3 Things Search Engines Want To See - Using Links The Engines Will Like
Search engine companies are constantly changing their algorithms to keep their results up-to-date. Optimization used to be the primary factor search engines used to determine a websit’s ranking. However, it currently makes up only about 10% of their total algorithms. What carries the most weight with search engines now is linking.
Linking is the process of connecting to other sites that are relevant to your target market and that are highly ranked, and of getting them to connect to you. Google has, by far, the largest percentage of the search engine marketing, and they’re link-driven. The other search engines tend to follow Google's lead, so the market is moving faster in that direction.
When choosing which sites you want to link to, keep in mind what the search engines want to see:
Search engines are looking for consistent results. More links aren't necessarily better. In fact, getting too many links at once, such as by joining a link farm, can actually hurt your rankings. Gaining 20,000 links this month and 13 links next month is going to trip their filters and, for all your work, you’re going to find yourself dropping in the rankings. With links, the search engines are more concerned with quality than quantity.
Search engines are looking for one-way links. Reciprocal links are often just people exchanging links to mutually increase their link counts. The search engines have grown wise to this practice and adapted their algorithms. Says Chapman, then one website wants to link to another website, that’s showing that the second website has got something of value?The one-way link is probably worth 20 times as much as a reciprocal link.
It takes time to achieve good positioning in the search engines, especially with the more competitive keywords. Any attempts to trick the engines may work for a while; but they're getting more and more sophisticated, and they'll eventually catch up with you. Not only will your trick no longer work, but you may get blackballed or be penalized in your rankings. The best way to achieve high rankings is to give the search engines what they're looking forward fresh content and relevant links.
This article is about SEO and web hosting.