The whole link building topic is highly debated and often very controversial ...

The line between white, black and grey is very, very thin ...

And if you cross that line, you could end up with a search engine penalty ...

Let's debunk the most dangerous link building myths together to avoid such catastrophes ...

1. Links that are not relevant to your niche won’t help your site rank

False.

The non-relevant links are not necessarily low-quality links!

Yes of course, in order to rank higher, we need relevant links.

However, you can receive a non-relevant backlink from a high authority site and won't hurt you at all!

On contrary!

And here's just one example ... When it comes to a local business, links to your site may be coming from local directories, local media, etc.

2. Image links are bad for SEO

No they aren't.

Despite the quick evolution of AI it's still advisable not to leave image alt text blank. Also, when you link an image, never forget about a relevant caption and alt text.

The point: useful images that are used in a correct manner are a great link building prospect.

But of course, if image alt tags are stuffed with keywords to manipulate rankings, it’s indeed against Google's guidelines.