What is the SEO value of renewing old backlinks?

In the digital PR industry, our primary goal is to build as many high-quality backlinks as possible. The emphasis on high quality is crucial because in SEO link building is not just about the number of backlinks but their value, relevance and authority too. 

Essentially, having 100 high-quality relevant backlinks is far more impactful than having 1,000 low-quality, non-relevant ones.

The importance of focusing on referring domains.

It’s really important to look beyond mere numbers with backlinks and focus on referring domains. A referring domain is any domain that links back to your site. Whether you have one backlink or 100 from the same domain, it still counts as a single referring domain. Shift your goal to accumulate as many high-quality, relevant referring domains as possible, rather than just focusing on the number of backlinks.

For instance, if you have a home decor website, it’s natural you will aim to earn backlinks from high-authority sites like House Beautiful, Ideal Home, or Country Living. However, if these are the only sites linking back to you, it limits your backlink profile. Building up the number of referring domains your website has ensures a more robust and credible backlink profile.

This is why repeating backlinks from a referring domain isn’t a waste of time.

That being said, we SEO experts know and can see that building multiple links from the same website is still impactful—79% of websites are reported to in fact link to the same site 2-5 times. 

Therefore, it’s not advisable to remove a website from your media list when conducting outreach and distributing press releases as a digital PR. Keeping them on your list is valuable because accumulating more links from the same website offers numerous benefits. 

Building multiple links from the same website is beneficial because it can increase the authority of your pages, allow you to get links to more pages on your website, and of course, drive more referral traffic. Building multiple links on highly relevant domains does not just benefit organic metrics, but it can also have a positive impact on brand awareness and begins to build strong brand recognition with key target consumers, this is particularly key when publications enjoy a broad reach and have a high readership. 

That said, your priority should still be building new referring domains. Focus on reaching out to these new domains as a primary target with your press releases, making sure your targeted pitches and tactics are aimed at the websites you’re yet to receive a backlink from, while still keeping existing authoritative sites as a secondary target because we know they still provide value.

Why renewing backlinks is crucial.

In digital PR, a significant amount of effort is dedicated to securing high-quality backlinks from reputable sources, such as online magazines and newspapers. Over time, however, the articles containing these backlinks naturally get pushed deeper into the site’s archives as new content is published. As a result, these older backlinks may lose their visibility and, consequently, their SEO value.

Renewing backlinks every few years can be highly beneficial. Here’s why:

Ellie Morgan, Digital PR Manager at NOVOS says, “When new content is published on publications, older articles containing these backlinks may become buried deeper in the website’s archives, reducing their effectiveness. 

“Renewing these links every year or so can help maintain your site’s authority as it ensures search engines continue to see you as a credible authority in the eyes of those publications.

“For example, if your site was featured in a 2020 roundup of must-buy home products, but similar roundups have been published since then without including your site, it’s time to refresh your backlink. This could be the case for most published articles mentioning your website; they might have indicated you as an authority in the past, but it’s important they still do.”

Disclosure: You likely won’t need to renew a backlink sitting on the high-quality relevant referring website’s homepage or a page where it does not archive its content deeper.

How to start and implement a renewal strategy.

So now you know why you should renew your backlinks regularly. How do we do it? We encourage you to conduct a backlink audit to identify which links have become outdated or buried in archived content.

Make note of how you got into these publications and try to replicate it again for a quick win. If this doesn’t work, try analysing what they’ve recently been covering on their blog/articles so you can see the type of content you can contribute to and provide value.

To summarise, renewing old backlinks is a strategic approach to maintaining and enhancing your site’s SEO value. It ensures that your backlinks remain visible, relevant, and authoritative, thereby boosting your site’s overall performance in search engine rankings. If you’re keen to get the support of our Digital PR experts, check out our Digital PR service page for more.