Link wisely for a better rank

Search engine optimisation techniques must change and grow in sophistication in proportion to the speed of change and advancement of search engines themselves.

Robert Beerworth, managing director of Australian Web design and development firm Wiliam, points out that “Search engines are very sophisticated. Search engines like Google have got thousands of rules for determining the validity and integrity of your Website and its content. The algorithms employed are very clever and evolving all of the time.”

Agencies like Wiliam, that develop their own search engine optimisation systems, must stay continually up to speed with SEO technology advances and ranking algorithm changes.

Google, for example, has a ranking measure that involves the number of sites that a Website links out to, and the number of topic relevant sites that link back to it. However, setting up a suite of linked sites with a virtual hosting service which have different emphasis in terms of content is potentially ineffectual because, as Mr. Beerworth reveals “Google knows if your sites are all hosted on the same server – at the same IP address [this is the numeric address which identifies the host computer on the internet] – and generally adjusts your site rankings down accordingly.”

If your Website is commercial in nature, then search engine rankings are usually essential to its success. To get positive results from linking to other sites, ensure that they are relevant, and look for sites that have higher ranks themselves. Outbound links should only go to relevant sites with good rankings.

The best link related ranking boost comes from having other popular sites with strong rankings lined inbound.

Relevancy, at the very least, is essential. A good strategy for retailers can be to link to sites owned by manufacturers and up stream providers, and arrange for links in return. This can provide a synergistic boost for both parties’ on-line rankings.

The more popular the other site – the better its rank – the more ‘weight’ it will lend to the ranking of sites that it links to.

References and Further Reading

Brin, Sergei and Lawrence Page. "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine".  Stanford University, 1997. 30 March 2007 2007. <http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html>.