Of course, when the SEO world learned about links, it started a free‐for‐all. Websites were doing anything to increase the number of links coming from anywhere, simply to boost their incoming link numbers. However, it doesn’t work that way. One quality link is worth more than millions of low‐quality links. But first, you must be able to define a quality link!
Popularity A link from a popular website is one of the desirable factors. A recognizable website that is visited often can provide a great boost when a link is made. Gaining a link on a popular site may also provide a branding benefit, as people will see the link mentioned in the content and could also result in visitors coming from that link! News and information sites are excellent examples of popular links from credible, established, and popular sites.
Relevance The second factor in measuring links is the relevance of the linking website. For example, is the site that is linking to your site related in some way? A news site can provide a great link, but an industry‐related website can provide a highly relevant link. Contextually, they provide content and information within a specific subject matter and can be seen as more authoritative because of the depth of content. Gaining a link from this source enhances your credibility by being associated in the same industry.
Influence It is not simply the link from one site to your site. Linking algorithms measure the influence of websites beyond the first level of links. They evaluate the links of the site that is linking to the site that is linking to you—and beyond! Evaluating the extended link networks, they find the sites that may not be the most popular, or the most relevant, but the most influential. These indirect clusters of influence impact the amount of credibility and authority attributed to your site.
Link Structure
There are many methods of creating a link, and some provide more relevance than others for both search engines and humans.
First, here is a basic link as seen on a page and the associated HTML instructions to create the link:Link: http://example.com/links/ Link as written in HTML <a href=http://example.com/links/></a>
The <a> tag defines a hyperlink. Href specifies the URL, which follows. The </a> tag closes the hyperlink instructions.
Next, you can make the link more interesting. Instead of publishing the URL of the link, you can use anchor text. By making it more interesting, you are also increasing the relevance of the link because you’ve made it more friendly to humans by using text, words, and yes, keywords!
For example, I’m sure that you’ve seen links that say, “Click here.” However, those don’t have any keywords, and they aren’t that helpful. Instead, use anchor text that describes what the visitors will find, receive, or see when they click the link.Link: Best Math Games for kidsHTML: <a href="http://example.com/mathgames">Best Math Games for kids</a>
By placing text between the brackets and describing the link, you create a higher level of relevance of the link. This anchor text increases the relevance because it makes a more readable presentation, especially if the link is contained within content.
An image link is a bit more complex because it needs to link to the source of the image and the destination of the link and to provide alternative text in case the image is not visible.
<a href="http://example.com/mathgames"><img src="/images/img_math.png" width="120" height="80" alt="math games website"/></a>The website still gets credit for the link, even though the link is an image. The alternative text (or alt text) provides the context and description of the link.
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