Effective Search Engine Optimization by SEO FLOAT
Inbound links send visitors to your website. Generally, this is seen as a good thing. Many sites go to great lengths to achieve as much of this "free" advertising as
possible, although a few sites are very particular about where the links are pointing.
Link text (the text that is clicked on when clicking on a link) is singly the most important factor when Google determines the rankings for any given search term.
Even before Google came on the scene, link popularity was being used by one or two search engines as part of their algorithm when determining the rankings for any
given search term. Then when Google arrived with their link-based Page Rank, link popularity took off and became an absolute essential ingredient in achieving top
rankings.
The idea behind link popularity is that the more pages that link to a page, the more important the page is and it, therefore, deserves a higher ranking than it
would otherwise have.
Some engines simply counted the number of links coming into a page (inbound links), but Google took the idea a step further. Each inbound link comes from a page
which itself has inbound links. The more inbound links on the linking page, the more important that page is and, therefore, the more important the link to our
page is. So Google gives more weight to inbound links from important pages that it does to inbound links from lesser pages.
Google is the world's number one search engine, and currently provides the results for around 80% of all the searches done in the world. Because of that, it is
vitally important for any website that relies on search engine traffic to do well in Google. Doing well in Google means making the site 'important' in Google's
eyes and, to do that, the site must have good inbound links - as many of them as possible, and preferably from important pages (pages with medium to high
PageRank values).
Link Popularity tells you how many websites are linking to yours. Website popularity is becoming increasingly important, as many search engines are using this
information as a ranking criterion. The more popular your site is, the better it is ranked on the search engines.
What is Link Exchange?
Link Exchange (a.k.a. Reciprocal Link Exchange, Links Swap, Link Trade etc.) is the most accessible way to improve your website's link popularity, and by doing so,
to achieve better search engine positioning and increase your website's traffic. Building link popularity through link exchange (links swap) means to find partner
sites whose webmasters are willing to add a link pointing to your website, in exchange to a link pointing to their website from yours.
It is important to find link exchange partners among websites that offer a good match with the content and the theme of your own website. The partner website's
theme or topic is the first thing to review, because search engines give more "weight" to a link from a website that has a similar topic to yours. Websites with
themes or topics that are related to, or complement, your website's theme should be considered as your main links swap partners.
Establishing a link partnership with another website may appear to visitors as an "association" between the links swap partners. It is therefore important that
you only "associate" with high-quality, credible websites. Exchanging links with poor-quality or low-content website may harm your image.
