What Constitutes Good Links?

[chumbawunga]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/3526707.htm [webmasterworld.com] by martinibuster - 10:25 am on Dec. 13, 2007 (utc -8)

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Thanks for your advice. One thing I do not want to do is to undermine my eventual page rankings.

In your opinion how important are links I am having different views thrust at me and what constitutes a good link, I take it one that has immediate relevance to the business I am in?

[ZydoSEO]

IMO there is no such thing as a 'bad' link... therefore, one might infer that all links are 'good'... but there are varying degrees of 'good'.

Unless there is obvious and overwhelming evidence that you are buying links, I'm not sure the SEs can really penalize your site directly. But they can go after those selling links, which indirectly hurts you as a buyer because you may now not get what you paid for... and may continue to pay for the links not knowing that you are being passed Zero link equity from them.

The best links IMO are from authoritative, high PR sites that are relevent to your site, from pages on that source site where they are targeting similar or same keywords as the page to which they are linking on your site, and having the link in the actual text of the source site's page, and the link text for the hyperlink being the keywords you're targeting on the page on your site to which they are linking.

But even a 'click here' link on another site to a page on your site can only help (pass 0 or more link equity), never hurt...

If you're buying links, know where they are coming from... what types of sites they are coming from... get references. And make sure that the growth looks natural.

[martinibuster]

>>>The best links IMO are from authoritative, high PR sites...

Great points, Zydo. :) Hey, it was good seeing you at PubCon, too. ;)

I just wanted to add that I think it's enough for the link to be authoritative. What you should look for when a site links to you is if your rankings change or if traffic increases, nothing else matters. Relying on the Toolbar for making decisions, as well as obsessing on how high your PR is, can cause you to overlook good links.

[ZydoSEO]

Hey Hey Martinibuster... I figured you'd chime in... Was awesome talking to you as well, especially talking about kids.

[glengara]

Must say I prefer the term "trusted" to "authoritative" as the latter implies a certain size/popularity which for most SEOs simply translates to high PR.

I look for link "justification" along the lines Zydo mentioned and check the SERPs for their navigational keywords, if their internal links pass value there's a good chance their OBLs will too....

[PoohBear88]

A good link is a relevant, organic-looking link.

[Crush]

A good link for rankings does not need to be relevant but could be good for "real traffic.

Otherwise a good link is from a site with trust, high pr and/or a lot of backlinks pointing at the page you link is placed on.

[8kobe]

I agree that no links are bad. However I find that good links are links that are on sites that relate to your topic. Think of it like this, If you place a link on a site is that person likely to visit your site from their site because of it? If the answer is yes then put it on their. I personally notice MORE people coming to my sites because of links on other peoples sites then from Google. In the long run links like this will lead not only to higher placement in Google but more traffic (because you will get the combined effects of the linking site and Google).

[daveshap]

I agree with just about everything else that's been said here.

You want to look for a link on a page that has plenty of inbound links pointing to it. Ideally a lot of these links are from topically related sites. Another thing to look for is a page with few other links on it, so that each link carries more weight. If a page has 1000 links on it, your link will get 1/1000th of the pages passable link equity, whereas if there are only 10 links, you'll get 1/10th.

[chumbawunga]

Well guys, first of all a very happy and prosperous New Yearto one and all and apologies for not replyin earlier.
I must say all your comments have been extremely useful and I will utilise your suggestions - watch this space and I will let you know how the rankings improve

[jdancing]

A good link is a natural link - your link embedded in relevant content of another site pointing your site. The linking page should be cached and regularly spidered. Don't worry about PR.

[piatkow]

My view is that a good link is one that real visitors will follow to find my site.

[marketingmagic]

That's great, but where are you all getting the links from? Buying them, or recip exchanges?

[ZydoSEO]

From creating good content to which other sites will want to link? Not all links are bought or exchanged. :)

[afaik]

1) How would you rank links from...

- forums
- blogs
- blog feedback comments
- Youtube video text
- social network pages
- Squidoo and similar sites

2) How important is the link text in those types of links... for example, if your site name is in the text or a descriptive text containing a relevant keyword - which is better?

[ZydoSEO]

2) I'd rather have relevant keywords in the link text (and in the text in paragraphs around the link) than to have the name of my site unless you have a large brand name that many people actually search for.

[edited by: ZydoSEO at 9:17 pm (utc) on Feb. 15, 2008]