Because
of persistent manipulation of links for ranking, search engines started
site measurement based on link quality rather than numbers. Quality
links are harder to achieve and require a lot more work. Below are some
guidelines to remember while developing links for your
site:
The number of inbound links is important in determining ranking.
Link volume matters, but this is not the only factor. It‘s easy to
generate thousands of links through spam but those are worthless to the
visitor and are not a reflection of the quality of the site. Google and
other search engines count link popularity while showing a site in
a search result. Their quality metrics ensure that the quality of the
link is more important than just a basic link count.
Links from relevant sites are better than links on sites irrelevant to your site.
Getting an on-topic link from an on-topic site or blog post will
provide much more value than a link that is on a completely irrelevant
site. Links from unrelated sites generally won’t serve much purpose to
the site’s visitors nor will they generate much traffic. You’re always
better off getting links from places where the link will generate
traffic.
Anchor text should have your keywords in them.
The anchor text used is an added bonus that will let the search engines see what people
are saying about your site. Developing hundreds or thousands of links
with same anchor text will not look natural. Try to mix up your
keywords and use various phrases and variations of your main keyword.
Links on a page with many outgoing links are rated lower than links on a page with few.
The value of each link on a page diminishes based on the number of
other outgoing links on that page. For the sake of simplicity, let’s
say that a page has a total of 100 points of link value it can pass. If
there is one link on that page then all 100 points are transferred to
the page it’s linking to. If two links are on the page then each link
passes 50 points. If a page has 100 links, each link passes one point.
Reciprocal links are ranked lower than one way links.
If reciprocal links are natural and they add value to
both sites, they provide value. However, if you are reciprocating
links to manipulate search engine those links will be devalued. Mostly
because those links provide little value to the visitors anyway and if
the search engines can spot them they will take that into account.