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Why Links? |
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Google and the other search engines make it obvious they depend heavily on inbound links to rank a site. It's the only way they can establish popularity and some degree of quality through programming. They also do word matches to establish if links are "relevant". They are interested in the number, quality and anchor text factors of a link.
Google also seems to consider historical factors. Apparently site and link aging begins a count down the minute links are discovered. Google records the discovery of a link, link modifications over time, the speed at which a site gains links and the link life span. All of these are added to the weighting factors for site/web page ranking.
Fast link acquisition may be an indicator of potential search engine spam and cost a site points. Pages full of links are not necessarily an asset. You must grow your links slowly to stay below the trigger point and careful of who you exchange links with. Buying hundreds of links or other underhanded link tactics don't work anymore. |
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Hidden Links |
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Do not use scripting or fancy layering for your navigation links. The pop-down or jump-out navigation is a cute gimmick but may cost you customers and search engine indexing. It also side steps logical site structuring. Instead of the hidden jump-down-out branching, take them to another web page with the additional links and more text for indexing. People like things set up that way.
For SEO, the search engines won't spend time trying to figure out what links are hidden in the scripting. That means they may not index the other pages on your web site. If you have to move your mouse around a page to find the links, the search engines will not find them at all. |
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Valid Links |
There are two types of valid and easy to follow anchor links; text and images.
 A HREF="seo.bizycart.com" SEO Manual/A
A HREF="seo.bizycart.com"
IMG SRC="Logo.gif" BORDER=0 HEIGHT=82 WIDTH=212 Alt="SEO Manual"
/A
Both of the above examples pass the same information. Neither of them is preferred over the other by the search engines. However, they do have different advantages when viewed by site visitors.
Links created with scripting may not be visible to the search engines. |
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Vary The Links |
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It may help if your link text changes from site to site but remains consistent with your site's content. Too many identical inbound links might be considered "anchor spam". The search engines will not reveal the exact numbers they use. You have to figure out what you feel is a good balance. |
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Popularity (Links) |
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How the popularity of a web page gets calculated can be confusing. It is not just a matter of counting the number of links to the page found on other web pages. A search engine may store the popularity (Page Rank) for individual web pages or as a ranking number assigned to the whole web site.
Internal Links: These are text or image links found inside the same domain name. They are usually given the lowest ranking value. If there is only one link to the page, it is not very important.
External Links: There are a various ranking layers for external links depending on where the search engines find them.
- Home Page Links: Links to a web page found on another site's home page count the highest.
- Internal Page Links: Links to a web page found on other pages count less. Each layer, or additional links, to get to the link page subtracts some value. It's all about numerically assigning how important a link is.
- Reciprocal Page Links: If a web page has links back to external pages linking to it, that nudges the ranking up a little.
- Relevant Links: Some search engines like Google, check to see if the sites linking together have similar keywords. This is detrimental to good marketing and it's necessary to work around it. If the image ALT tag or accompanying text has matching words, it adds to the popularity count.
- Link History: The value of links to your web site increases each month. Brand new ones may count very little. The rapid addition of a large number of links is a "Link Farm" trigger.
- Excessive Links: If a web page has too many links, it starts fitting the definition of a "Link Farm" and counts against any web site that has links back to the farm site. The penalty for this can push a web page to the bottom of the lists.
No matter how the search engines store the popularity ranking for a web site, it is important to exchange links with as many high-quality sites as possible. |
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RSS Feed Links |
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The usual RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to add content to a web page do not add points for ranking your web pages or text the search engines can see. They are a one way link to the source of the feed and may improve their ranking. However, the dynamic feed may help keep visitors returning to your site.
If you have content you can feed to other web sites, their links to collect it will add some ranking points for your site. Like any other link, adding some readable text the search engines can use for relevancy will help on the points gained. |
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Move Carefully |
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No matter how they are implemented, link exchanges are important. However, you must arrange and utilize them ethically. If you get caught cheating, recovering from a ban can take months.
Don't get in a hurry seems to be the key along with staying clear of linking to affiliate sites and link farms. Fewer but better quality links will benefit you more and show better long-term benefits.
If you decide to hire help, select the person or company claiming to be an SEO expert carefully. A one shot fix-up or manufactured links will not work. |
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Avoiding Link Ranking Problems |
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Various search engines are trying to reduce "Link Farms" and buying links being able to increase a site's popularity. This can get in the way of normal franchise links and other appropriate links between sites. Until they get better at establishing what links are actually trying to trick the search engines, we have to live with it.
If you can't use the Robots meta tag with "NOFOLLOW" to restrict a whole page, you can add "rel=nofollow" to any links that might count against your site ranking by Google. The links should look something like:
A HREF="http://bizycart.com" rel="nofollow"Link Text/A
This is an invention of Google and will probably not be recognized by other search engines. The better HTML validators should also fuss about it.
If you have links on a web page to sites that might cause a penalty if detected as a bad neighborhood, link farm, or purchased links, use the above or the robots.txt file to avoid complications.
As a more important design issue, you use the rel="nofollow" in links to reduce Google trying to open "Log In" or shopping cart pages. Those pages should also have a Robots Meta tag with "NOINDEX" and be included in the robots.txt file.
Rather than clutter your pages with the invalid rel="nofollow" link attribute use the robots.txt file similar to the Dynamic Robot Control paragraph. |
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Finding Links |
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Where and how do you start finding sites to exchange links with?
If you have an exciting and attractive web site, many of them will happen without your doing anything. Google and the other search engines seem to want "relevant" links. What that actually means is they want to see matching keywords.
For marketing, links to associated sites will do the best for you. If you sell belts, you want links with sites that sell buckles or pants. Links to your site should include the word "belts" along with other text to match things up.
Put the search engines to work. Search for terms describing sites who's customers would also be interested in your product or service. The sites that come up on the first page obviously have very good ranking and will pass some of that on to your site. Take a look at the sites to see if they would work out. Try to contact them and see if they like the idea.
Set the exchanged links up with text or image ALT tags to get right keywords included so the search engines class the links as "relevant". You'll get the most value if the links are on your home pages.
Don't get carried away. Too many links can look like you are selling advertising space. The Links Page illustrates how I like to set links up. |
