Really useful links

While page rank, which is a function of the mass of inbound links, indicates the overall importance of a web page, it has little bearing on its relevance to any particular web search.

The nature of these inbound links has a very high relevance to the opportunities for good web search engine positioning.

What makes these links important?

When Google categorises a page for eventual listing, the algorithm must work hard to automatically select pages that have the highest true relevance to any particular search term. That relevance is not just down to what the content of the page is but the context of the page within the web.

A simple example of this is the search for 'miserable failure' which has George Bush listed first. The term 'miserable failure' does not appear on the White House web site associated with GW Bush, it does appear on many web sites linking to that site and often is part of the url that links to the GW Bush page.

This is called Google Bombing.

We use the same technique in a simpler way to improve the relevance of our web presence. If I am acobbler and have a web site I want lots of links coming to my web site associated with the terms that people will ultimately use to look for the web site.

The inbound links should ideally:

• Come from websites that are of the right context, regardless of the words used in the link
• Have a clearly relevant word built into the link
• Have an associated word in the link.

Google is good at word association. The system will (should) recognise that a link with a shoe context to a web site selling boots is relevant.

Google also seems to categorise websites by type, possibly by their position within the DMOZ or Google directories.

The above also works within websites. Make sure that internal links or menu lists are clear and of the correct context. Don't forget that web site menus are as much for the search engine's robots as the potential site user or customer.

To summarise: When establishing links I try hard to get inbound links that have the sort of words that might in turn be used within searches linking to my web sites. I will also aim to get inbound links from websites providing a similar service.