Why are links important? Do links matter? Is there even a need for links?

Have you ever thought about the importance of links? Inbound, Outbound, Reciprocal… How much weight should links have in the optimization of websites? And is there a need at all for links?

Why Linking?

Every search engine uses some kind of link analysis as a part of their ranking algorithm. This makes it extremely important to create a strong linking strategy and implement a very clearly defined inbound linking program to build your site’s relevancy in the eyes of the engines. Relevant inbound links increase your potential to be deemed highly relevant for a particular keyword phrase search and thus increase your positioning on SERPs. It is no longer enough to have a well architected, keyword-rich site. The linking aspect of a particular site is essential for the success of any website.

Google, specifically, includes several aspects of linking in its algorithm and is based on three components: quality of the link, quantity of inbound links and the linking text (anchor text). In fact this number of inbound links is a big factor in the Page Rank score provided from Google.

The major search engines evaluate the number, quality, and context of links directed to a particular web page to determine the overall link popularity of the page. Because sheer numbers of inbound links are not the sole determining factor for rank, the critical factor for increasing a site’s overall link popularity is to accumulate high quality, highly contextual links.

There are several ways to buy or establish linking; some are free and some are fee based:

• Paid Directories (Yahoo Directory, Best of Web, etc.)
• Free Directories (DMOZ, http://www.directoryarchives.com, etc.)
• News Feeds ( http://www.prweb.com, http://www.netpost.com, http://www.urlwire.com, http://www.prnewswire.com).
• Press release optimization.
• Ask suppliers or fellow associates in your industry to allow a link from their site.
• Produce and submit articles, white papers, resource guides, etc. to relevant sites.

One reason (inbound) links are of much greater value than reciprocal links is because search engines discount the weight given to reciprocal links. Reciprocal links are often used in an attempt to increase the number of inbound links to a site.  Search engines are well aware of this practice and determine this to be an artificial increase; therefore, the engines have added filters to help eliminate (or at least determine and devalue) reciprocal links in thdetermining the relevancy of a particular site/page.  One-way links continue to remain an important part of the overall evaluation of a page.

A key method to generate one-way links is to distribute an optimized press release on distribution services such as PRWeb and Businesswire. These services can quickly generate hundreds of PR backlinks and can provide several months of effectiveness.

Inclusion of topically relevant web pages in directories will also help create additional link popularity with one-way links. Both large directories (DMOZ & Google) and niche directories (Business.com) can, in some cases, create link popularity. However, be careful here as many directories actually send the link through a redirect first, which will not help link popularity at all.

Search engines, particularly Google, use the link text that points to a page as a way to understand the theme of a destination page. The more links that exist pointing to a particular page, with keywords relevant to that page, the greater the search engine consideration for that term. Internal text links on a site, such as anchor text, can be used to help the search engines better understand the content within that website.

Previously, the buying and selling of links, or Paid Link Campaigning, had been one of the fastest growing trends in search engine optimization because Google and Yahoo have determined rank or relevancy largely from link popularity and site reputation. As a result, buying links had been an easy way to manipulate search results. However, buying links is contrary to most search engines’ terms of service and this trend is being recognized and thwarted by the search engines. With most link purchasers buying their links from popular brokers such as text-link-ads.com, linkadage.com, and textlinkbrokers.com, search engines are beginning to use filters to ensure that the practice does not continue to skew results. The safest way to add additional link popularity is to work directly with topically related sites and ask to buy advertising. Link purchases need to be a sensible choice as advertising first and foremost, and for SEO benefits second.

Identifying key entry pages is also critical to success for a link strategy. Entry pages have specific focuses and will allow sites to map links to the most relevant content. Using a new automobile model release as an example, a press release may be issued about the new vehicle “RedRover 2000,” showing how it compares to previous models. The press release should contain links to the appropriate new vehicle entry page within the website so that when the press release is distributed across the web, the links are activated and the search engines begin to build link popularity in context to the topic on the press release and the appropriate content on the landing page.

Inbound links can point to any of the pages on your site. Many search engines take the wording and the exact address of the inbound links into account when determining the ranking of your website. If the link URL to your web page contains “Red Rover 2000,” your web page will be considered more relevant by the search engine for this search term. Ensuring the linking text is relevant is critical to success in any link campaign.

Keep in mind that many directories contain links to other network resources grouped by topics. The process of adding your site information is relatively simple. The directories can be paid or free of charge. Some require a backlink from your site. Typically, you do not want to use those directories. The benefit is two-fold in most cases. You may receive traffic, and your link popularity as determined by each search engine will likely increase. Search engines do count links from these directories and this may enhance your site’s search result placement. Important! Only those directories that publish a direct link to your site are worthwhile from a SEO standpoint. Scripts and redirects are relatively useless with regards to increasing link popularity. To elaborate on that point… There are two ways to publish a link. A direct link is published as standard HTML («A href=…»). Links can also appear on a page using various scripts, redirects and such. Search engines will only give credit (from a link popularity standpoint) to those links that are specified directly in HTML code as a direct link to www.yoursite.com. Hence, the SEO value of a directory that does not publish a direct link to your site is close to zero.

Overall, a solid link strategy should include links which connect users to topically relevant landing pages. A stronger focus on links to both large and niche directories will garner more link popularity, while the overall value of reciprocal links is decreasing. The weight of links in search optimization is a moving target. As filters become more sophisticated, marketers must make sure that not only their website content is relevant but also the links within their sites are relevant.

Since press releases are a very important component to any linking campaign, keep in mind that there are a great deal of resources and news feeds that publish press releases on various topics. Such sites can supply you with direct visitors and also increase your site’s popularity. Creating newsworthy information to post online provides value for site marketing and SEO efforts. Some examples: http://www.prweb.com, http://www.prleap.com, http://www.pr.com.

A final concept to be aware of during a link building campaign is to create variations in the inbound link text. If all inbound links to your site have exactly the same link text and there are many of them, the search engines may flag it as a spam attempt and penalize your site.