Effective Links for SEO

Link Types

We will examine each of these link types by attempting to categorize the diversity that can be found. Many links are a composite of several of the factors below, but for simplicity, we will look at each concept in isolation.

Link Anchor Text Classifications

Keyword Links

Placing keywords in the anchor text of a link creates a valuable association between the words shown and the page they link to.

i.e. You want: The best place to buy small blue widgets.

You do not want: For the best place to buy small blue widgets visit the WidgetFactory.com

The first link lets the search engines know that the page being linked to is associated with small blue widgets. Search engines analyzing the second link only know that WidgetFactory.com was linked to near text talking about small blue widgets. This is completely different and carries a lesser degree of keyword weight. While these links are very desirable they are not yet quite naturally occurring. Most website copy is not written with this keyword linking mindset. Aside from content built by active bloggers or SEO professionals, you would be very lucky to have someone link to your website with a keyword link.

One must be attentive when creating keyword links to others, especially your competition. For example, it would be very foolish for the WidgetFactory.com to have content on their site like this: Widget Factory is superior to The Widget Warehouse. Their blue widgets only come with a 3 month warranty and no satisfaction guarantee.

Website/Company Name Links

The link shown above, WidgetFactory.com is a website name link. While these are particularly short and clean, they do not supply information about the nature of the website. Most site owners are going to rank supreme for keyword searches on their own company name, partly due to the abundance of these style links. If not, either something has gone awry or your business name is an arrangement of extremely common words. WidgetFactory.com should rank first for “widget factory”, “widgetfactory.com”, “widget factory Inc.” etc.

In short, these links are valuable but, unlike keyword links they are nothing to seek with diligence. They should occur naturally.

Click Here Links

These links are lowest on the totem pole in terms of value. Everyone knows what they are. We are all guilty of having created many of them.

For the best selection of small blue widgets, click here.

Back when the web was a new frontier to be explored you had to remind people that there are these things called links and when you click on them they take you places. So the “click here” could be justified.

URL Links

Links that basically have no anchor text, they are just a copy of the link location are URL links. These are the only kind of links allowed in plain text web pages or email.

http://www.WidgetFactory.com/products/item.html?id=342

In terms of SEO, they provide a little more value than the “click here” style links, but not much.

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Link Origin Classifications

Reciprocal Links

A link exchange agreement between two websites creates a reciprocal link. These are commonly positioned on a Links or Partners pages. Most of the time link exchanges are done in the interest of increasing link popularity, rarely are they actually useful to site visitors.

There are several Links pages where the instructions for link swapping detail that your linking page must possess a certain level of Google PageRank. For those that do not know the term PageRank, this basically equates to them saying “We only want to trade links with sites that are going to give us a good dosage of Google juice.”

The search engines can decipher which links are reciprocal based on seeing that two sites are linking to one another in the same format on the same type of page.

Are reciprocal links good or bad? We have often found them to be neutral. Search engines probably assume, at best, that two sites are interlinking because they have some kind of business agreement to promote each other’s website. Many webmaster have tried triangular linking in attempts to fool Google, which is the same as reciprocal linking only with three parties involved. Yet even this architectural is believed to be easily detectable by Google. The pages reciprocal links are commonly placed on usually entitle them to be of little worth anyway. When your site is listed with hundreds of others, all on the same page with no content associated, then you ca not expect to reap much value.

Thematic Links

A website that uses the words Honda, Acura, and Toyota several hundred times throughout its content is most likely an automotive site. Search engines use this and many other heuristics to designate sites belonging to a particular theme.

This theme bears authority when linking to other sites in the same theme. If your site is in the automotive industry, the most desirable links to acquire are from others in the automotive industry. If an agriculture theme sited linked to your auto themed site, it ca not be valued the same. What does an agricultural site know about autos? They have less authority on the industry topic.

Acquiring thematic links is difficult because many of the candidate sites are likely to be your industry competition. Creativity must be applied to find thematic affiliates. Auto repair and used car sales, or real estate and home remodeling for example.

Directory Links

Directory links contribute to establishing your site’s theme. It’s believed that Google uses the DMOZ.org extensively to help categorize domains. The DMOZ has a detailed submission process and listings are not guaranteed to be accepted.

Yahoo has its own directory which, unlike the DMOZ, is not free, but typically worth the cost. Then there hundreds of other notable directories that will pick up your site without you knowing, provided your company is an established authority in your industry. Aside from the thematic benefits, directories generally provide high quality pages worth pursuing placement on.

Fraternal Links

Fraternal or brother links interconnect websites owned by the same company. Ownership is matched off WHOIS records and closely related IP addresses. To search engines they appear as self promotion attempts and are not respected.

Allegedly, fraternal linking is one of the areas Google cracked down on in the famous Bourbon algorithm update of May 2005, which caused thousands of webmasters much sorrow and anguish. If you own and operate multiple domains it is best to use Website/Company or URL anchor links to interconnect. There are even ways to tell search engines not to follow specific links.

Further Questions?

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