[jcorkern]

Links are given value by hundreds of different reasons, but i will list the basics and a brief reason to why they are used.

If you follow these basics, you will be safe and have a better idea of what is needed.

1. Links are tracked by server IP address. This is to keep someone from buying 200 urls and hosting them on a reseller server and linking to the main site. This is considered a linking scheme. So, if you get 200 links from 200 different URL's on the same server, the links are discounted drasticaly.

2. Anchor text: anchor text is probably one of the 3 most important factors concerning links. It is the clickable text of the link pointing to your site. Let me go a little further with this one. Do a search for "CLICK HERE" in Google and Adobe will show up first. yet, click here is not on the page.

Now, how many times have you seen this on a site: "you can download this PDF for free but you will need the adobe reader to download it. If you do not have the adobe reader, Click Here to download the free adobe reader. And the CLICK HERE link points to the adobe site.

The anchor text is like a "VOTE" for the adobe site for the phrase CLICK HERE. Understand?

3. Related links: This is also misunderstood. A related link is not what you think. If i have a site about sharks, and you have a site about fish, would this be a high quality related link?

The answer is no. For the top quality link, you must have your keywords in the title and /or in the content of the page. So, if you have a fish site and i link to you from a shark site, it will not have as much value as a link from a site that has the word "FISH" in the title and/or the content. This is why articles and press releases are so powerfull, you control the title and content. Now, do not take this the wrong way, a link from a shark site is better than a link from a frog site due to LSI, but a single link from a page with the title and content with your keywords will out value the the semi related site 10 to 1. so you would have to get 10 more shark to fish links to equal 1 article link if both pages are the same PR and same position and same anchor text.

4. Position of link on page: This is also a major factor and a lot of thought was put into this. A top left link has more value than a bottom left or even a center(usualy content) link. the reason is because of clickthrough rates. A link that is on the top left is the most valuable because the human who reads english reads in a reverse s pattern, and the link position on a page follows the reverse s pattern, value drops the lower on the reverse s you get.

If you go to textlinkbrokers, they have links broken down in zones, and this is why they have these zones set up.

5. PR of the page the link is on. not PR of the site it is on. The PR of the page has a great effect on the value of a proper link.


With understanding these few things about links, you can easily beat sites with 10k low quality links with only 500 quality links. Or you can bust your tail getting trash or lower quality links and have someone beat you with just a nominal amount of links.


Hope this helps.

Jim