Chapter 11 – Getting Ready for Linking

When you ask for a link to your site placed on another site, the other site owner most likely will want to see that you have a link to their site put on your site as well. This is called "reciprocal linking". It is for this reason that you should need a "Related Links" page on your site.

In addition, you should also have “Link to Us” code on your site where other site owners can simply copy your HTML link code to their Links page. In this way, you control the use of keywords in the text of such links that point to your site.

Creating “Link to Us” Code

Google places importance on what the text of links that it finds on other sites. Google analyzes the text of a link and compares it to text found on the linked-to page. You want other websites to have your best keywords in the text of links that point to your site, and then you want to make sure those same keywords appear prominently on your linked-to page.

One way to help ensure this to create a “Link to Us” code section on your Links page that contains link code that other website owners can copy and paste on their websites. This helps you control what the text of the link says that is placed on other sites.

Using a site about house plans as an example, here is representative link code on a Link to Us page (or section on a Related Links page):

Link to the Best House Plans Site!

Link to one of the fastest-growing sites for house plans on the Web today!

Adding our link to your site is very easy. Simply copy the code between the dotted lines and add it to your web page:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<A HREF=”http://www.acme-house-plans.com/”>Unique house plans at ACME House Plans></A> - Search from thousands of great house plans online!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you would like a link back to your site, please contact us at…

Note how the keyword phrase house plans is used both in the link text AND in the description that follows.

Maintaining a “Related Links” Page

Since you must have external links that point to your site to increase your ranking with Google, other website owners will likely want you to reciprocate by having you place a link on your site that point to their site. For this reason, you need a “Related Links” page.

In general, you should only link to other sites that offer similar or complementary products and services to your own. Don’t clutter your Related Links page with links to your aunt’s personal page for example (unless your aunt is in a similar line of work!). Remember that Google is analyzing what the theme of your site is, so you need to use keywords on your Related Links page that are related to your site’s keywords.

This includes using keywords in the text of links that point to other sites if possible.

You should also include some actual content on your Related Links page. Simply don’t create a long list of links with no text. Add a short description of the site to accompany each link.

Ideally, all outgoing links to other sites should be located on a single Related Links page on your site. This is because outgoing links can “leak” PageRank on a page that contains outgoing links. Make sure that each outgoing link is reciprocated with a link back to your site, otherwise think about it if you really need that link (as a customer service).

Caution: Google has been known to flag web pages whose titles are created by link-generation software. Specifically, if you use the Zeus program to generate a Related Links page for your site, you should change the title of the page from the default “themeindex”. In general, such programs, while useful, need to be configured according to your specific needs and to avoid looking like a “cookiecutter” page.

Dealing with Non-Reciprocal Links

It is common to have outgoing links that are for the benefit of your customers and that you don’t expect reciprocal links back to your site for.

A good example are links that go to lots of specific book pages on Amazon.com. Clearly such links can benefit your visitors, but clearly also Amazon.com is not going to reciprocate by placing links on their site back to your site!

There is a way you can prevent “leakage” of PageRank from non-reciprocating links on your site, but use with caution. This method is discussed for the sake of completeness and because you may find it mentioned elsewhere. Bear in mind that this method is considered a little controversial, more advanced, and may not work in the future! You are forewarned.

Note: Don’t go overboard fretting over this. This is only an issue if you have LOTS of outbound, non-reciprocating links. Remember that you are leaking PR only from that page or pages that contain the outbound links. So the damage is generally quite minimal.

Most links use a standard <A HREF=”“> </A> format, which Google has no problem following. However, if you use JavaScript code to create your links, Google may not be able to recognize this is a link, and hence PageRank won’t be leaked away for those links.

Bear in mind that Google can recognize some JavaScript-coded links, depending on how the link is coded. Another point to consider is if a human editor at Google would consider you using such a tactic globally as a form of deception – not a good thing.

Lastly, and most importantly, do not consider such a tactic for reciprocal links, as it really is deceitful for the other site owners as they do not get the value of your link counted by Google for their site.

If you are paranoid, you may want to look for JavaScript-coded links (by viewing the page source) on the Links pages of your linking partners if you want to be absolutely sure they are on the up and up.

For information on how to construct a JavaScript-coded link, look anywhere on the Web for samples. The best way is to use an external JavaScript (.js) file to store the URLs.