Newbie question: Back links

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by newbiesiteguy, Feb 6, 2006.

  1. #1
    I hear people saying you should have lots of back links in your site for high ranking. All I know about a back link is that is links back to a page that links to the page your on right? So a link that says, "back to homepage" would be a back link?

    Are the backlinks within your own site good? Or are they talking about backlinks that link back to other sites?

    And does having lots of outgoing links hurt your PR?
     
    newbiesiteguy, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  2. Moe

    Moe Peon

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    #2
    A back link is another page linking to yours. The more people you can get linking to your page the better.
     
    Moe, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  3. mdvaldosta

    mdvaldosta Peon

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    #3
    And of course the related links are best - IE sites about apples linking to other sites talking about apples.
     
    mdvaldosta, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  4. newbiesiteguy

    newbiesiteguy Peon

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    #4
    Is it good to sign of in lots of forums, and include your website in your signature?
     
    newbiesiteguy, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  5. Thomas Holmes

    Thomas Holmes Peon

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    #5
    As pointed out above a backlink is a link from another website to yours.

    A link is like a vote to the search engines so when another website links to you the search engines read that as a vote - this website is saying your site is interesting.

    Not all links are equal. The search engines think that some websites (or pages) are more important than others. So a link from a more important website is a more powerful vote.

    This is where pagerank comes in. The sites that the search engines think are important generally have a higher google pagerank. You can find out the pagerank of a page either by installing the Google Toolbar ( http://toolbar.google.com/ ) or by using a website service like ( http://www.checkpagerank.com/ ).

    So yes the more links you get from other websites the better. But also the more important the websites that link to you the better.

    The links within your own site are important too. These act likes votes as well and help indicate which pages on your site are important.

    There are various arguments back and forth about outgoing links. But from what I have heard, the search engines approve of inter-connection between sites - it is the basis of the web.
     
    Thomas Holmes, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  6. Brad Callen

    Brad Callen Peon

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    #6
    Also as mentioned above the "back to home page" is an internal link. Dont waste a potentially good intenal link using a poor choice of keywords.

    If you page is about blue widgets, then your link would be something like. "Blue Widgets Home".

    Something that actually contains your main keyword within it. Otherwise you are just wasting good link value.

    Building back links from other sites too yours can also be a great source of free traffic, especially if you are getting themed links, Then you will also be getting targeted traffic.

    Brad
     
    Brad Callen, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  7. devin

    devin Guest

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    #7
    wish to comment on this. i personally think it's a myth that outgoing links hurt PR. i don't exactly know how PR works, but if my common sense is any useful, i'd say that search engines are disseminating information. So an outgoing link is a link to provide more information on a particular topic and therefore should be beneficial to the Net as a whole. the only outgoing links that are 'hurting' would be link to shady sites (pr0n, etc) and link farms.
     
    devin, Feb 6, 2006 IP
  8. angelfire

    angelfire Peon

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    #8
    IMO outgoing links does not affect you PR. Outgoing links serves as your vote for a certain page and it does not affect site/pages that votes or links to your site/page.
     
    angelfire, Feb 7, 2006 IP
  9. LookingForGroup

    LookingForGroup Guest

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    #9
    An outgoing link from a page won't hurt that pages PR but it will dilute the amount of PR that page can give to other pages.
     
    LookingForGroup, Feb 7, 2006 IP
  10. Thomas Holmes

    Thomas Holmes Peon

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    #10
    Nice clarification LookingForGroup!
     
    Thomas Holmes, Feb 7, 2006 IP