Difference Between an OK Backlink and a Great Backlink

What is a Backlink?

Simply put, a backlink is a link from an external website to your website. When the Google Search Engine bot spiders a website, it factors in how many and how good links that are pointing towards your site. Google sees this as credibility and this is likely to influence your Search Engine positioning. With credibility, comes PageRank; with PageRank, comes Search Engine Placement; and with Search Engine Placement, comes page views and exposure. A higher PageRank is actually what we’re targetting here as that heavily influences a site’s Search Engine Placement on Google.

The reason I used the words “Ok Backlink” instead of say, “Bad Backlink” is because backlinks can never be detrimental to a site. They could be useless, but they can never be harmful.

Please note that Google is reluctant to release information on how their Search Engine spiders work as it will most likely be abused and used against them to skew results. Most of the following information is based off of research and tests.

What Makes a Great Backlink

PageRank/credibility of the site linking to you

This one is fairly obvious. If Google interprets your backlink source as one that is credible (high PageRank), it is likelier to believe that your website is of similar quality; thus boosting your PageRank. Keep in mind the best PageRanked site is usually the homepage and if I recall correctly, sub domains have to build PageRank independently.

Similarity in subject matter of your source

A backlink to your blog about Search Engine Optimization is seen as more valuable if it comes from a blog about a similar topic of interest, instead of say, a mortgage broker. Some say that it’s weighed even more if your backlink source is also being linked to by similar topics.

Keyword-rich backlink text

The keywords contained within the link are also likely to affect the quality of the backlink.

As an example, text similar to:
An interesting blog about getting great backlinks
would be better than
For an interesting blog about getting great backlinks, click here.

Notice how the keywords are used in the link.

As a side note, it’s not a bad idea to get into the habit of having keyword rich title tags

Difference between the backlink texts on different sites

Backlinks to your site in different wording/keyword arrangement can be interpreted as true links. If you’re getting backlinks to your site using text like Backlink Information, Getting Great Backlinks and Comparing OK Backlinks and Great Backlinks, this is better then say, getting backlinks with JUST the text: Backlink Information. Backlinks containing just certain text is usually a sign of link spamming or spam bots.

Make Your Backlink Worth Clicking

Why not try to hit two birds with one stone? If you have a great backlink that counts towards your Search Engine Placement, it would be even better if you got some visitors/subscribers out of it too.

The quality of your backlink source’s domain name suffix

Although this is a hard theory to test, some say that getting backlinks from sources with .gov and .edu extensions are weighed more then say, a .com or .net. These domains have eligibility requirements and aren’t free-for-all grabfests like .com’s and .net’s. If you can manage to snag a backlink from one these, preserve it.

Avoid link exchanges

Some research has shown that Google favors non-reciprocal links. That means, if the links are only coming in one-way, they’re seen as higher quality.

Clarification:
Claire has pointed out that reciprocal linking with like-minded and sites with similar content topics has benefited her website. This might be true.
When I spoke about link exchanges, I was referring to programs where you might end up having your site linking to and from something like a florist’s website. Avoiding reciprocal linking also avoids the entire “PageRank Leak” issue, which has yet to be proven, but better be safe then sorry.

There are people that have noted that: “This kind of link exchange used to be popular, but Google caught on, and nowadays sites that participate in this are penalized and can actually demoted. The rationale behind it is that when Google goes to your site from www.somewhere.com and suddenly Google finds itself bouncing back to www.somewhere.com from your site, Google concludes that there is an attempt at ranking manipulation and thus does not weigh your site in the search ranks. ”

Hope that helps.

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