How many quality links would be sufficient to increase a ranking?

[Team_Index]

Ok, let's assume that my business' site's popularity, according to the Alexa toolbar, is 1,000,000.

I believe Google is 1 and Yahoo is 2.

We currently offer product on the website of the largest seller of books/music online. Their ranking according to Alexa is 19. (I guess I'm not allowed to give the site out, although we all know who it is). If i include a link on that website pointing to ours, how much would that pull me up alone?

Obviously the more quality links the better, but that's a good start right? I was just curious how much that one link would increase my visibility.

Thanks much.

[diamondgrl]

Alexa is not totally meaningless, but it's not really a good gauge for what you are looking at. Alexa measures traffic vaguely, but can be manipulated easily.

But if you're talking about real traffic, not the Alexa surrogate measurement, you may increase somewhat by having such a link from Amazon, which you are allowed to mention here, I believe. You will benefit potentially from people following the link to you and your Google PR may increase, leading to your pages rising in the SERPs and therefore getting more traffic.

But you also need to consider whether Amazon's ZShops program, which is I believe what you're talking about, allows you to list URLs. And you need to look to see whether ZShop listings carry PR.

[martinibuster]

Increasing your backlinks in order to increase your ranking in order to increase your traffic, in order to increase your Alexa ranking is not the most efficient way of increasing your Alexa ranking.

Because a great many Alexa toolbar users are in Korea, you may want to consider putting some Korean content on your website, submitting it to directories in Korea (especially Yahoo Korea), and even buying some advertising. You may need to consult an Asian search engine specialist about this.

If you have a core audience that returns to your website on a regular basis, you can offer the Alexa toolbar to your site visitors. When they return to your website, your Alexa rankings will shoot through the roof. If you have a newsletter, include a link to the toolbar download, with suggestions of all the benefits the toolbar has.

Email all of your friends, family, employees and colleagues with the suggestion that they too download the toolbar and visit your website from time to time.

The connection between your actual traffic and Alexa rankings are tenuous at best. I don't recommend expending your energies in link development for the purpose of increasing your Alexa rankings when there are more efficient methods for accomplishing that goal.

[diamondgrl]

Team_Index,

You need to clarify what your goal is. I inferred that your end goal was to increase traffic to your site. You were trying to use Alexa as a surrogate measure of how well you were doing. I think that is not the greatest measure.

Meanwhile, Martinibuster apparently inferred that your end goal is to increase your Alexa rating. To what end, I would have no ideas. If, indeed, that's what you want to do, well he had good advice, perhaps. If that wasn't your ultimate aim, I would forget about Alexa altogether and just focus on the best ways to get traffic.

[Team_Index]

Let me be a little more clear.

1. The website I am referring to is Amazon.com

2. Our company is not on Amazon's ZShops. We are on Amazon.com directly in the Gourmet Food section (one of Amazon's brand new areas).

3. My goal isn't necessarily to increase my Alexa ranking. My goal is to get our company to the top of search results when people type in my chosen keywords. Having links on other popular sites to ours increases the chances of having our company's URL come up higher in search results, right? Well, one obvious choice would be to list our link in our product description in Amazon.com. I would assume that would help our search-result-ranking, so to speak (assuming the correct keyword was typed in).

[martinibuster]

diamondgrl is right, if what you want is to increase your rankings and traffic, rely less on the Alexa rankings and focus on the Google serps and where you stand in those serps in relation to your competition.

In that case diamondgrl offers good advice. I don't think an Alexa toolbar rank belongs in a discussion about link development.

[Team_Index]

Well then I apologize. Let's just drop that because my main goal is to have our company's URL get to the top of search results in the main search engines.

Having links on popular sites pointing to ours would help, I assume. My question was: Is even one link from a website as popular as Amazon.com enough to significantly increase the chances of my company's URL getting nearer to the top of search results?

[Team_Index]

Anyone else?

[treeline]

It ought to help. How much is hard to tell. First, the page needs to be passing on pagerank. If it is, how much? Start with how much pagerank that page has and how many links from that page?

You want a page with high pagerank and low # of links.

In any event, it shouldn't hurt to be linked from Amazon, it may bring you traffic directly from clickthroughs, and perhaps from boosting you on Google.

[Team_Index]

Thank you.

[neuron]

first, you need to determine if the link you will receive will be indexed. look to see what other sites are link to from that page or similar pages and then look to see if the page is question is showing up as a backlink for any of those other sites. On a site like amazon not all links may pass link pop or PR, the search engines may not even know they are there, even if they can find the pages.

Does the page in question have Toolbar PR? If not, and the link is spiderable, it may not pass much. However, a link like that is generally for traffic, and you seem to be after more than traffic. You may also want to look at some of the offerings from some text link brokers, they are offering more targeted links these days.