Building Links to your Site
Over the recent years there has been lots of discussion in the SEO community regarding building links to a web site. The debate is particularly heated at the moment, as Google rolls out its "Jagger" upgrade.
Let's start with what we mean by inbound links, also called backlinks. These are links from other sites to your URL, which direct the surfer directly to your site when the link is clicked. The basic premise is that if you have high ranking sites linking to you, then surely you must be yourself important and have valuable content, and hence you should rank highly. The way in which Google ranks sites is called Pagerank and can be seen as this green line on the Google Toolbar representing ranks 0 to 10. As Google states
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as his vote, by page A, for other page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the accolade. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
Powerful, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times your term appears on the page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to that page) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
So, back to the question "Does having inbound links to your site help your
site's credibility", and hence visibility when searched. The broad answer to this
question now is "yes", but with a number of very important caveats which we will cover in
the other sections
OK, so backlinks are basically good, especially from high ranking sites, so how
do we get some? The first way, and best way, is by having such
great content on
your site that all these high-powered sites want to link exclusively and naturally to you. Downside to this
method now is that it is slow and takes lots of time and effort on your part. But don't
worry, when anyone tries to build a level playing field there are always people
out there that will provide work-arounds.
The first one was reciprocal links, whereby you say that you will link to a site
if they also link to you. That's stretching the original idea, but it's not too
bad because how many of these sort of links are you going to set up? Well, actually,
some people have created thousands of such links between sites, maybe not what
Google initially intended!
But then, due to the emphasis Google placed on link popularity, the concept of
link farms was born. These are sites that link to other sites purely to increase
the links to the site. Pay a few dollars and get thousands of links to your site.
Could this be a gift horse - you bet. Google hates link farms and sees these links as
spam and will actively penalise sites that use such links.
So, the first rule of linking is do not use link farms. The second rule is do
not use lots of reciprocal links, Google can easily check this and the "Jagger"
update that is currently rolling out seems to be particularly focused on
penalising sites with lots of reciprocal links. The jury is still out on
whether "themed" links will be treated in the same way. "Themed" links are primarily links
to sites that are very closely aligned to the same primary topic as your own site.
If you think about this, it makes a lot of sense and is much more likely to
be based on real content-based linking.
We believe another area Google is focusing on is how quickly your site gains backlinks.
If your site is one month old, it is hardly believable for it to
gain 100 real backlinks in that time. So, the third rule of linking is to
ensure your links build in a realistic way. In all of these ways, Google is
trying to ensure fairness and that's why new sites are often held back in the
results pages.
Finally, we should mention the sites that will improve your ranking - the top
Directories. There are many of these directories, but the most important is DMOZ, also
known as the ODP. DMOZ is the Open Directory Project and is the largest,
most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and
maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. It gets the name
DMOZ from the acronym for Directory Mozilla, as it is administered by
Netscape Communication Corporation. It's Pagerank is 9 and hence links from
DMOZ will help your site. We recommend that everyone visits
http://dmoz.org
and attempts to get listed, it's free. The Yahoo
directory is also important and free for non-commercial sites, but $299 a year
for business.
So, in summary, by far the best way of getting links is by having a quality site
that other people want to link theie site to. So again, we are back to content. If you
provide quality information, over time, more and ever more sites will
link to you, and if they are in the same business sector as you, so
much the better.
And now our poem
Written by my partner, reflecting the Jagger update.
Just when you thought it was safe,
To step once more into the water,
Google throws in an undertow,
For doing things you didn’t oughta,
Just when the surfboard is glistening,
And you're ordering champagne,
Google has been quietly listening,
And feels you need more pain,
Those link farms you visited,
Weren't health farms after all
Reciprocal now is the term
For what bigman g's doing to all,
Your trillions of two way linkages
Now millstones to make one stagger,
Your new nightmare shrinkages,
Brought to you this day by Jagger,
A strident voice proclaiming links,
Are running quickly out of time,
Under the boardwalk of history,
Lying decimated all down the line,
This will not be the last time,
That your website is torn and frayed,
That Google will paint it black,
Or the devils sympathy card is played,
Just shine a light on your website,
Is it still under your thumb?
Or is it hijacked like flight 505,
By others who would become,
Your link promoting partners,
Who just ask your link return,
And now you owe the reaper,
And your harvest starts to burn,
Simmering in the torrid glare,
Of a Google bent on being cool,
Where everyone should fight fair,
Everyone obey the golden rule,
And slowly then inexorably we move,
Out of shadow and into light,
With every upgrade evening up,
The distance twixt wrong and right,
For every route 66 drives towards,
Eliminating devious spam-like crimes,
And ever inexorably inches forward,
Towards its own stated guidelines.
Can we assist your business? Just email us now with your site details and we'll have quick look and let you know what we can do for you.