Pagerank and Linking
Once you know that inbound links can
affect your pagerank, your first instinct will be to
want to get inbound links. Good idea. But before you
do, you'll have to understand that some links have
more power than others.
Links on sites with a high pagerank are more
valuable than links on a low pagerank site. They
will count for more. This does not mean you have to
stick your nose in the air about linking to low rank
sites, not at all. While it is better to get links
on a site with high pagerank, this is VERY difficult
for a small site to do!
Some people have the mistaken idea
that links on any site with lower pagerank than
yours will harm you. It won't. In fact, these are
good links to get, because they often just walk into
your site with no effort on your part other than
placing a reciprocal link on your site, and long
term, they will help you more and more as their rank
rises.
There is also some controversy
about reciprocal links. Some people say they are a
waste of time, others say get all you can. I take a
middle road.
Getting reciprocal links, where
you put a link on your site in return for a link on
theirs, can be very useful. But I don't spend a lot
of time at it after the first push on a new endeavor,
because it is VERY time consuming to negotiate a
good trade. So when I meet people online, if an
opportunity to trade links comes up, we do. But I
dont' seek them anymore by going hunting for sites
to put them on. Instead, I put a link on every site
I build titled “Exchange Links”, and link that to a
page with an invitation to link with us if their
site meets our “family safe” criteria.
Relevant reciprocal links are
certainly worth more than non-relevant links. This
means, your site has something to do with the site
it came from, in one way or another. But since
search engines ONLY judge that by keywords,
relevancy is not, and cannot be the final criteria,
because if I have a site on special needs, and link
it to a site on working from home, the connection
may not be relevant to a search engine, but it
certainly is to those with disability who need to
work from home!
In my own experience, search
engines give very little weight to relevancy. PEOPLE
give more weight to relevancy though, so relevant
links will always benefit you more than irrelevant
ones.
What will hurt you is linking to
sites that have a bad reputation, so make sure you
don't link to a banned site or one that is trashy.
It is fairly well established that
the more valuable links are “one way” links, or
“non-reciprocal” links. In other words, the other
site has a link to you, but you do not link back to
them. You can get these through listing with
directories (but not all directories help pagerank),
and through three way link trades, where you trade
links, but the links are not reciprocal on any of
the sites.
Cross linking your sites in with
other sites that you own is a helpful strategy in my
personal experience, but not everyone agrees on that
either. Still, it IS free, and since it sends
visitors to your other sites also, it is worth it.
A link from someone else's site
only helps you if the link is readable by the search
engines. Some sites (often ad sites or directory
sites), will have dynamically generated links, or
JavaScript links which the search engines do not
read as links, so they do not count them. The true
power of links comes from the search engine
benefits, so if you are paying for a link that is
not readable by a search engine, then you'll need to
be certain that it will get you enough traffic in
its own right to benefit you.
You can also improve your actual
links to help your pagerank, but you don't always
have control over that, unless you email the HTML
code to the site owner for the link. There are tips
about how to do that in the Link Optimization
section.
Your goal with links should be, to
get good quality links, on good quality sites. Get
them honestly, or pay for ones that won't get you
banned.
Links on sites with a high pagerank are more valuable than links on a low pagerank site. They will count for more. This does not mean you have to stick your nose in the air about linking to low rank sites, not at all. While it is better to get links on a site with high pagerank, this is VERY difficult for a small site to do!
Some people have the mistaken idea that links on any site with lower pagerank than yours will harm you. It won't. In fact, these are good links to get, because they often just walk into your site with no effort on your part other than placing a reciprocal link on your site, and long term, they will help you more and more as their rank rises.
There is also some controversy about reciprocal links. Some people say they are a waste of time, others say get all you can. I take a middle road.
Getting reciprocal links, where you put a link on your site in return for a link on theirs, can be very useful. But I don't spend a lot of time at it after the first push on a new endeavor, because it is VERY time consuming to negotiate a good trade. So when I meet people online, if an opportunity to trade links comes up, we do. But I dont' seek them anymore by going hunting for sites to put them on. Instead, I put a link on every site I build titled “Exchange Links”, and link that to a page with an invitation to link with us if their site meets our “family safe” criteria.
Relevant reciprocal links are certainly worth more than non-relevant links. This means, your site has something to do with the site it came from, in one way or another. But since search engines ONLY judge that by keywords, relevancy is not, and cannot be the final criteria, because if I have a site on special needs, and link it to a site on working from home, the connection may not be relevant to a search engine, but it certainly is to those with disability who need to work from home!
In my own experience, search engines give very little weight to relevancy. PEOPLE give more weight to relevancy though, so relevant links will always benefit you more than irrelevant ones.
What will hurt you is linking to sites that have a bad reputation, so make sure you don't link to a banned site or one that is trashy.
It is fairly well established that the more valuable links are “one way” links, or “non-reciprocal” links. In other words, the other site has a link to you, but you do not link back to them. You can get these through listing with directories (but not all directories help pagerank), and through three way link trades, where you trade links, but the links are not reciprocal on any of the sites.
Cross linking your sites in with other sites that you own is a helpful strategy in my personal experience, but not everyone agrees on that either. Still, it IS free, and since it sends visitors to your other sites also, it is worth it.
A link from someone else's site only helps you if the link is readable by the search engines. Some sites (often ad sites or directory sites), will have dynamically generated links, or JavaScript links which the search engines do not read as links, so they do not count them. The true power of links comes from the search engine benefits, so if you are paying for a link that is not readable by a search engine, then you'll need to be certain that it will get you enough traffic in its own right to benefit you.
You can also improve your actual links to help your pagerank, but you don't always have control over that, unless you email the HTML code to the site owner for the link. There are tips about how to do that in the Link Optimization section.
Your goal with links should be, to get good quality links, on good quality sites. Get them honestly, or pay for ones that won't get you banned.
