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SEO - Search Engine Optimization Articles
The Importance of
Links in SEO
Although
Google
looks at
many
factors
when
ranking
web
pages,
the
single
most
important
factor
currently
seems to
be the
number
and type
of
in-bound
links to
that
page.
Please
note I
mention
“type”
here –
as we
shall
see, the
page
from
which
the link
comes
can make
a big
difference
in where
a web
page
appears
in the
search
engine
rankings.
Link
popularity
first
became
important
with the
rise of
Google
and its
PageRank
system
of
ranking
web
pages,
although
some
search
engines
had used
link
popularity
as a
factor
in their
rankings
before
this.
Put very
simply,
Google’s
PageRank,
and
other
similar
search
engine
algorithms,
assumes
that a
web page
that is
linked
from
another
web page
is more
relevant
than a
web page
with no
other
page
linked
to it,
and so
will
rank
that
first
web page
higher
than the
second
one. The
belief
was that
the more
pages
that
were
linked
to a
particular
page,
the more
relevance
that
page
had.
Google
took
this a
stage
further.
Instead
of just
looking
at a
single
set of
links in
isolation,
Google
would
also
look at
the web
page
from
which
the link
came,
and
calculate
how many
links
were
made to
that
page.
Then it
would
look at
those
web
pages
and
calculate…and
so on.
In this
way a
hierarchy
of web
pages
could be
constructed.
This
approach
worked
well for
a while,
but
began to
break
down.
The
problem
came
from web
sites
trying
to
manipulate
the
rankings
by
setting
up
so-called
link
farms.
These
were
sites
that
consisted
almost
solely
of links
to other
web
sites,
boosting
the
rankings
of those
sites
artificially.
To fix
this
problem,
Google
changed
their
algorithm,
so that
now it
will
only
look at
links
that it
considers
have
some
relevance
to the
web page
to which
that
link
points.
All
other
links
are
considered
to be
unimportant,
and do
not
count in
any
measure
towards
the
ranking
of a web
page. In
fact,
they may
even
count
against
you – if
your
site is
linked
from too
many
irrelevant
links,
especially
from
known
link
farms,
you may
find
your
site
will be
banned
from the
search
engine
results.
Let’s
look at
an
example
to see
how this
works.
Let’s
say that
you are
the
designer
of a web
site for
a store
selling
wine.
You want
the site
to
appear
highly
in
search
engine
rankings,
so you
look for
web
sites
that
will
link to
your
site. In
order to
be
considered
relevant,
then,
the sort
of web
site you
need
will
have
some
relationship
with the
subject
of wine.
It would
do you
no good
at all
to be
linked
from a
site
selling,
say,
designer
clothing,
as
Google
will
ignore
that
link
completely.
However,
links
from
other
sites
that
discuss
wine
will
help.
The more
relevant
the
link,
the
bigger
the
effect
on your
site
ranking.
So,
where do
we stand
today?
That’s a
fairly
simple
question
to
answer,
actually.
Links
are just
as
important
as they
were
when
Google
first
started,
however
nowadays
the
links
must be
relevant
to have
any
effect.
Get some
good,
relevant,
quality
links in
to your
web
site,
and
watch
your
rankings
improve.
How do
you get
those
links?
That’s
for
another
article. |
