RSS Feed (xml)Basically, it is all about perception and authority. All links have some kind of effect on your site’s overall strength. However, to take the search engine’s point of view, it would be slightly foolish to treat a link from a small personal blog the same as one from an international newspaper. One can be created by anybody and has a very low number of readers on inbound links, the other is the exact opposite.
The reason why the distinction is made is simply down to SEOs gaming the system. It’s easy to get a few hundred links, you can sign up for directories or even just buy them outright (remember, that is frowned upon). However, it is generally very difficult to get a link from a ‘leading’ site, which makes them far more exclusive and therefore passes on more value to the recipient.
Other factors such as relevance are also considered. If you’re a conservatory maker and you’re interviewed on the BBC about a decline in sales due to the recession or are featured in a major building publication, this will give the link a bit of context. Alternatively, if you receive it from a blog dedicated to new age music, there’s no obvious connection.
So it isn’t just about the strength of the site that sends a link, but also the way in which it is provided and who they are. There’s no harm in sourcing links from generic sites, but wherever possible you need to look for authorities within a specific industry. These will add a huge amount of weight to the target page and your site as a whole.
Context is the main reason that anchor text has become so important to marketers. Whilst you want a decent spread of links that use your company name, you also want a few that include your primary keyword – and some alternatives too of course. This helps hammer home the context and can be used for all inbound links as well as those within your site.
As such , not only are links not equal but they should never ever be viewed as such. Over the years the gap between poor quality and high end links has increased dramatically. As the search engines become more aware of low value techniques and gaming, so this distinction has become essential. So if you’re optimising and looking to attract or build a few links, make sure you bear this in mind. It could save you wasting days getting hundreds of poor quality links that have zero impact on your ranking potential.
