What are Backlinks?
Backlinks are links on other websites pointing at your website.
How to Find Good Backlinks
Website ranking involves more than just putting your website online. The old addage, "Build it and they will come" is no longer true. You need to not only have quality content on your website but also focus on getting good backlinks but also relevant backlinks. The kind of links you gather and where the link is placed on the other site will also determine the amount of traffic you get and your ranking in the search engines.
Google and Yahoo rank websites according to how many quality backlinks they find pointing at your website. A large number of links does not guarantee success. You need quality backlinks in order to rise to the first page of results and the more you can find the better.
Google has started devaluing traded links and has started
penalizing directories that use dishonest means to raise their own PR so they can sell links. Google has penalized those directories by dropping their PR (Page Rank) and Keyword Rank so far that they don't even rank for their own business name. This affects the rank of sites that bought links from those directories because their link count drops.
If you have been buying links from directories and your PR or keyword rank is dropping it may be because of Google penalizing those directories. This causes those sites to put rel="nofollow" on the links to protect themselves, thus you are no longer credited for those links you bought which reduces your PR and thus your Keyword Rank.
Google also penalizes sites for getting involved in
Triangular Linking Schemes, i.e., "I'll link to your site from my site if you link to my other site" (they do this so it doesn't look like a link trade but Google knows how to spot these also).
Therefore the best way to encourage people to link to your content is to provide information that is useful to your visitors. I provide a lot of graphic tutorials, articles on hosting and design scams, HTML tips and other information that brings most of the traffic to this website.
What are Quality Backlinks?
- Few links on a page
- A link within the body content
- Link from a relevant site
- Adequate PR (Page Rank) on the linking page
Google recently changed it's algorighym so that if there is an excess of traded links, purchased links, or if you get involved in triangular linking schemes, or buy hundreds or thousands of links all at once, then it will draw a red flag for Google.
An occasional link trade is ok and having to buy a link in Yahoo directory or another directory that is human reviewed where you have to pay for the review (and not the submission) is OK, but anything in exess can cause you problems with your ranking in Google because they can tell when link gathering is not normal.
Google is having to do this due to too many finding some new trick that helps their keyword rank (like hidden text) and then everyone else follows suit and then Google has to clamp down on that practice — until next time someone comes up with a "bright idea".
So anything you do to try and manipulate your rank in Google can draw a red flag and your site could be banned, penalized or have your keyword rank filtered out, i.e., you won't be able to rank for anything no matter what you do.
Best Linking Practice
The best, and easiest, method to gather links is to provide something on your website that people will want to link to, i.e., if you build bridges offer free bridge building plans, if you sell dessert products offer free recipies of products you don't offer, if you provide a service write up a FAQ about your service, etc. On LWD, I provide a lot of graphics tutorials and articles on
keyword ranking which bring in a lot of my traffic. I can research and write your website content for you if needed, with a BA in English/Creative Writing. See the
Rates page for more info.
Finding Backlinks For Your Website
Find friends, businesses, individuals, or organizations who are willing to link to your website as soon as it's online, then you won't need to submit to search engines because the search engines can find your link on a site they have indexed already. Some of them may require a link trade but try to get mostly one-way links.
Find Backlinks with Good PR (Page Rank)
Google uses PR to rank sites (along with other factors) so, unless you want to PayPerClick for the life of the site, you need to get your PR as high as possible by gathering qualtity backlinks on pages with PR on the page your link will appear on, not their home page.
Look for websites relevant to what your site offers but have a different focus, i.e., submit to a gardening site if you sell garden tools.
Another way to find good backlinks is to search for your major keyword in your favorite search engine and take note of which of your competitors is ranking highest. Then take their domain name and with the following command look for sites that have accepted their link then try and submit your website there also.
link:www.TheirDomain.ComGoesHere *
* Google is no longer listing all backlinks with the Link command (only about 10% of actual links) so you will have more accurate results with Yahoo.
Other Methods of Getting Good Backlinks
How Many Backlinks is Enough?
That depends on your major keywords. Are they popular? If so, you will have a struggle to beat your competition and may have to resort to PayPerClick along with backlinks.
If very few websites advertise what you offer then you may not need very many backlinks to rank high in the search engines but your traffic may still be minimal because of your site being so specialized. In that case diversify and add more information.
Getting Backlinks is an On-going Process
Your backlinks need to be replenished each year because some sites along with their backlinks go offline. Your competitors are probably eagerly seeking more backlinks to outrank you so unless you actively seek more backlinks each year your rank may drop.
Also see
Backlinks to Avoid
and
Keyword Ranking Strategy
Pay Per Click is only temporary
Getting good quality backlinks is a lengthy process and can take several months--unless you want to utilize PayPerClick (Google's AdWords) and then it can achieve almost immediate results but those results will end as soon as you quit paying so it's a good idea to gather links at the same time.
If you would like your web site analyzed for keyword ranking please check out the
Website Evaluations page. If you are looking for a web designer see the
How to Find a Web Designer page first.
Also see:
SEO Scams
Lori Eldridge
Copyright © 7-5-01, updated 9-2-07
All rights reserved.
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