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Backlinks

A backlink is an incoming link to your website/webpage. Search Engines use these backlinks to determine how popular your website is with other sites. The more sites that link to your website page, the more popular that page is deemed. In addition, many Search Engines also consider the ranking of the site that is linking to yours. If a website with a low rating links to your webpage, then that will not carry much weight in the popularity calculation. However, if the site sending a link to your webpage carries a high ranking, then your webpage is considered more credible. Google’s PageRank is a good example of this. PageRank uses a licensed algorithm to measure a page’s popularity based on the backlinks and the PageRank of the sending sites. It then assigns that page a rank between 0 and 10.

Getting Backlinks

For a newer website (or an older website lacking backlinks) you should be patient in gathering backlinks, especially quality backlinks. It takes a bit of planning and time. These newer links are not valued as high as aged links, so as the backlinks to your website mature, the value of those backlinks increases. Make sure the anchor text (text displayed for the link) contains a good description or keyword for your webpage. (For more information about anchor text see Anchor Text under Step 4: Website Optimization/Making Your Website Robot-Friendly).

ACTION STEP 2

	In order to increase the ranking of your website simply look for other sites that can link to one of your webpages. Focus on quality websites (those ranked well) that are relevant to your website/webpage. Try to avoid websites that just have a long listing of links.