A link, or hyperlink, is commonly thought of as highlighted text that “points” to an external or internal web page.  When the visitor of the web page clicks on the link he is directed to a new web page.  The highlighted text that is clickable is considered the Anchor Text.  Links are best used as a reference for the visitor so that he does not have to type in the destination in his browser.

There are many different types of links and different ways that a web page may link to another web page.  Since NicheLinkJuice.com’s focus is links that relate to Search Engine Optimization, we will discuss anchor text, inbound links, outbound links, and do-follow and no-follow links.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the clickable part of a link.  There are different ways that a link can be shown.  Sometimes a link will simply be the text of the URL hyper-linked to that URL.  Another typical method internet users use to referance web pages is by using ‘click here’ as the anchor text.  This tells a search engine that the page being referred to is about the topic ‘click here.’

These methods of referencing web pages are fine from a users standpoint but from a search engine’s point of view it is not normally a good representation of what the linked-to web page is about.  Many times this method of link is used in email, bulletin boards, forums, blogs, etc.  Search engines do credit those links but they have a hard time recognizing what should be on the web page being linked to.  Search engines are not human readers and so need a little bit of direction.

A great way to tell a search engine what a web page is about is by using anchor text that is very descriptive as to what is being linked to.  So, for example, if a web page is linking to another web page that has to do with pizza delivery, a search engine would have a better understanding of this if the web page linked to this pizza delivery site using the anchor text “pizza delivery.”

Inbound Links

An inbound link is any link from an external source that is referencing a page on your site.  Google analyzes these links and places a value on them depending on the source.  The amount of do-follow links pointing to a web page has a direct effect on how much weight is given to that page.  The anchor text used as the link is also a major factor along with the weight of the page that is linking out.

Inbound linking is what off-site seo is all about.  They are the difference between ranking on page one of a search result and ranking on page seven.  The webpage ranking on page one will get traffic, the webpage ranking on page seven will not.

Outbound Links

An outbound link is one that points from your web page to another domain.  There is not a lot of evidence that an outbound link will help your search engine rankings but they can be very helpful from a user standpoint.  Linking out to a valid on topic page can be beneficial to your visitors and can get other webmasters to link back to you as a way of paying you back.  This is an excellent method of link baiting.

Link Relevance

Another important aspect of link building is the relevance of the web page linking.  That is, how does that web page relate to the linked-to web page?  An example of a link with no relevance would be a web page that has a lot of text on the topic of the newest iphone accessory linking to a web page that has text with a heavy emphasis on real estate.  The two have nothing to do with each other and so the search engines will give less weight to that link.

Remember that the text on a webpage has everything to do with relevance in a search engine.  Search engines use bots to crawl our web pages and determine what they are about.  The algorithms the engines use are very complicated but they are still computers!  Far from perfect and will miss things a ten year old would not.  Relevance in the case of a search engine bot crawling a web page is all about text and so what a bot will consider as relevant will be as simple as similar on page text.

Do-follow and No-Follow Links

There are two different links that search engines look for:  Do-follow and No-follow.  A do-follow link tells a search engine that the web page that is linking trusts the web-page it is linking to and wants to reward that web-page with “link juice.”  A no-follow link tells a search engine that it does not completely trust the web-page it is linking to and does not want to reward that web page with any link juice.

Your goal as a webmaster is to obtain as many do-follow links as possible as a no-follow link will not do much for your websites’ rankings.