We know that inbound links from third party websites are one of the most influential weighted factors in determining where a website ranks for keywords on major search engines. Link building is, by nature, a very ardous task and rightly so, you should have to work for those recommendations from other websites.

Your link building efforts could be in vain, though. Some links can be much more valuable than others based on some simple (yet not so obvious) principles. Link building is at the very heart of i3SearchWorx Search Engine Optimisation strategies and we like to think we're good at it.

We're going to let you in on a few ways that we determine the value of inbound links and how search engines value particular links.

1) Anchor Text - A simple one for those who know about SEO, not so simple terminology for those who do not know about SEO. This is one of the biggest factors in the ranking equation and in its lamen form, this is the text within a hyperlink pointing from another website to your site. For example, here's my recommendation for Franking Machines for our client Pitney Bowes. The text in the link is the anchor text and it is showing that I am recommending Pitney Works for the Key Term Franking Machines. Search Engines pick this up and therefore it is that keyword that will enhance on search engine result pages (SERP's)

2) Internal links - Don't forget, it's not just inbound links from other websites, ensure you have a good internal linking structure on your website. By this we mean that each page links effortlessly again using the above mentioned anchor text to make reference to each page.

3) Domain Authority - This phrase is often bounced around the SEO world with no solid definition. Most SEO's believe this to be related to elements such as domain age and a linking domains link popularity (how many links the domain you are linking to has and how many of those links carry authority). Domain Authority in lamen terms is how important search engines view that particular domain based on simple variable.

4) Source Diversity - This is said to be one of the more important factors. The diversity of domains linking to a particular website. For example, if a site has a link on each of its pages to another site, this would be far less authorative than if you had links from a variety of domains. This makes sense if you think about it - it's ensuring variation of votes thus making the link profile of a site look natural.

5) Uniqueness of source and target - Search engines have numerous to judge and predict ownerships and relationships between websites. Some of these ways are:

- Domain registration data (whois information) - check this here www.who.is

- Shared hosting IP addresses or IP address C-blocks

- Public relationship information (whether on a blog or forum)

- Public marketing agreements etc

If a relationship is found between websites it can be deemed as unsavoury by the engines and take away the 'editorial' element of gaining links meaning that links from these sites could be discounted and even penalties dished out if there is malice behind a certain linking strategy. Just Google link farms for more information.

6) Relevancy to niche - Believe it or not, search engines have the ability to make the assumption that a website is about a certain topic or subject and it's believed that the more relevant the links are from other websites in terms of niche, the more influential the links are. This makes sense if you think about it - if you are being recommended by an expert in a particular subject, it would probably stand for more than a vote from someone who knows little or nothing about your given subject.

7) Where the link is placed on a page - Search engines look at the positioning of links on a page to also determine importance. It is said that a link higher up on the page (in the header for example) is more influential than in-content links, sidebar links and footer links. It's using the same assumption of <H1> tags - the higher up the page, the better.

Posted: 17/11/10 18:26