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The Value of Links and Targeted Link Text
By Phil Craven

A wander around the various search engine optimization forums 
reveals that people are divided into two groups as to how 
search engines rank web pages. One group insists that "content 
is king", and the other insists that "link text is king". The 
'content' group recommend adding good quality, on-topic, 
optimized, content pages to the site and the rankings will 
come. The 'link text' group recommend adding links to pages, 
with the targeted search terms in the link text, and the 
rankings will come. 

So which group is right?

Certainly, the 'content' people are right in that good quality, 
optimized, content pages will get some top rankings, but only if 
the targeted search terms are not being competed over very much.

Page content is what search engines ranked pages on in the old 
days, and they still do to some extent. But that began to change 
when a couple of engines introduced "link popularity" (linkpop) 
into the equation. The more links that a page had pointing to 
it, the better it did in the rankings. Even so, content was 
still the king.

Then along came Google with a new idea. Instead of using links 
to a page as simply an additional ranking factor, they based 
their whole engine on them, to the extent that they called 
their engine a "Hypertextual Web Search Engine" - "hyper" as in 
hyperlink (clickable link), and "textual" as in the link text 
that is clicked on. The Google search engine was, and is, based 
on links and link text (sometimes called "anchor text"). Google's 
idea was that a link from one page to another page is a vote by 
one page for the other page, thus making the recipient page more 
important. They also decided that the clickable link text is 
likely to provide an honest and condensed idea of what the 
recipient page is about.

With their new idea, the relevancy of Google's search results 
far surpassed that of the other engines, and Google grew to 
become the #1 search engine of them all. The other engines had 
no choice but to follow suit. Page content still plays a part in 
the rankings, but the biggest single ranking factor of all is 
link text. Links to a page, with targeted link text, can push 
the page to the top of the rankings. As an example, type 
"miserable failure" (without quotes) into Google and look at 
the #1 result.

An even better example is a search on Google for "computers" 
(without quotes). Look at the source code of the #2 result 
(Apple). The word "computers" doesn't appear anywhere in the 
page, and yet "computers" is a very competitive search term. 
Google's cache of the page states that "These terms only appear 
in links pointing to this page: computers". It is the link text 
in the links pointing to that page that has pushed it into the 
#2 position for a very competitive search term.

Those are examples of the ranking power of link text. The reason 
it happens is that Google stores each word on a page in what 
they call "barrels". But they have two groups of barrels. The 
small group contains words that occured in URLs, Titles, and 
link text. The large group of barrels contains words that 
occured anywhere. When processing a search query, the Google 
engine first tries to find enough results (about 40,000) from 
the small group of barrels that contains link text words. If 
they can compile enough results from there, they don't even look 
in the group that contains the rest of the words on a page. The 
group of word barrels that contain link text is the first place 
that Google looks for results to a search query. That's why link 
text is such a powerful ranking factor, and it's why link text 
alone can push the recipient page to the top of the rankings for 
competitive search terms.


Do All Links Count?
----------------------

There is some discussion around the seo forums as to whether or 
not some links count less than others. One idea is that multiple 
links from the same site, whether internal or from external 
sites, are devalued. Another idea is that internal links count 
less than external links. There may be some truth in the ideas, 
but they are just ideas and nobody outside Google really knows, 
so it is best to assume that all links to a page count.  


Link Acquisition

Acquiring links can be time-consuming and tedious. There are 
a number of ways to get them, some being easier than others. 
Wherever you get them, make sure that their link text is the 
search term that you are targeting, and that each link points 
to the page you are promoting for the particular search term. 
Pointing all the links to your home page, with various target 
search terms, won't achieve the same as pointing targeted links 
at specific pages within the site.

Forums 

Join forums and place links to your site(s) in your signature 
line. Use your main search terms as the link text. But before 
spending time writing lots of posts with your signature line in 
each post, make sure that the forum is spiderable by checking 
the robots.txt file, and make sure that non-members don't have 
session IDs in the URLs (some engines won't spider URLs with 
session IDs in them). Also make sure that links in signature 
lines are not hidden from spiders (view the source code to make 
sure that signature links are in plain HTML and point directly 
to the site). 

Link Exchange Centers

Find and join free link exchange centers like LinkPartners.com
(http://www.linkpartners.com). There you can find a categorized 
directory of websites that also want to exchange links. Be 
careful not to sign up with FFA (Free For All) sites because 
they are mostly email address gatherers and you can expect a 
sudden increase in email spam soon after you sign up. Also, 
only sign up with centers where you can approach other sites 
personally, and where they can approach you personally. 

Do not join any link farms!!! Link farms, such as LinksToYou.com, 
sound excellent, but search engines (Google in particular) 
disapprove of them as blatant attempts to manipulate the rankings 
and they will penalize sites that use them. Once a site has been 
penalized, it is very difficult to get the penalty lifted, so 
avoid all link farms. 

Email Requests

(a) Search on Google for your main search terms and find the 
    websites that are competing with you. Then find which sites 
    link to them by searching "link:www.competitor-domain.com". 
    Email them and ask for a link exchange. 

(b) Search on Google for websites that are related to your 
    site's topic, but not direct competitors, and ask them for a 
    link exchange. 

Buy Them

There are websites that want to sell links, and often the link 
will be placed on multiple pages, or all pages within the site. 
It's possible to approach individual sites where you would like 
your links to appear, but it is much quicker, easier and more 
reliable to use a middle-man service (or broker). 

Link brokers offer links for sale on behalf of other websites 
(you could use the service to sell links on your site!). With 
these services, it is usual to be able to choose the topic of 
the website(s) where you want to place your links. One such 
reputable broker is http://www.textlinkbrokerage.com 

Auctions

There are even links for sale by public auction, such as the 
one at LinkAdage Auctions (http://www.linkadage.com). 


Summary

Inbound links are important for websites that want to move up 
the rankings. Inbound links, with the right link text, 
are essential for achieving top rankings when there is any 
competition for the search terms.

Most websites do not naturally attract links, and link 
acquisition can be time-consuming, tedious, and frustrating. 
Many websites that are approached by email will say no, but some 
will say yes. For top rankings, it is a almost essential to take 
the time and get many inbound links. It should be treated as an 
ongoing task.

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Phil Craven is a well-known SEO and author of many widely read 
search engine optimization articles. His top-ranked "Seo Forum", 
at http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum, helps many novices and 
webmasters to learn and improve their search engine optimization 
skills. 
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