Search Engine Journal's Loren Baker reminds us that if we're building links, the basic rules of SEO should not be overlooked or forgotten. Even if you have hundreds of thousands of links, SEO basics are critical to achieve better rankings. Some of these include adding keywords to your copy, avoiding duplicate pages, adding unnecessary code, integrating text in images (and not using alt text), and more.

Link building itself is fine. SEO is still important for search engines, and both should be practiced together.

Most Sphinn members are in agreement about the article, but one points out that some sites may rank very well even if they don't incorporate basic SEO. He believes that it's more important to focus on relevant anchor text instead of unoptimized anchor text.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

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