ecommerce advisors have told us that doing so could lead to the banning of our affiliate account.
While Amazon isn't one of them, we are currently working on a list of approved affiliate programs that you can use to start monetizing your HackerNoon content.
Don’t link and submit spam.
No one cares about the furniture you want to sell or the riversweeps casino slot machine games.
Don’t link to sketchy sites.
Make the internet a better place; let's clean it up together.
Don’t add spammy location-based anchor text
HackerNoon is an international audience and we don’t cater to any one state, province or city. That means we don’t allow hyperlinks to text like “Best SEO Company in Denver”, “Essay
Don’t submit a brand story without making a brand account.
Brands are encouraged to publish on HackerNoon. In fact, we promote our brands: hackernoon.com/tagged/good-company
There is no need to rely on sketchy journalists or the scam listing about getting paid HackerNoon links. You can promote yourself on HackerNoon for free (the first credit is free for all new brand accounts). Learn more here: [Link]
On Affiliate Links
Other than Amazon, we do allow affiliate links in your stories to help you monetize your content and earn income from the stories you write on HackerNoon!
Rules:
- You are allowed 1 affiliate link per 500 words (don’t spam your readers)
- Products you add affiliate links to must match the HN readership: tech, blockchain, startups, business, software development, cybersecurity, etc. Check this page out for what we publish about
- You must copy-paste this disclaimer below the intro of your story (within the first 200 words of your story)
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