An extremely most important aspect of search engine optimisation, backlinks is probably one of the most crucial aspects of website promotion. So what exactly is backlinks?

Backlinks

A measure of the number of web pages found on the Internet that contain a link to a specific page. Backlinks can be found both within a web site and on other external websites. Search engines that use backlinks to measure the value of a web page (for the resulting listings) include: Google (includes AOL), AllTheWeb (Fast), Altavista, Hotbot and MSN.

Importance of backlinks

Backlinks benefit the website in several ways.

• Robot visit frequency

  Search engine robots follow links between websites. The more inbound links you have, the more often robots will visit your site.
  
  

• Measure of credibility

  Many search engines assume a site with high number of backlinks is of high credibility. Worth considering is the way Page Rank (PR) system by Google works.

The Page Rank mechanism

Page Rank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher Page Rank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines Page Rank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

Backlink building

There are several tools available for building backlinks. But still nothing to beat the links that are taken by other webmasters simply because of usefulness of content. A good example of this is

- writing good quality article aimed at a particular niche

- submitting your article to ezines and newsletters

The keyword to the success of a backlink strategy is "genuineness". The more genuine the backlinks, the better the ratings. Some of the acceptable ways to building backlinks are

- submitting website to search engines and directories

- contacting similar sites (in similar niche) for exchanging links

- contacting websites with similar content for exchanging link

Don'ts for backlink building

Link Farms - Search engines hate link farms and doesn't not consider link harvesting as a positive sign. Google especially is very sensitive to link farms and considers it as negative.

Buying links

There has been much debate about buying links on high PR sites. Should one buy them or not?

Well the answer isn't a plain yes or no and is best answered taking into view both perspectives.

From the high backlink high PR front

A high PR website has spent time and effort on making it a high backlink and high PR site and therefore there is nothing wrong in monetizing it. The correct way to monetize it is to

- add only a few limited numbers of links and

- add only those links in some way related to your content.

From the low backlink low PR front

The only way a low PR and a low backlink site can get a high ranking is by coming on a high PR site. Now suppose my PR=0, why would any website consider a backlink to my site. Initially it isn't a bad idea for me to spend a little amount on a high PR site so that my PR increases a little so that I can then start exchanging links with similar PR sites.

Backlinks is a very crucial aspect to website promotion. Get your backlinks right and see your website traffic soaring.