Quality Backlinks Are Important

Off page search engine optimization is more or less links from other web pages. Backlinks are simply incoming links by a different web page. Google is the most used search engine and Google puts a high value on backlinks based on many standards. It's not just the amount of backlinks but the quality or value of the backlink that's important.

All search engines use backlinks to evaluate the popularity of a web page. Only Google carries it a great deal farther and has numerous significant methods to create the value placed on each link to your web page from another web page. Keep in mind that you're dealing with web pages, not websites. There's a difference and each web page stands on it's own in ranking in the search engine index.

Links to each web page can be divided into two categories, internal and external. Both are significant but you'll see a much higher value placed on the links from other web pages besides the ones in your website. Internal linking of web pages is a whole different animal that we won't cover in this article.

Google has determined several factors to measure the value of an incoming link from another website or domain. Some of these elements are well known and understood. But several are somewhat cloudy and only Google knows for certain how they're implemented on any backlink.

The recognized link factors:

-The authority of the web page (a 1-10 number based on Google's mystic analysis).

-The style (forum, blog, etc.) and content of the linking web page.

-The anchor text in the backlink (rather than a link with your actual URL, it's best to use descriptive text like apple pie)

-The neighborhood or type of website the web pages is affiliated with (websites known to be link farms or paid for links are not received well by Google).

The cloudy factors regard IP addresses (are all your incoming links from the same IP address?), paid links for advertisements, and linking systems of all kinds. How much these factors matter is unknown but there's evidence that all three do impact the value assigned the link.

Some methods of link values are easy to test and verify, and reverse engineer. Others are difficult to determine so are still open to speculation. Google is also constantly changing its methods of measurement so even with verification any factor may come and go with the changes.

Based on the factors above, which web page do you think would rank higher for a given term? 100 links from web pages with low or no authority rank, many links from the same IP, some with known paid links or link farms, and no anchor text used. Or 25 links, all from different IP addresses, with high authority rank (5-8), same or related subject area, and all using appropriate anchor text.

The one with 25 better quality and variety of backlinks will be ranked higher than the one with 100 not so good links. I see web pages all the time with much fewer quality links that outrank web pages with hundreds of poor quality links. If you adhere to all of the known factors, your links will have much more impact than spewing out 100s of no value links.

So based on the current known factors, what's the best backlinking strategy? Pay attention and only create backlinks that adhere to the high quality basics. The linking page should have an authority of at least 3 or above, use meaningful anchor text, all links should be from different IP addresses, and from a variety of web pages formats (blogs, forums, article directories, related web pages, etc.). Stay far away from any known link farms or paid link web pages, and web pages with no authority ranking.

Good quality link building does take some dedicated effort. But following the known criteria and staying away from poor quality links is more than worth the effort. Use a little common sense and make the extra effort to get links that will produce better rankings. Don't worry about acquiring large numbers of links; go for the quality links that will increase your web page rank. It's much better to get 30-40 good quality backlinks per month than 100s of low quality backlinks.