Factors to Consider in an Inbound Link Profile

Julie — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:00:31 +0000

When considering your overall inbound link picture, there are many factors in the Google algorithm that will affect how you rank in search. It’s not a cut and dry picture, all of these facets are factored into the value of the links in varying amounts.

Number of links: sites with higher quantity of inbound links rank higher and have higher PR.
Authority of site: inbound links that count as the biggest votes typically are harder to obtain. A high PR, edu, gov, authority quality sites.
Links from sites relative to your industry: If the entire site is themed to your industry, it is considered more of an authority on the topic and thus an inbound link from here will be weighted more.
Anchor text of link: the words sites use to link to you are attributed to your site’s authority level on that topic. This must be balanced to maintain natural linking, with varying keywords.
Age of links: links mature and increase in value over time
Link Velocity: build links more rapidly than your competitors. Once ahead, stay ahead by building more and better links than competitors. Link building started 10 years ago, so a site starting today is 10 years behind. Every day that link building is ignored, the gap between you and your competitor widens. Also building too quickly compared to your overall number of links can look unnatural.
Age of site: on new sites, inbound links are assigned a lower weight.
Links in Content: anchor text linked in a page of content is harder to obtain than a signature or footer link, thus more valuable.
One way links: swapped reciprocal links are not as valuable as one way links.

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Factors to Consider in an Inbound Link Profile