Topical Relationship of Linking Page

Quality over quantity: this is the new battle cry when it comes to creating links for websites. Creating topical relationships between links is very important, especially if you want to keep your site afloat, and if you aspire a high rank high in the search engine results page (SERP).

There was a time, however, when the name of the game was numbers—lots of numbers. This gave rise to link spam: links which are irrelevant, machine generated, and created solely for manipulating rankings. These automated link schemes worked because of the sheer volume that inevitably linked back to the original site. Volume then meant your site had top rank, no matter how artificially inflated it was.

Although they are still vulnerable to spammy links, it is fortunate that search engines (SE) have become smarter. They are placing greater emphasis now on topical relevance. A survey of 37 leaders in search engine optimization (SEO) certainly put great importance to this. The views of these experts led to ‘Topical Relationship of Linking Page’ placing in the Top 10 Positive Factors affecting a site’s ranking in Google for this year.

Although having links to sites which have topics similar to yours is really not an indication of authority, it can help a lot to boost your SERP rankings. How much of a boost is anyone’s guess, but there are proofs that linking a page from a trusted site does affect one’s standings.

Building link popularity need not be complicated. If you have a site that sells real estate, try to hook up with trusted, high-quality real estates websites. If you don’t know whether a particular site should be relied on, simply look over the site, check its back links, ask yourself, “Would I want to buy (i.e.) my dream house here? Would I want to invest that much energy, money and time with what this site is showing me? If my budget doesn’t fit the bill, will this site recommend me to another trusted site?”

Don’t be lazy (though this is the case for most of us). A little research goes a long way.

Adding top-of-the-line back links from relevant, reputable, and trustworthy sources will have significant impact on your site’s search visibility. Nowadays, one high quality link is worth more than fifty spammy links. If you are promoting a product or service, your site’s link building strategy comes to play as an important component of an overall marketing plan.

Stay away from these automated schemes that try to fool you into thinking that with only a small investment (linking to their site), you are guaranteed maximum return. Not only will this put your site in disreputable community, SEs might also think that you are using dishonest means to improve your rankings. This is like trying to advertise that your site stinks. The worst case scenario is when the SE actually categorizes your site as a spam link too, and drops your site like hot potato or to be more specific: a stinking hot potato.

One problem that arises when it comes to topical relations is that some cases are not so clear-cut (i.e. pet care). Sites like these cater to a variety of subject matter (e.g. pet products, pet food, veterinary help, etc.) Many topics may be relevant. How do you choose which one is the most relevant, or more relevant than the next, without compromising the status of your own site?

Although some people believe that all links to your site would help you, topical linking could do you wonders. Acquiring the “right” links may result in fewer links, but puts you in the “trust-me” neighborhood, and not in the “spammy” side of town.

Some believe that particular SEs give more importance to topical relevance of sites while others, as a rule, disregard linked pages altogether. This may be true before. But now, SEs have learned to mistrust linked pages, especially those who practice the numbers game (spam link), or those who artificially stuff meta-tags and keyword-rich pages. SEs nowadays measure trust through links and content. A virtual proof of this is Google’s PageRank. PageRank uses a mathematical formula that is based on finding a given document in a random pattern of clicking on links. It then advises users as to its “trustability” on a scale of 1-100%, 1 being the lowest and 100 being the highest.