Link Building Tips

These days even the most hardcore SEO copywriter must know somewhere deep inside that on-page SEO elements are a tiny part of Google's ranking algorithm. The heart of Google's ranking algorithm is - and will remain - anchor text and inbound links.

One link per linking domain

Instead of site wide links, try getting just one or two links from those websites that choose to link to yours.

It's hard to resist the temptation to get those site wide links, but site wide links aren't exactly a normal linking pattern and may raise a red flag with Big Brother Google.

Fewer Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal links are easy to detect and may be subject to negative valuation. Try to keep your reciprocal links under 5% of your total linkage.

Varied Anchor Text

Use variations of your keywords in your anchor text. Using the exact same anchor text in the majority of your links may raise red flags insofar as natually occurring links tend to not use identical anchor text.

Varied IP's

Using dozens or even hundreds of domains on your own server and on a single Class C IP Block to create link popularity for yourself is so 2004. Move on. The search engines have figured this one out.

Related Links

If you want to rank for Web Marketing, get links from pages that talk about web marketing. Better yet, get links from pages that have web marketing in the title of the page. It works.

Link Acquisition Strategies

Submit to the major directories, such as DMOZ and Yahoo. These links may actually drive some traffic.
Second Tier Directories

There are hundreds of second tier web directories out there. Submission is sometimes just $20 or $30, so you really can't go wrong. Only pay if it's a one time fee.

Free Directories

One of the nicer things on the Internet is a free submission web directory. There are hundreds of these web directories, usually generating revenue by displaying Adsense ads. Go submit. Now. You can read the rest of this later.

Topical Directories

One of the better quality links that may give you targeted traffic is a listing in a topical web directory. If you sell widgets, go over to widget-world.com and get listing.

Related Sites

Do a search on your favorite search engine. Note the top ten websites ranking for your search term. Offer these website owners a small annual fee to have your link appear on the index pages of their websites.

Reciprocal Linking

Exchange links with a few of the better quality sites which deal with the same topics as your website.

Press Releases

New product line? Company going public? Acquired another company? Any newsworthy event you may have, do a press release and submit it through PRweb.com.

Link Conducive Content

Create useful informational pages which attract links. Offer a free tool, or advice. Forums often attract free links.

Free Stuff in Exchange for Links

Ever wonder how phpBB.com got a PageRank of ten? They gave away a script for free, with a link back to phpBB on every page. We gave away free hosting and saw some sweet PR, too.

Paid Stuff in Exchange for Links

The vast majority of vBulletin's backlinks come from paying customers using their software. Ask your customers, politely, for a link.

It doesn't have to be web related, either. Even if you sell lumber, you can ask your contractor/customers to link back to your website from theirs.

Writing Articles

Write articles. Include a link in your byline. Offer articles to related websites. Voila. Linkage.

Writing Testimonials

One great way to get links and make people happy is to give other webmasters testimonials. Do you like your web host? Neither do I, but it doesn't stop me from offering a testimonial to my web host which includes a link back to my website.

Blogs & Forums

Contribute intelligently to blog or forum discussions. Include a link to your website in your signature.

Free Hosted Doorway Pages

Create a two or three page doorway site on Geocities. Include your keywords in the page titles. Include several links to your real website with your keywords in the anchor text. Provide doorway pages with limited number of links from dubious sources.

Natural Linkage

Whatever you do, do it bigger and better than the other guys. Create content that is genuinely useful, and the links will come natually.

Top 10 search engines

The Nielsen/NetRatings report which analyzed the top 10 search engines for November 2005 found Google Search to be the leader in this field capturing 46% of all searches.

During 2005 a staggering 2,365,998,000 searches were made using Google making it to be the Topper.

In second place was Yahoo! Search with only 23%, half that of Google Search.

It seems that Google Search is clearly head and shoulders above the competition.

The rest of the search engine pie was shared sparingly amoung the other players.

MSN Search came in third with 11% followed by AOL Search with 6.9%.

Fifth and sixth place were closely contested with My Way Search just ahead with 2.5% followed by Ask Jeeves Search at 2.3%.

There was very little in it for the last three spots with Earthlink, Dogpile.com and Netscape tie for seventh, eigth and ninth places.

iWon Search just made it into the top 10 at 0.5% of the 5.1 billion searches recorded in November last year.

According to Ken Cassar, a chief analyst for Nielsen/NetRatings, the rankings have remained stable over the past few months.

"The top five players have held their respective positions for the past six months, demonstrating the benefits of incumbency in the search arena," said Cassar.

Google Search has once again proved to dominate the search engine market.
But competition is heating up as companies start to develop search engines with a local flavour.

Recently South Africa witnessed a flourish in the local search engine industry with Funnel, eSearch and Jonga attempting to capture the South African audience.

Only time will tell if a close rival for Google Search will emerge, but for now Google is King.

How Search Engines Work?

The term "search engine" is often used generically to describe both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types of search engines gather their listings in radically different ways.

Crawler-Based Search Engines

Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web, then people search through what they have found.

If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed. Page titles, body copy and other elements all play a role.

Human-Powered Directories

A human-powered directory, such as the Open Directory, depends on humans for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted.

Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing. Things that are useful for improving a listing with a search engine have nothing to do with improving a listing in a directory. The only exception is that a good site, with good content, might be more likely to get reviewed for free than a poor site.

"Hybrid Search Engines" Or Mixed Results

In the web's early days, it used to be that a search engine either presented crawler-based results or human-powered listings. Today, it extremely common for both types of results to be presented. Usually, a hybrid search engine will favor one type of listings over another. For example, MSN Search is more likely to present human-powered listings from LookSmart. However, it does also present crawler-based results (as provided by Inktomi), especially for more obscure queries.