Summary:
If you have your own websites, there will be all sorts of people asking you to place a link to their site on your site. You have been approached by link buyers, link sellers, and brokers. Every one out there believes that getting links is the be-all and end-all of search engine optimization.

On the one hand I have to agree that getting links is important, on the other, I am not comfortable with some of the methods used. And to add to the already grey area of buying links f…

If you have your own websites, there will be all sorts of people asking you to place a link to their site on your site. You have been approached by link buyers, link sellers, and brokers. Every one out there believes that getting links is the be-all and end-all of search engine optimization.

On the one hand I have to agree that getting links is important, on the other, I am not comfortable with some of the methods used. And to add to the already grey area of buying links for the purpose of altering your search engine ranking is a directive from a major search engine, the most major one actually, that they will be lowering the valued of sold links!

So, let us look at some of the basics of getting links that will, quite likely, be the smart way to get links.

First of all, I think that it is not natural to have many sites giving you sitewides. Why would a normal site want to give you a link from all of its pages? Ok, for a coupe of sites there might be some reason, but for the most part it is unnatural. The moral of the story is that, if you buy links, buy them on a specific page, probably the homepage, and not on all pages of a site.

Second, make sure that the sites linking to you are of all types. If your link building campaign revolves only around directory submission, or article marketing, or high PR pages, or the like, search engines might figure it out and lower your value.

Third, make sure that your links are added slowly and not all at once, unless your destination page is newsy. I am not saying that getting a thousand links in a week is too many. But a thousand links in one week and close to no links for the next few weeks might look strange.

Fourth, and this one is well known, make sure that you are not being linked to from a page that is virtually a link farm.

Fifth, ensure that your links look like natural links. How would that be? Well, on the one hand, try to have varying text in the link (this text is called the anchor text). On the other, you can try and get links to the main page as well as to other pages. This will make the links appear “natural.”

Sixth, focus on the topic or theme of the page that is linking to you. Focused links are quite likely more valuable. At the same time do not go overboard with this one. Unrelated links have value too. But the one thing that you should avoid is getting links from pages that link to a lot of “bad” pages. True you cannot control who links to you. But at least avoid knowingly getting links from “bad neighborhoods.”

Finally, stay away from reciprocal linkage. Reciprocal linkage is common in the world of blogs and may not be the poison pills that they are often known to be. All the same make sure that you do not have too many reciprocals. Surely you would not like to have the reputation of a spammer.