I posted another thread recently in which I discussed my changed ways when it comes to backlinks. Here, I will address in detail what I am doing, and I would enjoy it if you all could post your experience and/or knowledge in this area. We're all learning. Some have knowledge that can help others. Relevancy in Backlinks. A backlink from the same niche or market as you. Drives clickthroughs. Quality of Backlinks. Measured by PageRank, TrustRank, etc. Authorative backlinks. Content-Related Backlinks. A site whose optimization is similar to yours, linking to you thus counting as a 'vote' from a relevant voter. Quantity of Backlinks. Doesn't matter where they are from, as long as there are a lot of them. As I said in the other thread - I built up an extensive website information database on a particular subject, and it crashed down. The root/main page never got indexed for its keyword, while the sub pages that were not backlinked (or done so very little) got indexed quite quickly for their keywords. The website had 1,000's of backlinks from all over. Mostly forum sigs. I have changed my methods now, and I only receive backlinks from doFollow article directories by writing relevant, niche-related content and including a anchor texted backlink in the resource box. If my website is about Kitchen Knives I will write an article on how to use Kitchen Knives. Right now I focus primarily on EzineArticles, though I am expanding my content to reach about 10 other article directories. I figure that having a lot fewer backlinks on a lot more authorative, relevant pages will boost my efficiency and outcome. What do you think?
There is actually more to it. You need to have a number of things happening. You should go for quality of links (i.e. pages with your keyword in their title and so on) but not forget about quantity. A good mix will work. Forum signatures are a little weak in that they are here today and gone tomorrow. But they are still good to have. I suggest doing a number of link building ideas: 1. Use more than one anchor text in your links 2. Leave links in directories 3. leave links in articles 4. leave links in blogs 5. leave links in forums 6. leave links on other pages through emailing webmasters (this has a trick to it) This will make your links look more natural. Having links in only one type of venue is going to shout manipulation to Google.