Backlinks

[mlou]

Recieved this question today...

Does a backlink help your ranking and if so, what is it and how do you make them?

Backlinks are any incoming links from webpages that link to your webpage. (This includes home page or inter webpages) Backlinks are also called incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links. (some people call reciprocal links backlink also)

Backlinks are an indication of the popularity or importance of your website or webpage. Search engines use the number of backlinks for websites as one of the factors for determining your ranking.

To search Google for backlinks:
Go to http://goggle.com
In the search box type ... link:your website name
Example: link:www.reedcross.com/ which has 37 backlinks

To search Yahoo for backlinks
Go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
In the search box type ... your website name
Example: www.reedcross.com/ which has 544 backlinks
Second example: reedcross.com/ which has12 backlinks

Notice you recieve different results...
BIG HINT: Google no longer adds your backlink together. Example: url, url/default, url/index, www.url, www.url/default, www.url/index should all redirect to your home page. Google added all these backlinks as one group until the BigDaddy Dance in March '06. Now Goggle counts each url name as a seperate page. Be sure to use your primary url in your links (this website is using www.reedcross.com as it's primary url). If you are linking to an inter webpage, be sure to use your primary url plus the webpage name. Example: www.reedcross.com/half_dozen_roses.htm

To search MSN for backlinks
Go to http://msn.com
In the search box type ... link:your website name (be sure to include the http://)
Example: www.reedcross.com/ which has 465 backlinks

What does a backlink look like...
Example Good Link:
<a href="http://www.reedcross.com"> Eugene Oregon florist, Reed Cross Flower Shop</a>
AVERAGE mistake most people make...
<a href="http://www.reedcross.com">www.reedcross.com</a>
the green is your anchor text tag part of the backlink... besides the link itself, these keywords are the most important part of a backlink.

How do you make them?
When you create your website, your navigation to inter webpages create backlinks...
Let's go back to our example www.reedcross.com (this is their home page) Here are the backlinks the spiders read and follow from that home page:
http://www.reedcross.com/
http://reedcross.com/flowers.htm
http://reedcross.com/plants.htm
http://reedcross.com/gift_baskets.htm
http://reedcross.com/gifts.htm
http://reedcross.com/clothing.htm
http://www.goemerchant1.com/index.cgi?ST=buy&Merchant=reedandcr.. (this is his shopping cart)
http://reedcross.com/search_page.htm
http://reedcross.com/company_information.htm
http://reedcross.com/housewares.htm
http://www.bellospa.com/
http://reedcross.com/site_index.htm
http://www.reedcross.com/

BIG HINT: Notice they wasted two links that go back to their home page and you are already on the home page. Are they trying to create additional hits to the home page to increase their traffic count...OH, blackhat SEO or mistake?

All these backlinks from inter webpages in your website count in the pagerank, but not as muck as backlinks from other related websites. Example: www.reedcross.com/half_dozen_roses.htm linking back to the home page www.reedcross.com will add pagerank to the home page, but not as much as realflorists.flowerchat.com/ (FlowerChat Blog) linking to the home page www.reedcross.com.
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[mlou]

In the examples in the above post, the anchor text tag for backlinks for this webpage www.reedcross.com/half_dozen_roses.htm is
reedcross.com eugene . oregon
Yes, this is a weak anchor tag, but it's ahead of "click here" which you see all the time.


Good example of what the anchor text tag should be:
<a href="http://www.reedcross.com/half_dozen_roses.htm"> half dozen rose in Eugene OR</a>

This keyword rich anchor tag will score well for the half dozen rose webpage rather from an inter webpage or another website or blog.

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[mlou]

Is it better for links to open in the same window or in a new window?

I structure my links to open in a new window. Personally, I will usually right click and open in a new tab or window anyway (firefox, opera, netscape 8, IE 7 and Safari have 'browser standard' ability to open links as new tabs). ..I prefer the new window when I click on a link...I hate having to hit the back button to follow a trail back to the beginning.

Google, Yahoo and MSN don't care if you add coding (target="_blank") to open a new window. But you might have trouble with some pop up blockers...


When the consumer has finished looking at the other webpage and closes that window, the consumer will still have your website window open. This gives you more marketing power with that consumer. So your chances of the consumer buying from you increase.

Example backlink...
<a href="http://realflorists.flowerchat.com/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank" alt="FlowerChat Blog">Real Florists at the FlowerChat Blog</a>

I think I have given you the detail parts of a link before, but...here goes again.

<a means open and start the link

href= means where the link can be found

"http://realflorists.flowerchat.com/" means the url address of the link

style="text-decoration:none" means do not underline the link

target="_blank" means to open a new window when the consumer clicks on the link

alt="FlowerChat Blog" alternate text means the consumer can read keyword text when images are turned off or if they have a sight disability, plus you get a bonus with the search engines

> means to close the link code

Real Florists at the FlowerChat Blog means keyword rich anchor text for your link

</a> means the end and close the link

Now you all should be able to read or write a good keyword rich link...

HINT HINT HINT...
FlowerChat would love everybody adding this link to their website...

<a href="http://realflorists.flowerchat.com/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank" alt="FlowerChat Blog">Real Florists at the FlowerChat Blog</a>
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[Dazeal]

Reed and Cross have a beautiful store. 95% of it is not flowers, and in their florist, their plants and silks out shine their fresh designs. We stop there almost everytime we are in Eugene. I stop there to learn about marketing retail items... not to look at their fresh flowers. They know how to do business for sure!

Also Mlou, if a site links to yours with a high PR (page rank) google likes you more than if a link back is from a PR that is poor.

Anyone who is serious about SEO and has firefox should get this free extension: http://seopen.com/firefox-extension/index.php is a a wonderful toolbar withbacklink info built in.

If you aren't useing Firefox, you are missing out on the dark side of the moon. Wonderful views of Jupiter.