Importance of Links As search engines continually look for ways to improve their search results, they have turned more and more to identifying and valuing the links that websites have pointing to them. While initially, simply the quantity of links mattered, today it’s the quality of those links that will make the most difference. Sites with lots of quality links can be considered more “authoritative” than other websites. Sites that have been deemed authorities by the search engines tend to rank higher for popular keyword searches. For this reason, many webmasters and site owners engage in "link building" practices with the intention of gaining additional links to their web site. Once a site is considered an authority, very little link building needs to be done. Popular websites such as gap.com or nike.com simply don’t need to pursue links as they come naturally to them. The best websites are those that are built to help obtain those natural links. Building a quality site with lots of good and helpful content can help turn any site into an authority with time, though that is certainly a long and difficult process. Most smaller sites must engage in link building efforts simply to get their site noticed to begin with so that then they can develop those “natural” links. Even then, natural links still come much more slowly than active link building efforts; that is until “authority” status has been achieved. Link building, itself, is often a long and tedious process. For most it comes down to finding good quality sites that are in a compatible industry that will be willing to exchange links with you. That is, you link to them in exchange for a link in return. While this does not create the most natural linking, and the value of the “exchanged” links is considered less than the value of a natural one-way link, these links still help in the process of gaining exposure on the internet and via search engines. The best link exchanges are those that are more than just another link on a “links” page, but links that are built into the websites content, much as the link above is built into the content of this page. Written by Stoney deGeyter for Pole Position Marketing (polepositionmarketing.com) Back to Cheap Internet Access