Link Quality
After discussing Paid Links we will now look at link quality.
We've discussed how search engines count links as votes of trustworthiness, with quality links carrying more weight than low quality links. Link Quality can be influenced by several factors, including the following.
A high PageRank is always an indicator of a trusted, authorative page or website. A link from a website with high PageRank site is seen in a much more favourable light than a link from a low PageRank site.
Links that are hard to acquire will be more likely to score high with search engines, and less likely to be acquired by your competitors, so targeting these links is a must. Exclusivity makes you stand out from the rest, giving web surfers something unique to assimilate.
Like a fine wine matures and becomes better with age, so link quality improves with age too. Links that have existed for some time, or links from older websites and pages are more likely to be interpreted as quality links than brand new links or links from newer websites and pages.
Links pointing at competitive websites, that also link back to your website will make it easier for search engines to determine which community your website belongs to. This process is called co-citation and adds hugely to your web cred.
Related links coming from websites or pages in your niche may also count for more than links from unrelated websites or pages.
Links in the content portion of pages will typically be evaluated as being editorial links, whereas links that are not placed in the content portion will carry less weight with the search engines.
The anchor text of your link should match the content, however it must be noted that search engines are more likely to accord importance to a high quality link with non matching anchor text, rather than a low quality link with matching anchor text.
That's it for link quality. Next time we'll explore Link Rot