We’ve previously published articles on how to optimize the links in your blog or Web site to increase their value to search engines. A knowledge of how to best structure your links can help your site and other useful sites be ranked higher by search engines.

I just read an article that is a useful refresher on what kind of links are the best: “All Links are Not Created Equal: 10 Illustrations on Search Engines’ Valuation of Links.” Below are the 10 points from the article. If this interests you, I recommend you read the whole article. It’s easy reading with good examples.

  1. Links Higher Up in HTML Code Cast More Powerful Votes
  2. External Links are More Influential than Internal Links
  3. Links from Unique Domains Matters More than Links from Previously Linking Sites
  4. Links from Sites Closer to a Trusted Seed Set Pass More Value
  5. Links from “Inside” Unique Content Pass More Value than Those from Footers/Sidebar/Navigation
  6. Keywords in HTML Text Pass More Value than those in Alt Attributes of Linked Images
  7. Links from More Important, Popular, Trusted Sites Pass More Value (even from less important pages)
  8. Links Contained Within NoScript Tags Pass Lower (and Possibly No) Value
  9. A Burst of New Links May Enable a Document to Overcome “Stronger” Competition Temporarily (or in Perpetuity)
  10. Pages that Link to WebSpam May Devalue the Other Links they Host

Continue reading at the original source →