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THEMED LINKS QUALITY

Written by: Jose Nuñez

Article Overview: This article will explain the importance of link quality, and its application to link building. Everyone may have a different understanding of what “quality” is on terms of links, but essentially that is your decision entirely. If you have an existing site, that you need to build links for, use this as a reference check list to ensure that you are link building properly. I am going to review the key 6 areas.

THEMED LINKS QUALITY

This article will explain the importance of link quality, and its application to link building. Everyone may have a different understanding of what “quality” is on terms of links, but essentially that is your decision entirely. If you have an existing site, that you need to build links for, use this as a reference check list to ensure that you are link building properly. I am going to review the key 6 areas.

Is the page linking to you indexed in Google and is the cache version fresh?
Why is this essential? Google has a cached page of any indexed page on their index. So basically, this should be your starting point for any link partnership decision. You need to verify that the page the link partner is proposing for exchange, is actually indexed and that the cached version is of the page is fresh in their records, within 20 days old as a benchmark. This will show that the page in question gets crawled often. PageRank of the page is secondary in comparison to this primary check.

Is the page linking to you on topic? Is this a themed link?
There is a big difference between the types of links you can get. These type of link are very targeted and carry a lot more weight over generic or unrelated links. This is part of what explains why some sites with much less links that their direct competitors are able to outrank them for particular terms. Quality links from themed sources is the main reason for that. Focusing on just "popularity" and inadvertently ignoring "reputation" is a mistake a lot of search marketers make.

Is the Title tag of the page linking to you on-topic? What about the text?
The title tag of the page linking to you is of great importance. When that is combined with text that is on topic with the page which is being link from, and other factors, the link value is increased greatly for the link. So as you can understand from this, is that co-relation of these factors makes a better link.

Where is your link on the page located? Navigation, gutter, footer, body?
Location of your link is another strong factor to consider. The most beneficial location is considered to be within the body area of content. Any repetitive areas like navigation, gutter, footer, etc would normally not carry as much weight as the main body area. “Run-of-site” links fall into this group. There is a preference for the first paragraph, but the middle or bottom within body content are also good.

How many other links are on the page? Home Page vs. Link Page PR gap?
PageRank gets automatically diluted in relation to the amount of links on the page.
Google guidelines currently suggest a maximum of 100 links per page. So here you
want to make sure the number is as small as possible. I recommend targeting 20 links per page maximum on average to have room to allow those pages link growth. Also, what is the difference between the main page PR and the subpage were you are getting the link from? In the best cases, your link will be one point under the home page value. If it isn’t, you can consider other options with your link partner.

Related Articles
  Why link popularity is the top factor in top search engine rankings
  The SEO Process
  SEO Basics
  Link Exchange Tips
  SEO Link Building Explained

Article Tags: benchmark, cached version, footer, google, gutter, link partner, link partnership, link quality, marketers, mistake, popularity, reference check, reputation, title tag



Related Forum Posts
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - For me it's all about SEO, and always has been. As far as I am concerned the best way to get traffic is to get to the top of the search engine rankings (mainly Google) for your main keywords. Once you get there the traffic comes in every day with very little extra work on your part, if any at all. Plus, it's highly targeted and without a doubt the best traffic a site can get. So, how do you get to the top of the search engines? Simple... LINKS, LINKS, LINKS, and more LINKS! The more backlinks you have, the better. But you can't just have a bunch of crappy links from anywhere, they have to be quality. Keyword anchored links from authority sites in your niche are the best links you can get. I've achieved and maintained top 10 Google ranking for some of the most competitive keywords in the world. And I did it by myself without any special SEO skills. It's all about quality backlinks, and don't let anyone tell you differently! Here are a few ideas for getting backlinks... Submit articles to article directories, comment on dofollow blogs, do link exchanges, submit your site to link directories, social bookmarking sites, write guest posts for blogs, buy links, run contests, forums, linkbait, and several other ways. Also, you need to be targeting the right keywords to rank for. No point in ranking #1 for keywords that nobody searches for. Do some research to find the best keywords in your niche to rank for.
Re: Search Engine Optimization Guide for All - I agree with bizwebideas that it is QUALITY content that counts. What baffles me is the amount of time some people spend trying to get out of actually writing quality articles by using "article spinners" and all that junk. If you use your loaf, you can write a 450 word article much more quickly and of much better quality than it takes you to spin a horrible article that is of no use to man or beast. Anyway, thanks for the SEO and article posting tips, and excuse my rant!


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