Link Building That Makes Sense: Who To Link To
By Daria Goetsch
When you are building links to increase your link popularity, who do you link to? The
question of where to link to increase ranking can be confusing. Logical thinking is
needed to achieve link popularity in a natural way.
Google PageRank
First and foremost, PageRank is part of the algorithm of Google's ranking in the
search engine results. Other search engines use link popularity in their algorithm to
evaluate your website as well. But PageRank is only one of the 100 plus criteria
Google uses to evaluate your web pages. Use the idea of PageRank as a "tool" to help
make decisions, there's no need to live and die by the results. Link popularity itself
is merely one way to improve your ranking.
Should You Link To Them?
Think about it. You see a quality website, you see good content. The site is a "Mom
and Pop" website with little ranking. So what if the Google Toolbar says PageRank
2/10? That 2/10 may one day be 8/10. More importantly, you are linking to it because
it is good to link to for your visitors - end of story.
Reciprocal Linking Fears
There is a general fear of reciprocal linking to websites who inadvertently link to
a "bad neighborhood" with penalties or PageRank zero, passing on problems to you. Use
your common sense. Is this a website you would want to visit or your visitors would
want to visit? If the answer is no or you can't tell what the subject of the site is,
make a note of it and keep looking. A website full of links with little content
doesn't "make sense" because what benefit is it to you or your visitors? Of course you
are going to link to your partners in business or maybe the small website that is
doing a bang up job of selling widgets and providing widget information.
Linking Just To Link
If you are going to link, what purpose does it serve? The idea of acquiring link
popularity by linking back and forth to other sites to boost your popularity
artificially is a popular method. But is it of value to your website? Ask yourself:
 Would you link to
this site if link popularity in the search engines didn't matter?
Would your visitor
care about this link or find it helpful?
Does the website
have good content?
Is this an
opportunity for you to publicize your website by being listed there?
Will this link
cause you to spend a great deal of time worrying about it?
Is the link "just
a link" or do you want a link from any site whose visitors care about what you have to say
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