Links Matter

So I send out the final publicity letter for the contest, and I get a question.

"I do not know what 50 links Are"

Well, that not really a question, as it is an implied question. Nevertheless the message that I think she was asking was why do I care about links?

The short and simple answer is:  links from other sites to yours increases your sites value in the search engines.The more links to a page, the more value that the engine sees in your page.

Now I can give you a much more technical reason answer. But in the end the above is the reason links matter. The more links the more value. Better yet, the more valuable links to your page, the more value that your page will have.

You can build the most gorgeous, SEO'd website. Without links to the pages of that website, the site in affect will not exist in the engines eyes.

Comments

[Flatmate]

Totally agree about the links but quality over quantity is better im my opinion ;)

[Tim O'Keefe]

Yes-Link quality is important. But like most things SEO, not very well defined.

[Traume]

In all cases dealing with search engines, quality DOES matter. Don't believe it, submit your URL to a bunch of SPAM sites and see how fast your Google or Alexa rank drops.

Never go for "link farms", you're asking for a major headache.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Traume-On link farms. What you say sounds good, and is right out of the engines spin machine.

If your theory is true, then all I have to do to knock you out of the engines is spam a bunch of link farm sites (which you never defined) with your link and you are out of here!

Therefore, like most things with Google at least, it does not penalize you, they simply do not count it. So when getting links, it often times is not something to get paranoid about, that you will get dropped. It just might be a huge waste of time is all. Which is brilliant on Google's part because it makes it harder to test.

In addition, what is a link farm?

Is it this: weblogs.com ?I mean it sure looks like one.

That "farm " is sent a link by default on most blog systems including typepad which this blog is hosted. It is difficult telling a link farm from a blog "service" anymore isn't it?

So to make that blanket assertion frankly is wrong without looking at the nuances on an indivual basis.