A website owner asked in a webmaster hangout if the total number of linking domains was more important than the total number of links. John Mueller answered that Google took a different approach:

If you want to get good links, you must target the right websites. Only links from the right websites will have a positive impact on your rankings on Google and other search engines. A link from another website should be useful to website visitors. For that reason, it is important that the links to your website come from websites that are related to your site.

SEOprofiler offers many powerful tools that help you to find related websites that are willing to link to other sites. In addition to the Link Profiler tool, you can use the Link Influencer tool in SEOprofiler to find websites that are both related to your website, and willing to link:

If a website links to a competing website, you have to convince the other website that they should link to your site instead. There are two ways to do that.

If your website offers better content than the website that is currently linked by the other site then you might be able to convince the owner of the other website that it's better to link to your site.

Unfortunately, many websites won't link to your site if they think that they are already linking to a very similar site. For that reason, creating complementary content usually leads to better results.

Instead of trying to create content that is better than the content of your competitors, it is often easier to create complementary content. Create something that can serve as an important supplement to the pages that link to your competitors.

Pages with complementary content often get more links than pages that contain the same content as an existing page, even if the content is better.

For example, a well-known high-authority website might have an average article about a particular topic. That article will get many links just because the website is well-known. If you have a better article about the same topic, chances are that the other websites still won't link to your site just because your site isn't as well-known and authoritative.

If you offer these websites something additional that complements the average article on the well-known site, then it is much more likely that these websites will add a link to your site.

Improve your links now

Stay safe during these difficult times!

"Relative URLs are technically OK for rel-canonical link elements. However, practically speaking, if you want an exact URL to be seen as rel-canonical, I'd try to specify that so that it's independent of the current URL. Make your canonical preference as clear as possible."

Editor's note: Check the canonical attributes on your web pages with the website audit tool.

"Google's John Mueller said on Reddit "no" WhoisGuard, the NameCheap domain privacy setting, does not impact your SEO or rankings on Google. Google does not care if you use domain privacy settings or not when you register your domain name."

"It works on Google, but i see other search engines are having a tougher time picking them up. [...] If i have had a choice, i wouldn't have used js redirects, ever. alas. i haven't."

Editor's note: Check the redirects on your website with the website audit tool in SEOprofiler.

"The metrics defining the boundaries for LCP, FID, CLS, which used to be < (less than), are now defined as <= (less than or equal to). Therefore you might see a change in statuses (for the better) in this report."