We’ve already spent a good bit of time extolling the virtues of high-quality links. That’s because search engines take great pride in their ability to have literally hundreds of algorithmic components to evaluate link quality. Some of the important factors they consider that we’ve already looked at include:

1. Visibility, Status and Trust of Linking Domain (Time vs. Weekly World News)
2. Semantic Value of Anchor Text (search engine optimization vs. click here)
3. Location of Link in Site Structure (Deep, Natural Links vs. Shallow, Spammy Links)

In addition to these elements there are other advanced factors the engines apply when determining link value:

Location of Link on Page:


Based on this structural evaluation, links from content areas are considered more valuable than links from other areas of the page. While search engines certainly are not perfect at implementing this metric, the take-away is that it’s better to have links integrated into relevant content (with good anchor text) than to have them stuck in a sidebar list or on the bottom of the page.

Relevance of Domain & Page:

Terms in your page URL and Title tags are extremely valuable when helping search engines determine the nature of your page content. As we discussed earlier, using deep page URLs that describe the page are valuable in this regard (www.seattleboatours.com/articles/holiday_tours.html). Search engines use semantics to determine the likelihood of content relating to search query terms.

For example, a Google search for ‘allintitle: dog & canine’ (which lists all sites with both “dog” and “canine” in the title) yields 80,300 results, whereas ‘allintitle: dog & shovel’ yields only 50 results. Similarly, ‘allinurl: dog & canine’ (which lists all sites with both terms in the actual URL) yields 15,500 results and ‘allinurl: dog & shovel’ yields zero results. While this example is painfully gratuitous, the point is clear: the engines know that if you search for ‘dog’, pages with the word canine in the URL or title are much more likely to be relevant to you than pages with the word shovel. Conversely a page with the term ‘shovel’ featured prominently in the URL may not be as reliable a source for content with the keywords dog and/or canine.

There is a whole science behind semantic indexing, but all you need to know is this: Page domains and titles that offer semantic relevance to your content convey an impression of reliability and relevance. Similarly, links to you from pages with semantically related content and or titles/URLs create consistency and relevance that the engines will reward.

Visible vs. Invisible Links:

All the links in the world won’t do you any good if the search engines cannot see them. Many sites use tactics to prevent the engines from following certain links on their pages in an effort to avoid spam.

Links embedded as java script, tagged with a nofollow command (rel=”nofollow” following the href URL), included on a page with a meta nofollow or blocked by robots.txt may not be visible to the search engines and, accordingly, pass no link value. Before you expend too much time or effort building links on a certain site or page, make sure you will get credit for them from the search engines.

Indications of Spam or Manipulation:

While high-quality, relevant links will get you a healthy bump in search rankings, spammy, manipulative linking tactics are a good way to get your site flagged for deceptive practices. If most of your links are from ads, linkfarms, domains you own or IP addresses suspiciously similar to yours, the engines will take notice.

Cheap link buys, reciprocal links and brokered links aren’t necessarily bad for getting your numbers up; but the engines can easily detect and discount a pattern of low-quality links from irrelevant pages. All of the algorithm technology exists not only to reward all of the great content and links you’ve built, but to recognize the abundance of useless pages on the web as well and keep it from influencing the search engine results pages (SERPS).

This guide does not cover manipulative link practices in depth; rather, we will focus on illuminating tactics that will provide both short and long-term benefits.