Search engine optimization is more than just meta tags and keyword density. It's about keyword relevancy, from the search engines point of view. This article will explain the importance of backlinks, or inbound links and their relationship to page rankings.
Backlinks are simply links from another site that point to yours. The number of quality backlinks that you have is considered an indication of popularity and relevance by the search engines. Relevance and popularity are the key factors that search engines consider when ranking a site.
Quality is much more important than numbers when it comes to back links. In order to qualify as a quality backlink the referring site should be relevant to your content. If the content on the referring site has nothing to do with the content that you provide, then the quality of the link will not help much in your SEO efforts.
If a health and fitness related site links to a site about a new diet and exercise program that you have developed, Google would likely consider this a relevant link. However, If your content is focused on digital photography, chances are they would not consider this relevant and the link would only be as useful as the number of people that actually click on it.
The major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) hire some of the best developers in the world to insure that they are getting relevant results and to keep the "cheaters" off of the list. Years ago "Link Farms" were a popular way to increase the number of backlinks to a website. It didn't take the search engines long to figure this out and now these sites are just really good places to get yourself blacklisted.
Reciprocal linking is another practice employed by webmasters to increase back link popularity. While it's not nearly as dangerous a practice as using link farms you should be careful about who you link to and the number of outbound links on their site and yours. This is another area that is being carefully eyed by the bright minds at the major search engines and if it's not already, will soon be scrutinized by the search programmers.
If you have more than one site be very careful about linking between them. Once again the "black hat" seo firms have made this look pretty sketchy to a search engine. If the sites are relevant to one another it's usually ok, just don't get carried away.
The bottom line is this, as with all search engine optimization practices, don't try to beat the system. Yes, it takes more time and effort to do it right, but the benefits are worth it. If you want to take the risks and try to outsmart those guys from MIT, go ahead, but first do a little research and see how hard it is to get off of a search engine's blacklist.
About the Author
Chip Simons is an internet marketer from Little Rock, Arkansas. He is the owner of http://www.AsgardMedia.net. Chip has been working on the web since 1996.
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