Links from other websites are often over looked by new webmasters as a means to increasing ones rank in the search engines like Google and Yahoo or Bing. One way links, inbound links, backward links are just a few of the more popular terms used by those with experience and which refer to any link from another website or domain to your website. Google decided a while back that the number and type of links that point at your website will also play a large part in determining how well your website will rank. There are a number of other details about these links which also determine your websites ability to rank well.
Most new webmasters tend to gravitate toward what is on their website and how it is structured in order to improve and optimize it in the search engines. This common sense approach use to work well a number of years back until it became too easy for any webmaster to 'trick' the search engines into sending them traffic they didn't deserve. After many attempts to stop these spammers Google finally came up with a not so perfect idea to put the control in the peoples hands. They basically decided to keep a webpage's page structure and content in mind but not make it the only deciding factor. They decided that if your site is worth anything, other people (and their websites) would link to it. Kind of like a vote of confidence from an outside source. There are of course many flaws to this system, but generally it works quite well at keeping the spammers at bay.
At first, after everyone figured out what Google was doing, they all started trading links. You link to me and I will link to you... This was a little too easy and Google's found spam was on the rise again. They countered by lowering the importance of a two way link or reciprocal link and made one way inbound links worth their weight in gold. One way links are of course a lot harder to get or control. This let to the rise of the many directories and link farms. The mad rush to have more links than your competition is on. Not only the number of links but the type of links is important. A few links from some authority websites (sites that Google thinks are important and legitimate) are worth more than a lot of links from new or questionable sites
So if you have tweaked and re-tweaked your website and you still don't seem to rank any better or get any more hits then it is high time you got some links pointing at your website. One great way to do this is by submitting your website to the thousands of smaller independent website directorys. They can be found all over the web and there are some neat lists of all the free and paid ones at various sites like www.directorycritic.com. |
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