As ranking algorithms become increasingly advanced, search engines are evaluating web sites in terms of neighborhoods of related sites. By linking to, or being linked from, an unrelated site, you're venturing out of your neighborhood. Sometimes this is viewed suspiciously by the engines.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Of course, you can't always control who links to you, so there will be exceptions to the neighborhood rule. This is actually not a big deal. Every site has a few off-topic links pointing to them. In fact, a small amount of off-topic links makes your linking structure appear even more natural. But you should strive to make the bulk of your incoming links come from topically relevant sources.

The most valuable links are from web pages that feature content related to your site. Links to or from off-topic pages are less useful, and, in some cases, too many of these off-topic links can even be harmful to your site's search engine rank.

Find your neighborhood and live there.
As search engines evolve and become harder to manipulate, links from important sites within your niche will continue to grow in value. This is key to establishing your site as an important destination from a search engine point of view. Beyond Topical Relevance It's been clearly established that links from high-ranking, on-topic web pages have become the gold standard of link-building. But there are other factors to consider when judging the quality of a link:

1. Traffic to the linking page.

Remember that links are not just for improving your search rank, they're also an important source of targeted traffic. The more people that visit the page your link is on, the more people will come to your site. If people like what they see, this will not only lead to an increase in sales, but some of those people may decide to link to you of their own volition—further increasing your incoming links.

You should also bear in mind that Google and others are putting a lot of effort into tracking people's surfing habits. Logic tells us that highly trafficked sites will receive a preferred status.

One way to get a rough idea of a page's traffic is the Alexa service. Do a search for the page that will be linking to you, then click the site info link followed by Traffic Details and then Page Views.

Bear in mind that Alexa can only track the web surfing habits of people who have the Alexa toolbar installed. This means it's a fairly tech-savvy audience and that the Alexa numbers might not represent an entirely accurate picture of the traffic to a site. Still, it's a useful tool to gain a comparative idea of traffic numbers.

If you're purchasing a link from another website, you should always ask to see the traffic stats for the page your link will be on, especially if you're going to be spending money for the link.

2. Location of the link

Ideally, you'll want your link worked into the content of the web page. This gives your link the opportunity to be surrounded by lots of relevant keywords (a concept known as keyword proximity) while also increasing the likelihood that someone reading the page will see and click your link. If your link is relegated to a sidebar, try to get it placed where it's likely to be seen. The Google AdSense optimization page describes the locations on a page where a link is most likely to be clicked. Google says...

"Certain locations tend to be more successful than others. This 'heat map' illustrates these ideal placements on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance).

"All other things being equal, ad placements above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page."


To clarify, above the fold means the part of a web page that is visible without the reader having to scroll down.

The type of page your link is on plays an important role, too. A link on a so-called links page alongside a hundred other links is pretty close to useless. You may get some mileage out of it, but it would pale in comparison to most other types of links. A much more preferable situation would be for the linking page to have an article that mentions your site and then links to you from within the article body.

3. Accessibility to Search Engines

Obviously, any link from a page that is not being crawled by search engines is absolutely worthless to you, at least in terms of improving your search engine positioning.

To see if a page has been indexed by a search engine, simply enter a unique phrase (surrounded by quotes) from that page into the search field. The quotes say "Look for this exact phrase." If the page has been indexed by the engine, then it will show up for that search.

Assuming you find the page is indexed, your next step is to see how often it is crawled by that search engine. Google has a little link that says cache next to each of its search results. Clicking that link will show you the date Google last spidered that page.

The more recent the cache date, the better, as this indicates that Google is regularly crawling this page. As such, it also means that you'll get credit for that link sooner.

If your link is already on the page, check to see that your link is in the cached version of the page. If not, something is amiss, and it's likely that the page employs some trick to prevent search engines from seeing its outgoing links.

Next, make sure that link is a direct link to your website. If the link is a Javascript link, or a redirect, or a nofollow link, then it's of little value to you. Usually, placing your mouse over the link will cause the destination of the link to appear in the bar at the bottom of your browser (i.e., the status bar), but there are ways to manipulate this feature so it's best to check your link within the page's HTML source code.

Let's say that your site is called www.your-site.com and you're being linked to from a site called www.their-site.com.

A direct link in the HTML code would look like:

A Javascript link would look like:

A redirected link would look like:

And a nofollow link looks like:

Incidentally, click here is horrible anchor text. Ideally you'll want your keywords to appear in the visible portion of any text link pointing to your site. Getting your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links is one of the most powerful page ranking factors available to the SEO. Besides, it's unlikely you'll want your pages found for the keywords click here.

However, be advised that a small number of click here links isn't terrible. Having all identical incoming link anchor text indicates to a search engine the possibility of artificial link manipulation, which could result in a penalty for your site.

Since your objective should be to achieve a natural looking incoming link structure, it's a good idea to mix up your incoming link anchor text a bit. A few sporadically placed click here links make your incoming link structure appear more natural and diverse than a network of 100% keyword-rich incoming anchor text links.

By the way, the powerful effect of anchor text links can be dramatically demonstrated by searching Google for click here. You'll see that the Adobe Reader download page grabs the top spot for that search term, even though the words click here aren't found anywhere on the page itself. Instead, the page ranks #1 purely on the power of the anchor text within the incoming links that point to the page.

4. Incoming and Outgoing Links

Remember what we said about keeping your pages in their own topically relevant neighborhood? The same advice applies to the pages that are linking to you. Check the incoming links of those potential link partners, as well as the other pages they are linking to. The more the page stays in its own neighborhood, the more valuable a link from that page is going to be to you. And, of course, the fewer outbound links the page has, the better. That means more of the page's link equity is focused on the link to you rather than being dispersed across links to several pages.

In Search of the Ultimate Link

Clearly, it's nice when people link to you based simply on the content, quality, and resources offered on your site and without your having to ask. Unfortunately, this isn't likely to happen as often as you'd like—especially true for new sites. Therefore, you must expect to actively seek out the pages you want links from. Your job is to convince site owners that your site truly is a worthwhile linking destination.

Whether you're paying for links, conducting reciprocal link swaps, or offering resources that attract links, you must be able to judge those links you're pursuing by some standard that will stand the test of time. The single best link you can get is from the homepage of an on-topic, authoritative site with your keywords in the anchor text. The fewer outgoing links on that page, the better. This is the ideal link-quality yardstick by which all your incoming links should be measured.

Wishing you the best of links,
Esoos Bobnar
SEM Specialist and Technical Analyst
Planet Ocean Communications

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The above article is reprinted with permission from Planet Ocean's SearchEngineNews.com, copyright 2005, and distributed with permission by WebTrends maker of WebPosition, the award-winning software that helps track and improve your search engine rankings. You may download a FREE trial copy of WebPosition from: http://www.webposition.com/trial/                  ← What is this?

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