Article Contents Where Do I Start ?The best place to begin your backlink campaign is with high traffic websites directly related in theme to your own website. Forums, Blog’s, Wiki’s and Bulletin Boards are a good starting point. Not every web page is a candidate for good link placement. The nature of your website will play a large role in how effective your link campaigning is. ProspectingSome web pages are not in good standing with search engines and they will not return any link equity value to your domain property. To determine if a web page is worthy of link placement, copy the address of the page you are prospecting from your browser address bar and paste it into your search engine of choice. If the page is listed within the search engine’s index then the page is capable of returning link equity ( page rank ) to your own website. Page rank is the mathematical democratic value of a web page based on the number of inbound links directed towards it. The exact nature of page rank calculations vary for each search engine. Historical information regarding the details of the Page Rank formula are available everywhere and interpretations should be made with caution. http://www.google.ca/search?q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank Links which exist on websites with high page rank values may be more valuable than Links which exist on pages with low page rank scores. Additonally, if there is no direct relationship between the keywords contained in each linking document the value of the link becomes less effective. Downloading the Google Toolbar will enable you to see the page rank for any page which you are viewing with reasonable accuracy. Page Rank calculations can be slow to propagate the web and even slower to reach your toolbar indicator. http://www.google.com/search?q=Google+Toolbar Using the Google Toolbar while prospecting for web pages for potential backlink placement is a fast and fairly reliable way to determine if a website is worth your time or not. There are a myraid of online tools which will accomplish the same task if you would prefer not to install additional software into your browser. Simply search for the term "Check Page Rank". Myspace, Facebook and other Link Equity DestroyersSocial networking websites promise good times with your peers and endless opportunities to find new prospects. Social networking websites also go through a great deal of effort to destroy the value a link passes to your own domain, rendering them useless towards your own link equity campaign. Facebook has it pages hidden behind password protected logins and this prevents a search spider from finding the link. No matter how many link connections you gain within the social network, you will not be able to transfer that popularity towards your own domain which you own. MySpace encrypts all links placed within it’s profiles effectively hiding the true location of the link from search engines. Neither of these social networking websites ( and the majority of others ) are not good places to pursue your professional venture if your goal is to increase the value of your web property. How do I create a link?In the event a website Forum or Bulletin Board application does not provide a button to create a link ( url , hyperlink ) it may be required that you copy and paste the link provided below directly into the web site. < A HREF="http://yourdomainname.com" _fcksavedurl="http://yourdomainname.com" _fcksavedurl="http://yourdomainname.com" TITLE="My Domain Name" > Your Domain Name Dot Com < /A > A link must contains a valid href attribute which may be obtained by copying the address of the page you wish to link to from your browser window address bar. The information which is bounded within the < ( less than ) and > ( greater than ) symbols will not be visible on the page which you post your link to. If you find that this is not the case after you have submitted your link then you should focus your efforts elsewhere if you can find no other means to create the link. KeywordsCreating a link with the relevant keywords which pertain to your site content is good practice as it allows a search engine to build a keyword association between both websites. Use of the title attribute can re-enforce your keyword but it is not a requirement, providing good keyword content within the name of the link itself is important as these keywords will increase your relevancy in the search results for that term when people search for it. An excellent tool for a better understanding the use of keywords and how they relate to human interest trends can be found at http://www.google.com/trends rel="nofollow"The rel=nofollow attribute exists within the html markup of a text link and it is an explicit instruction to a search engine which states a link should not carry any outbound page rank value. To what degree the rel=nofollow attribute effects the value of a link may vary depending on which search engine evaluates it and the situation it is used in. You will come across this attribute while searching for potential pages for your backlinks if you look for it. You can do so by viewing the html source code belonging to the webpage you are prospecting.
Discovering Backlinks A backlink is a link to your page which is hosted from another page residing within a different domain. Determining the number of backlinks which point towards your site gives meaning to the current popularity of your site. When reviewed in alongside your server referral statistics you can quickly determine which websites are your most valuable partners. This example will discover some of the websites which currently host a link to your web pages. It surface scans the contents of web pages and looks for occurrences of your domain name. Links which do not refer to your website using the domain name of your site will not be found. http://www.google.com/search?q=example.com You can directly access the link cache of a search engine with the link: operator. This method only shows a small sampling of links found by a search engine depending on which search engine you use. Links considered to be of high relevancy and good value when compared against your website are more likely to be shown while irrelevant and low page ranked websites are less likely to show using this query. http://www.google.com/search?q=link:example.com These same techniques can be used to scope out your competition ( but you didn’t hear it from me ) to better understand how they have seeded themselves throughout the web. You will quickly discover that your competitors do not have that far of lead over you. These are good tools to use when searching for websites which contain content relevant to your industry for your backlink campaign. Deep LinksLink to the page which you are promoting. It should be your goal to establish inbound links to more than just your front page. If you are promoting a particular product or service it is best to link directly to that page. Once you have established link equity, removing the page from your website will break contact with an external web site and you will no longer receive the benefits for your marketing efforts. Remember that you alone are not creating links which point towards your site, often times customers, friends, family and staff promote your site content on your behalf. If you wish to remove outdated content from your site it is best not to erase the page but rather update your content explaining that your service or product is no longer available. Offering an alternative service or product in place of the outdated content is best, as people who are referred to your site will be directed to a similar service or product which they may be interested in purchasing. Pages which no longer fit within the main menus of your site navigation can be moved to the site map archives to make room for more important content. MSN Webmaster Guidelines. "Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link." Target MarketingDo not spend all of your time placing your link on websites which are not related to your business. If your website is selling automotive parts placing your link on a website related to fruits and vegetables will be less beneficial then placing your link on websites which are relevant to the automotive industry. In Particular, do not participate in automated link exchange programs ( Link Farms ) that could potentially damage your link equity. Directory services which do not require you to link back and offer quality listings which you feel will refer traffic to your site are good choice. Linking back to a directory service should only be practiced if you feel your users will benefit visiting the directory which you are listed in. A link back should not occur as a pre-requisite to obtain a listing within a directory which you are not immediately affliated with. Yahoo Webmaster Guidelines. "Correspond with webmasters and other content providers and build rich linkages between related pages. Note: "Link farms" create links between unrelated pages for no reason except to increase page link counts. Using link farms violates Yahoo!’s Site Guidelines and will not improve your page ranking." Google Webmaster Guidelines. "Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or Page Rank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links." Reciprocal LinkingOff SiteA Reciprocal Link is both an inbound link pointing to an affliate website and a backlink from your affiliate site pointing to your content. Links should point to pages of relevant content which you feel will lend a deeper experience to your visitors as they journey through your site. Do not attempt to trick the search engines in any way regarding this technique. It’s a waste of time. Choose your link partners sparingly and strategically keeping in mind that the quality and relevance of a reciprocal link are it’s most important factors while quantity and irrelevance can work against you. Beware of the rel=nofollow attribute and the way it will effect your reciprocal linking campaign. It is a topic of hot debate and close scrutiny. A current and important page which addresses the issue from the perspective of a Google Engineer can be found here. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/. The general consensus is that a link which makes use of the rel=nofollow attribute will pass no value to the page which it links to. There is a large following in the seo community which suggests off site reciprocal linking is treated no differently than one way links. ( I tend to believe them ) On SiteThis website is built to conform to acessibility and standards compliance guidelines. It’s navigation menus are built using plain text. On-site reciprocal linking is the easiest way to gain position in the search results for the term which you place within the context of your menu section. A word which is used within your menu and which links to all of your other pages on the site will carry weight from the perspective of reciprocal linking. You should refrain from using generic terms in your menu systems if you would like to rank for fairly non-competitive terms. Conclusion?Your efforts should focus on establishing links from external web pages to your own which complement your site theme. Promoting your pages on well established websites is the key to assisting both humans and search engines find your site. If you attempt to trick a search engine by participating in get rich quick link affiliate programs or shady directory submission services you will be caught and your efforts will reap you no reward. It is better to update your site content or move it to another less important area of your site rather than delete it. Design your website content and link placement for your users. Advanced RulesThis list contains an advanced ruleset for those wishing gain maximum efficiency with thier link campaigns. None of the rules are set in stone and are subject to change depending on your specific needs and requirements. It was taken directly from a job posting for an internet marketing agent. It is very detailed, well thought out, and in most cases, right on the money. However it is grossly paranoid at the same time.
Additional ResourcesYahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines MSN Guidelines for successful indexing
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