SEO Site Linking

[29FIVE Designs]

Everyone knows that other sites that link to your site helps in the SEO process. Everyone should also know that reputable sites will help you while some other sites will actually hurt you. How do know differentiate between these two types of site though???

[afox]

I'm not sure if this was a rhetorical question or not... so I'll reply.

At one of my previous jobs at a web hosting company, we had the privledge of sitting in on a discourse about Google SEO put on by one of the guys at google. (no not the main guys, I don't remember his name, but he was very informative). He answered a myriad of questions posed by us in the room and explained a lot about how PR works and really focused on link backs.

He made it abundantly clear that a link back is a link back, regardless of where its from. It can't hurt you as you often can't choose who links to you. He stated, just view it as a compliment. Besides, you really can't prevent people from linking to you.

It certainly is true that reputable sites will help you with ranking and traffic, but **** sites, smut sites, or spam sites dont' hurt your ranking. But I would strongly advise not linking back :)

Also quick note that was also mentioned... link backs, at least by google, are each counted as a vote. (numerous links on the same site though are usually just 1 vote), each vote you have gets you closer to a higher PR. Many people aren't that concerned with PR but I thought that was interesting.

A link back is always a good thing, you might want to make your links "Anchor Text" as this does often give your "back links" a boost. =) The reason it does this is not only are you getting the backlink, but you are also getting counted for the keyword that is inside of your anchor text.

[Business]

Yeah, I also read from many people articles, people think that as penalty. I don't think this is penalty.

Also quick note that was also mentioned... link backs, at least by google, are each counted as a vote. (numerous links on the same site though are usually just 1 vote), each vote you have gets you closer to a higher PR. Many people aren't that concerned with PR but I thought that was interesting.

So do you mean, If we get 10 links from 1 site it will consider as 1 vote? or 10 votes?

[afox]

Some cases it would be counted as multiple votes, but I think there are several factors that come into play. More often than not it's simply going to be one vote.

So a good rule of thumb would be to consider 1 website as 1 vote. That way no one gets their hopes up.

It's of course much more complicated than that, but you get the idea. Wikipedia has an excellent spread on Page Rank.

[lolly]

It's never a good idea to link to people with 3 or less

[SatanicPenguins]

Id rather have 100 Links from pr3 sites than 0 links from pr3 sites...

[afox]

Amen! Nothing wrong with a link back, regardless of where it comes from. Unless... your mom's watching and is like, "Alfred, why is there a pr0n site linking to yours?"... uh....

But, you should always be careful and stingy with links you give to others. This is something that can seriously affect how well your site does.