Getting backlinks to your site can be a time consuming task. You have to scour the web to find quality backlinks that contribute to your sites popularity, seo, pagerank and more.

The most popular ways to gain backlinks include writing, spinning and submitting articles to article directories, directory submission, blog commenting, social bookmarking and more.

On this lens you will find some sites that will add your link automatically. This includes such sites as whois lookup, DNS, site statistics, link analyzers, backlink tools, edu, gov, Twitter and more.

Penguin Update - Stop Building Backlinks?
The quick answer is NO, but keep on reading...
Google recently released a HUGE update to their search engine algorithm. In fact, they released a few updates in past months. First there was an update which required you to place ads above the fold on your website when viewed in your internet browser. Next came the Google Panda update which many people were not affected by. This update was released upon the internet and targeted low quality sites. Many webmasters lost rankings in blog networks, articles networks and link farms. This was mainly due to poor content and spun, un
readable content.

The latest update which caused a huge disruption to the webmaster world is codename Google Penguin released in April 2012. This update is targeted at unnatural backllinking methods, spammy content, unoriginal content or duplicate content and link schemes. Now, this does NOT mean you have to stop building them. However, you should be more careful in the ways you go about obtaining them.

The key is to STOP building spammy "anchor text" focused links. I DO NOT recommend automatic article spinning or automatic link wheel building. This MUST all be done manually or you may be faced with penalties. Play by the rules and you will reap the benefits. Plus, do NOT focus solely on building "anchor text" links. You must diversify by including your site name as the anchor.

Read More: Google Penguin on Wikipedia

Here are a few sites where you can get a quick backlink for your website. Some require that you simply enter your link, while others might require a little extra info. Some are statistics sites and some require you to have a Twitter account. My suggestion is to submit to 1 site per day. Zujava is similar to Squidoo and requires that you write some quality content in order to get a backlink, but it is free and it is a quality link.

Markosweb
This site is my favorite and out of all sites I recommend you submit your site here!

Simply add your site and get an automatic backlink to your site. The anchor text will be generated from the title used on your site. So make sure you have optimized your site first.

Penguin Update - Stop Building Backlinks?
The quick answer is NO, but keep on reading...
I suggest you register with this site. Why??? Because this site will allow you to add your own description...PLUS allow you to add 4 links to inner pages of your site. Wow! That is huge.
Surcentro
Here you can find stats information about site traffic of every single page on the web. Get a free backlink. No anchor text...simply get a free backlink for your url.
Cubestat
Free and perfect tool for website value calculation, estimations and information. Get a free backlink, but the anchor text will read "visit the website".
WooRank
Website analysis tool. Gives detailed information about on-site and off-site SEO. Gives a free backlink of your domain name "yourdomain.com".
Twitter Profile Link Building
Use your Twitter profile to gain backlinks from PR6 and PR5 websites.
*** NEW Zujava ***
Do you LOVE Squidoo? Then you MUST check out Zujava. Created by a Squidoo member, it is just like Squidoo. From the revenue sharing and tiers, to the automatic backlinks you can create!

Backlink Anchor Text
Backlink anchor text is an important part of your SEO campaign. When building backlinks to your site, try to make variations of your anchor text so that the links look more natural to Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Example...
Link: http://www.yoursite.com
Anchor Text: Your Site

It is good to use your link as the anchor in some of your backlinks. It looks natural to search engine bots.
Backlinks and Anchor Text Video

Edu Backlinks
To improve traffic and seo, focus on getting more .edu and .gov backlinks. It works because .edu and .gov sites have high natural backlinks which in turn gives them good pagerank. You can start searching for dofollow blogs from google by searching:

site:.edu inurl:blog "keyword"

Do not spam these valuable sites! That's just not cool! Every time someone leaves spammy comments the value of the page drops.
How to Gain Edu Backlinks Video

Backlink Analyzer

Backlink analyzer tools can help you gain more information about your backlinks.

1.) http://tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer/ - A free link popularity / link analysis tool. It shows what anchor text is linking into a page or site. You can grab backlink data from Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. It analyzes / grabs anchor text, IP addresses, Alexa data, page title, number of links on page, and number of outbound links on a page. It basically is a big spreadsheet which makes it quick and easy to view linkage data for a paticular site.

2.) http://ekstreme.com/backlink-analyzer - This back link analyzer looks at all backlinks (IBLs) to a website and sorts them according to top-level domains (TLDs). The main TLDs are .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, and .mil, and the backlink analyzer lists them all. The backlink analyzer also looks at links from blogs. Blog backlinks are important to gauge how much 'buzz' a website is creating.

Backlink Checker

A backlink checking tool will list every important link pointing to your site.

1.) http://www.backlinkwatch.com - simply enter a url and Backlink Watch will list up to 1000 urls pointing to your site.

2.) http://www.webtoolhub.com/tn561345-backlink-checker.aspx - this tool will show how many links you have on the major search engines and it will list backlinks.

3.) http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ - Yahoos site explorer will show inlinks pointing to your site.

4.) http://www.smartpagerank.com/ - this will show your pagerank, popularity, site value and backlinks to your site from google, yahoo, altavista and alltheweb.

Backlink Quality Checker

Have you already begun your building backlinks strategy? Want to know which backlinks you've gained are of the best quality? You should check out Backlink Watch for this task. Get detailed information about quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your website. It will show you "anchor" text, page rank, total outbound links on that page, and no follow flag for each of your inbound link available.

Backlink Watch - http://www.backlinkwatch.com

Linkwheel Automation Software

It's tempting, but it's not worth the penalty...

Web 2.0 Linkwheels are very powerful for building backlinks to your site at this current time. Who knows how long they will last, but for now they provide lots of link juice. Can you believe there is software that will automatically create link wheels? I believe you would be better off building a linkwheel manually, choosing sites that are of high quality. Not only would the seo benefits be better, but you can relax knowing your site will be safe from the sandbox. Who wants to be thrown in that dungeon? Not me!

Auto Backlink Generator

The best method for gaining backlinks is to build them manually so that they look natural to search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. These sites allow you to get some backlinks automatically, but you can choose how many per day you want to submit to. I DO NOT suggest building 500 links in a day. Try to build 5 - 20 links per day and be consistent. If you build 500 in one day you will surely be targeted as a spammer. You don't want that! So, here are some sites that help you build links fast by submitting to statistics sites that calculate information about other sites on the web. Again, use your better judgement and try to refrain from submitting to every website in a day. The goal here is to improve rankings and not destroy them.

1.) http://www.backlinkgenerator.net/ - 324 automatic backlinks for your sites

2.) http://marketingblogonline.com/autobacklinks/ - 104 automatic backlinks

3.) http://www.imtalk.org/cmps_index.php?pageid=IMT-Website-Submitter - if you are going to use this one, I would go with submitting to the "Top 50" only. That's just to play it safe.

Who Has the Most Backlinks?

It's a Poll.. if You Have a Sec, Please Vote...

We all know how much of a pain it can be trying to get quality backlinks. It's a lot of work...especially if you have no idea where to start or where to gain your next backlink! Each backlink you get is like a 1/2 point earned on the major search engines. I hope I helped you earn at least a couple of points on this page.

So where are you at on your backlinking journey? Are you just starting out? Have you become a backlinking master? Are you right in the middle trying to find that next great backlink? Let us know and tell us about it if you have a minute...