The Off-Site Criteria
Theory
As the competition online continues to grow, more emphasis has
been put on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This emphasis on SEO has put
stress on search engines to update their algorithms more frequently. With
conventional algorithms however, it was never long before spammers & SEO's
would find a way to abuse the algorithm. For this reason, more and more search
engines are now using "off-site criteria" as part of their ranking
algorithms.
Off-site criteria is defined as being anything related to a
given page that does not reside on that page. A link to a given website (Website
A) from a different website (Website B) represents "off-site" criteria for
Website A. Off-site criteria carries perhaps more importance in modern search
engines than on-site criteria. The reason for this is that a website developer
may easily abuse on-site criteria given that he/she would have access to those
pages, while the developer would find it much more difficult to abuse off-site
criteria over which they have no control.
Hyperlinks are the perfect
off-site criteria to use. Indeed many search engines now rely more on hyperlinks
than any other item for ranking websites. Google in particular has shown that
accurate results can be achieved through the use of hyperlink analysis. Because
there is now this emphasis on hyperlinks, we advise that you attempt to gain
inbound links (links to your website) from other websites. Although if you own
more than 2 websites, be careful of how you link them together as you may
inadvertently create a link farm.
How to Get Inbound
Links
Achieving mass inbound links is not as difficult as one might
think. In fact you may be pleasantly surprised to hear that a website with good
content may over time receive thousands of voluntary inbound links from other
websites. In order to gain some links fast however, you may wish to request
inbound links from other website owners. The most effective method of gaining
inbound links is to find websites of similar topic to yours and send an email to
the webmaster of that site asking if he would be kind enough to link to you.
Keep in mind that only a small percentage of people will actually take you up on
the offer and link to your website. Moreover, if the site is a competitor they
will almost certainly not link to your website.
One way to increase the
chances of getting other website to link to you is to offer a link back to their
website. This kind of link exchange is known as "reciprocal linking". In the
email you will send to the webmaster of the other site, be polite and brief.
Explain why you believe a reciprocal link will be of benefit to both
parties.
You may wish to use the Open Directory Project to find websites in a similar category
to your website. If any of these website have an email address and invite you to
contact then, then use the opportunity to request an inbound link to your
website.
Using the Correct Link Text
The text used in links
is by far the most important part of gaining inbound links. Search engines use
the "anchor text" to determine the primary keywords for a given site. The idea
behind using the anchor text is that the most descriptive and relevant words are
usually used in order to link to a website, so these should be more accurate
than on-site keywords. If requesting a reciprocal link, always try to get the
webmaster to use your target keywords in the link to your website.
A good
way of getting people to link to you with pre-defined text is to create a page
on your website with link examples. This way you have more control over how
people link to you.
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