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In last week's article: "The Secret Behind the Internet" I discussed the vital role that linking has to play in your Internet marketing campaign. This week I'm continuing the linkage theme, concentrating on outbound links and reciprocation.

The Story So Far
We already know that the text that people click on to get to a site (the "anchor text") has a vast impact on the way Google ranks sites. We also know that more links equals a better PageRank, but there's more to it than that.

No Free Lunches Here
I'm sure you know that you can't get anything for free these days, without someone wanting to sell you something or get something in return. This mindset forms the ethos behind reciprocal linking. Very simply, I link to your site, you link to mine.

Unfortunately however, it's no longer that simple. As we discussed last week, Google's getting cleverer. It used to be the case that any old bunch of inbound links would improve a site's ranking. This is no longer the case. Now, links have to be relevant. This is the watchword for search engine optimisation when it comes to Google.

If you have a bunch of random sites linking to yours, Google won't be impressed, because the target has nothing to do with the source. One of the oldest examples is the American casino link: a site - owned by, let's say a management consultant working in Scotland - places a link on his site that goes off to this American casino site. The casino site has a generic "links" page - known as a "link farm" - which has hundreds of links with no order or categorisation, and somewhere in the midst of all this rubbish is the management consultant's link. Viz:

"These pages with countless links to other websites were created during the fervor of link popularity when it was thought that the more links that linked to your website, the higher your website ranked in search engines such as Google. It was also thought that a reciprocal link between sites, any site, counted in your favor"

Kimberly Krause Berg, Search Engine Guide

Kimberly's nailed it there. Link farms have existed for a good while, and are starting to die down now because people know better.

Tidy Up
No-one's saying that having a good number of links is a bad thing. It simply boils down to two important questions:

Are they meaningful?
Are they relevant?

The first question can be addressed by categorising your links. If you run your own website (ie: have access to the HTML code) you can do this by splitting up your links into different categories, effectively making a directory. For one thing, this reduces the number of links that are displayed on each single page, making Google happier because it looks more like a list of useful resources rather than a link farm. For another it means that human beings, ie: the people you want to actually view your site and therefore more important than search engine robots, can really make use of your directory. Another good point is it means more people will be inclined to request link exchanges if they see that their link is placed within a meaningful list.

But that's not it. The second point is equally, if not more important. Google is built on relevance. And when I say Google by the way, I don't just mean the site, I mean the many other sites that use the Google database (AOL Search for one). If someone is looking at the "Links" page of a management consultants firm in Scotland, why would they be interested in an American casino? Listing relevant resources for your visitors to look through is not only logical and good web practise, it's also how Google thinks. Search engines aren't made for webmasters, they're made for web users, so the guys who write their software try to make them think like web users. Therefore, if your links aren't relevant, Google will not be likely to rank you highly. Also, if you link to disreputable sites, your PageRank will be adversely affected.

Finding a Partner
If you've got in mind the two questions from the previous section, you're probably going to have to throw out a tonne of links. I can wholeheartedly sympathise. After gaining "The Knowledge" not long ago, I decided it was time to reorder my links. That meant getting rid of the irrelevant and the disreputable, the link swap sites and the free-for-all directories, and effectively starting from scratch. I needed to find people to link with, and they needed to be relevant.

So, how do you find good link partners? Simple: just remember the word "relevance",. and try and ask yourself: "what other companies are relevant to mine?" Don't think about the competition, think about the buying cycle. For instance, someone looking for management advice might want team building exercises, IT training, accountants, discussion forums and possibly office space. None of these is competing with you, but they're part of the cycle.

Here Endeth the Lesson
So just remember: are your links meaningful and are they relevant? If so, you're sorted. If not, and you need some more advice on how to spruce up your links page(s), or even if you think you're part of the multimedia design buying cycle and would like to swap links, e-mail me via mark@msomedia.com and we'll chat.

Mark Steadman 26/10/05

About the Author
I'm Mark Steadman, director of MSO Media. My weekly eNewsletter "Getting Results" helps people get the most out of the Web, with practical advice, tips and tricks. Find out more at http://www.msomedia.com