A link in its simplest form is a connection from one web site to another. Before there was a Google people primarily considered links as a means to get people to find their web site. Though links can still be used to drive visitors, the advent of Google in 1996 made links important also for search engine rankings. Google’s basic algorithm looks at the links pointing to a site as a measure of its importance then using this in conjunction with relevancy ranks a site. The Google algorithm gives a score for the importance of each link from a range of 0 to 10 called page rank (PR), named after the co-founder Larry Page. The score is almost logarithmic, so a PR3 is approximately 10 times more powerful than a PR2. Links are as varied as the sites which are doing the linking below are many of the common and not so common types of links.
Directory links: Directories are sites which categorize sites based on themes. Directories usually provide a category, short description of the site and a link to the site. Two of the most important directories are Yahoo.com and DMOZ.org
Review links: Review sites will write a review on a site with a link out to the reviewed site. The review sites will usually rank sites and list them accordingly.
Web Award links: Though web award are becoming less popular, they can be still a source for strong PR links. An award site is one which recognizes a site for excellence. Usually an award site will review a site and link to it. Award sites will also give a image of a trophy to be placed on the recipient’s site. Usually many of the recipients will link to the site that gave them an award. Giving awards so was an old means of build links, where you could give awards to important sites where they would post your award with a link back to you. Two of the most important award sites are: Webby Awards and Best of the Web.
Link wheels: A link wheel is a strategic formation of a group of link. The promoted site resides at the center of the link wheel. All other sites (spokes) link back to the promoted site. The spoke pages/websites link to each other in a circle. See Link Wheels
Forum links: Forums are sites where people discuss topics of interest. A forum consists of an original post which is usually a question to which other response. Some forums will allow links to be posted within the response. Important SEO forums are Webpronews and WebmasterWorld.
Profile links: In order to post on a forum or sign up for a social media site you need to create a profile. A profile tells about yourself or business and often includes a link to your site. Important sites to get strong profile links are Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter.
Paul and Angela profiles: Two link building gurus Paul Johnson and Angela Edwards created lists of high PR sites which allow for profile links to be created.
Plumber Links: These are targeted links to one site. It is similiar to consider a drain where are the links are going. It is a method to make a site look like it is an authority.
Google SideWiki Links: Google’s SideWiki allows people to post notes on other people’s sites. Within the notes you can post links to your site. Though there is no PR bons given to these links, you can post links on populr sites for free and potential get many other SideWiki users visiting your site.
Wiki links: Wikis are pages that are openly editable by anyone visiting the page. The page can be modified to include a link to your site. The most popular and powerful wiki is Wikipedia. Wikipedia links are very hard to maintain because content is monitored. One way to get a Wikipedia link is to create a profile page on yourself or business. You must demonstrate that you are worthy to be listed though. Usually providing references can help you establish credibility.
Silos: Silo is a group of related articles. The Silo consists of 5-6 search-engine-optimized pages, containing up to five embedded links per page. All of these links point to your website. Silos are similar to link wheels.
Blog links: Blogs are web logs or journals. Blogs are usually updated daily with articles from one author. The writers sometimes will include links to sites which are being written about within the blog article. Important blogging sites are WordPress, Blogspot, and Blogger.
Blog Comment Links: Many blogs allows for users to comment about the blog article. Sometimes users can post links within the blog comments. Google has recently given little value to such links. However, links within the actual blog article can give a lot of value.
Blog Carnival Links: Blog carnivals are blogs which are developed by a group of writers all discussing a topic. Just like blogs links can be included within the articles. To learn more about blog carnivals see BlogCarnival.com
Link Farms: Link farms are links pages which are merely a list of links designed to artificially boost rankings. One common trick is to create a page of links then post the page on many sites with the intension of receiving the benefit of a link from each of the sites which the page is posted. Link farms are a form of spam and are often ignored by the search engines.
Free for all (FFA) links: FFA link sites allow people to post links to a page. The page will show only the recently posted links. The sites at the top of the FFA page will move down the page as new links are added once a link gets to the bottom of the page it will be removed by the next link added. FFA links are junk because they are heavily abused and links will only live for a short time.
Outbound links: Outbound links are links which leave a web site.
Inbound links: Inbound links are links which guide a user to a web site.
Navigational links: Navigational links are links used within a site for the purpose of navigating through that site. Sometimes navigation links will include an outbound link. Outbound links are used in the navigation when linking to a partnered site or site where the content is offered in a different language.
Footer links: Footer links found at the bottom of a page. Footer links are sometimes navigational, but can also be used to show links to advertisers.
Do not follow links: Do not follow links are links which can not be indexed by the search engines. Usually the links are defined as not to be crawled in the robots.txt file. Sometimes scripts are used on the actual link to prevent the search engines to crawl the links. Some unscrupulous people will claim to be offering a reciprocal link; however, they provide a do not follow link.
Scripted links: Scripted links are links which are coded with Javascript or PHP script in order add additional functionally to a link or sometimes used to prevent search engine indexing of the link. One common reason to add tracking of clickthroughs to the link. Note search engines are getting better at understanding scripted links see article Google Indexing Javascript
Banner ads: Images can be used to link to a web site. One way to get a banner link on another site is to pay for the placement of the link as a banner ad. Banner ads sually need to monitor impressions and clickthrus so they do not provide a PR boost.
Rotating links ads: The images in a banner ad can change between multiple images or rotate through the images. Each image can have a different link. In order to achieve the effect of the rotating of the ad scripts are used, therefore these links are for the most part non-indexable. These types of links should be used solely to get traffic from popular sites.
Do follow links: Do follow links are links which can be indexed by the search engines.
URL Rewrite links: When databases create URLs, often they are a long string ofparameters associated with the database query. URL rewrites are used to provide shorter and more relevant-looking links to web pages.
Adult links: Adult links are links coming from sites which offer adult content. This could include pornography or gambling sites.
High PR Links: Often many sites will refer to the concept of high PR links or authority links. High PR links are links from pages which have a Google PR score of 6 or higher.
Authority links: Authority links though usually have high PR and are trusted sites that many sites will link to as a main source of information for that particular topic. Authority links include sites like CNN, Onion, and Wikipedia. Getting a link from
.Org, .Edu, and .Gov links: .Org sites are sites from non-profit organizations. .Edu sites are sites from schools and universities. .Gov sites are sites from government organizations. Because these 3 types of sites are considered authoritative by their nature links from these sites can give a big boost to rankings.
Reciprocal links: Links where the two sites agree to link to each other are called
reciprocal links. Search engines have tried to reduce the importance of
reciprocal links and marketers have moved away from using them because clients generally prefer one-way links.
One-way links (also known as non-reciprocating links): Links where site A links to site B but B does not link back are called one-way links.
Link partnerships or exchanges: Link partnerships are created where a group of people agree to link to others within the group. Usually the links are reciprocal in nature.
Link rings: Link rings are similar to link partnerships but the sites that participate are linked from one site to the next in a ring. Links are usually of a common theme and the goal of the ring is more about driving traffic rather than seeking a PR boost.
Social bookmarks: Most browsers allow people to bookmark links from sites as favorites. There are web sites that give the same ability but the links are stored online. Because the bookmark links are viewable by anyone they are social in nature. Popular social bookmark sites include: delicious.com, Propeller.com, Reddit, Mister Wong, Digg, and Stumbleupon.
Stumble and Digg links: Though Stumble and Digg are social bookmark sites they allow users to rate and comment on other people’s links. Both show and categorize the top reviewed links.
Scuttle links: Scuttle software allowed people to create their own social book marking sites. Links from these types of give similar value as those from other social bookmarking sites. Popular scuttle sites include: totagit.com, buzztagz.com, youtagz.com
Social Media links: Social Media sites are places where people can connect with each other. Many social media sites allow for short comments or articles to be posted with links embedded within them. Popular social media sites include Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and Ning.
Follower links: On social media sites where you can build relationships where others can follow your posts can create a link to the person being followed. As a result profiles can build PR. Profiles can be then used to link to your site. This is a two step link but can be of great benefit.
Following links: On social media sites you can follow the posts of others and create a following link to their profiles. Because search engine give benefits sites that link to authorities because they act as guides to good sources of information your profile can benefit as a result.
Web 2.0 links: The term “Web 2.0″ (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design collaboration on the World Wide Web. (source Wikipedia) Some web 2.0 properties include WordPress, Blogger, Vox.
Pliggs: Pliggs is an open source content management system. It allows people to create article, social bookmark, or blog sites. Because the code is open source it is an easy way to create hundreds of sites where you can post your links. One popular software that allows you to do just that is AutoPligg.
Comment links: Many blogs and article sites allow users post comments about the article. Within the comments you can post a link to your site. Recently, there has been a lot of abuse of this type of linking called blog spam or comment spam. If you plan to type to get these types of links remember to make your comment relevant. The bloggers frequently have the ability to remove bogus comments so by making yours relevant you are more likely to make your comment a lasting one.
I’m all linked out for now but check back because I’ll be defining the following link types:
Hub links:
article submissions:
Press release links:
Doorway page links
Redirect links
embedded links
pop up links
cloaked links
anchor links
cross-links:
broken or dead links:
ad links:
hidden links
tracking links:
tag links
paid links: 1) PPC 2) link buying
organic links:
affliate links
themed links
Please email me any other linking types and I’ll add them to this link glossary.
Any questions about the links glossary or linking building, please feel free to contact me at 905-417-9470 or by email at allanp73@gmail.com
