What Are Backlinks?
Backlinks are links from other pages or websites to a particular page. Generally speaking the more backlinks a given has the more “popular” it is deemed to be. Google and other search engines rank web sites according to the number of links coming into the site. They especially like one way links.
One Way Links
A one way link occurs when a web site is linking to you but you are not linking back to them. Search engines have a much greater preference for one way links than two way or three way links, see below.
Two Way or Reciprocal Links
This occurs when you are linking to a website and it is linking back to you.
Three Way Links
This occurs when you are linking to another website i.e www.A.com, this site in turn links to www.B.com and www.B.com links back to you. Initially this looks like a one way link coming to your site. You may see services promoting three way linking as a great way of improving traffic to your site – don’t waste your money. The search engines can see right through this.
Not all Backlinks Are Equal
Google, in particular, and other search engines give more weight to some backlinks than they do to other. The value of a banklink can depend on a number of factors including.
- The Google PageRank of the page linking to your site
- The anchor text used in the link
- The relevancy of the linking page to your site
- Whether or not the link to you has the “no-follow” tag
The best links have would be from another website which has content related to your site, has a high Google PageRank, uses anchor text in the link that is relevant to your page or web site and does not have a no-follow tag in it.