In this article, you’ll learn all about tier 2 backlinks for SEO.
Not only will you understand the definition of tier 2 backlinks, but you’ll also get a set of second-tier backlink examples, an overview of why they’re important for SEO, and a list of tier 2 link building resources you can use to acquire more of these types of backlinks for your website.
The ultimate goal here is to help you understand what tier 2 backlinks are and how they fit into the overall strategy of a link pyramid system for off-page search engine optimization to help your website rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
What Are Tier 2 Backlinks?
Tier 2 backlinks are links that are built to one of the existing links to your website. Second-tier backlinks are used to increase the PageRank value of the first-tier backlinks so more link equity can be transferred to your website for SEO.
Tier 2 Backlink Examples
- Good quality web 2.0 backlinks
- Directory links
- Profile links
- Social bookmark links
- PBN backlinks
- Press release links
- Social media backlinks
Why Are Tier 2 Backlinks Important?
Tier 2 backlinks are important because they pass ranking authority to your website by boosting up existing links. Search engines crawl tier 2 backlinks to measure the importance and quality of first-tier links pointing to your site indexing and ranking purposes in the SERPs.
Overview of Tier 2 Link Building
In a tiered link building strategy, there are three tiers in the link pyramid:
- Tier 1 backlinks
- Tier 2 backlinks
- Tier 3 backlinks
Tier 2 backlinks are indirect links that transfer link equity to the main website for SEO purposes. Tier 3 backlinks point to the tier 2 links. And tier 2 backlinks point to the tier 1 links, which point to the main website. That’s why some people refer to this strategy as a link pyramid.
The main goal of tier 2 link building is to increase the page authority score for first-tier backlinks that point to your website’s homepage or individual URLs to help them rank higher in the SERPs.
Tier 2 backlinks are the second most important links in a tiered link building system because they indirectly point to your website. Second-tier links do not have a direct connection to the main website but rather point to the tier 1 backlink URLs to help increase their PageRank values for SEO.
As for the quality of tier 2 backlinks, you don’t have to be as strict as the first-tier links because they’re not directly sending link equity to your website. The goal with second-tier backlinks is to combine a mixture of quality and quantity. Anything that’s not pure spam is typically good enough for tier 2 link building.
When you’re building second-tier backlinks, you can lower the quality and relevance of those links to get more backlinks created in a shorter amount of time. It’s also good for tier 2 backlinks to be a combination of dofollow and nofollow links.
In a link pyramid that uses tiered backlinks, it’s better to focus on getting a higher quantity of decent quality tier 2 backlinks so you can build these types of links at a faster rate. However, you don’t want to lower your standards too far at the second-tier level to include spammy links. Again, quality does still matter to an extent here, so you want your tier 2 backlinks to be medium to high quality in the second stage of the link building pyramid.
Tier 2 Link Building Resources
If you want some ideas on how to build quality second-tier backlinks, then check out these resources:
Tier 2 Backlinks Summary
I hope you enjoyed this guide on tier 2 backlinks.
As you discovered, tier 2 link building is the second most important stage of a link pyramid because it contains links that indirectly point to your main website. These second-tier backlinks are used to boost up existing links to pass more link equity for SEO. Therefore, you should do everything you can to get a higher quantity of tier 2 backlinks to improve the PageRank scores for target URLs faster.
