Why Google Values Inbound Links

CREATING A SUCCESSFUL LINK PROGRAM - Part 2

WHY GOOGLE VALUES INBOUND LINKS

by Rick Hendershot,
Linknet Publishing Network - http://www.sbo-linknet.com

Now that you know why inbound links are important to the success of your site, let's have a look at the importance Google gives to
links.

WHY DOES GOOGLE VALUE INBOUND LINKS?

The simple fact of the matter is that Google (and other Search
Engines) rank your site higher if it has a number of inbound links. The SEs assume that links to and from other sites indicate other site owners in your area of interest consider your site worth looking at. Therefore, the more inward pointing links you have, the more your site is viewed as important and a good source of information for your specific target audience.

Follow up:

This was the thinking that led the founders of Google to develop
the "Page Rank" system. That is why Google and most of the other
major Search Engines generally give a ranking to sites with a
number of incoming links -- especially if they are from relevant
high traffic sites.*

PAGE RANK AND RELEVANCY

These days, the serious Search Engines can tell what a site is
about by analyzing the content. This is especially the case with
Google. This allows the SEs to compare sites according to subject
matter, and to determine which sites are "relevant" to which others. As I mentioned above, a link from a "relevant" site is
given more weight by Google than just any old link.

For example, let's say your site is about Golden Retrievers.
Incoming links from other sites that deal with Golden Retrievers,
dogs, or pet care are considered "relevant" to your site. The more an outside site focuses on pets, and particularly Golden
Retrievers, the more "relevant" it is considered to yours. These
links, along with the actual content of your site, are analyzed by Google to arrive at what is called your Google Page Rank. So the more links you have from "relevant" sites, the better your Page Rank.

In other words Google uses a number of important factors to arrive at a ranking for your site. First is the actual content of your site -- analyzed in terms of keywords and key phrases. Second is the number of inbound links to specific pages. Third is the Page Rank of the pages linked to yours. And fourth is the relevance of the pages linked to yours.

This has a direct bearing on your link exchange strategy. You
should not just pile up the links. That will not help your incoming traffic, and will not help your Google Page Rank. You should look for links from relevant sites, and particularly ones with a high Page Rank.

NOTES
*From Anatomy of a Search Engine: "Another intuitive justification is that a page can have a high PageRank if there are many pages that point to it, or if there are some pages that point to it and have a high PageRank. Intuitively, pages that are well cited from many places around the web are worth looking at. Also, pages that have perhaps only one citation from something like the Yahoo! homepage are also generally worth looking at. If a page was not high quality, or was a broken link, it is quite likely that Yahoo's homepage would not link to it."

Please Note: Many search engine experts argue that Google has seriously downgraded the importance of Page Rank to their search results. You can test this for yourself. Do a search in Google on any keyword - for example, "pet care". Then click through to the first five sites listed and note their Page Rank.

In Lesson 3 we will discuss your linking objectives and what to
look for in link partners.

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