A9 Search Engine Optimization: Navigating The Amazon - Links Count on the River, Too
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As most website owners know, Google places tremendous importance on a website’s incoming links. Not only is the number of links considered, but also their quality. That link importance is based on several factors. They include theme relevance of the linking site to the receiving site, the passed along amount of Google PageRank, and the anchor text on the clickable link to the site. Because the search results in the A9 search engine are heavily Google results, it makes sense to use standard Google optimization techniques.
Getting more incoming links to your site is nearly always a worthwhile goal. Provided that such obvious search engine errors as links to and from the dreaded link farms are strenuously avoided, almost all incoming links are good. The difference is that some incoming links are worth more than others. Links are not a Utopian, egalitarian society. The search engine algorithms consider some links to be very valuable, while other links offer far less value to a receiving website, a very Orwellian “some are more equal than others” concept.
Pay special attention to the Web pages and sites that you choose for link exchange agreements. While there is some benefit to be derived from a link, that is entirely unrelated to your site content, the newer Google algorithm has lowered its value. The trend is clearly toward related and relevant content. The weighting of themed factors means there is far less value to swapping links with irrelevant sites. Instead, the emphasis is on clustering of themes around single topics.
Links from the major Internet directories such as The Open Directory Project (DMOZ) http://www.dmoz.org and The Yahoo Directory http://dir.yahoo.com/ provide added incoming link power. In particular, website owners should seek links from directories that are related their industry. The closer a directory’s focus on the site’s topics and themes, the better. The website will benefit from all Internet directory links from related categories.
The A9 search engine and its use of the Google search results will reward those directory links. To compete against any additional Amazon related links, the various directory links will provide some additional value.
Next: Additional Benefits of Careful Navigation >>
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