What Back Links Mean For Your Site

wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/backlink.png” alt=”http://www.investitwisely.com/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2010/07/backlink.png” width=”180″ height=”130″ />The various aspects of SEO pertaining to on-page optimization cannot be argued against. With that said  you have to pay attention to a number of off-page optimization variables as well.  Each side is dependent to a real degree on the other, and focusing on one too much and the other too little will negatively impact your SEO efforts. On-page optimization and off-page optimization should work together, since compromising one for the other will mean compromising your search engine ranking and page rank.

The primary area of off-page optimization you should concentrate on is  back links. Google places a heavy importance on back links in their algorithm used to rank websites. Google is not alone among search engines that take back links into consideration when determining the value of a website. All the major search engines including Yahoo, and Bing also consider links greatly important when assigning rank and value to your site.

Not that long ago, if you wanted back links all you had to do was join in a reciprocal link campaign. Webmasters from a variety of sites contacted other website owners in their industry and requested a link exchange. If the other website owner was interested, there would be a successful exchange of links – or in other terms, they would backlink each other.

It was a very tedious process that used lot of time and human efforts that wound up being a wastre of resources many times. The links were often considered to be very low quality as Google looked down on such exchanges showing a preference instead for ‘organic’ links that came with nothing given in return.

Sites did eventually catch on to Google’s disapproval of backlink exchanges, and link farms were born, then three way link exchanges where site A linked to site B which linked to site C which linked back to site A. Everyone had an idea of howto circumvent the rules of organic linking. Google quickly caught on to what was going on and also discounted these links, as well as links going to sites where hundreds of websites would link back to yours only to be discovered not to be relevant links.

Now reciprocal link exchanges to increase one’s back links is a method of the past. There are a number of other ways of getting one-way links free of cost. This is called ‘organic linking’, and you can hire a linking professional to build you a linking network or wheel that will provide quality one way links from other relevant sites with no backlink need in return.

The goals you set should be commensurate with their efforts and you should constantly be on contact with your SEO to ensure that there is no black-hat link building. You only want good solid links obtained through the correct channels that will give your website a good reputation.