Well in a nutshell, it’s a big picture of all of the links to and from your site. Not only is it a current snapshot, but it can also go back in history as well. Search engines almost certainly keep a close eye on a site’s link profile for several good reasons. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Reciprocal Links Aren’t Bad — They fit in well with the concept of an organic link profile. It’s natural for a site to have a few reciprocal links here and there. But that said, there’s no current proof that they are as beneficial as they may have been in the past. Keep it relevant with these and all is well.
2. Good One-Way Links — Having several good one-way incoming links, often referred to as backlinks, are quite important to your website’s search engine vitality. The concept is that when other relevant, on-topic sites link to your site with no incentive to do so — either in the form of payment or by you giving them a reciprocal link — this should mean that they are naturally recommending your site’s visit-worthiness. One popular source for one-way links would be publishing articles on article directories. Another particularly attractive option would be to obtain an incoming link or two from a .gov or .edu site.
3. Varying Anchor Text — It’s the natural thing to do, both for incoming links and outgoing links. This means that using “click here” as the link text every now and then is just as good as using the page’s optimized keyword for anchor text. When anchor text begins to appear too focused and unnatural, your link profile can become suspicious in the eyes of the search engines.
4. Don’t Grow It Too Fast — The natural growth pattern of a site’s link profile is slow and steady. A couple new links here, a couple there. If your site was to all of the sudden come up with 100 new incoming links in a day or two, the search engines will definitely be able to tell (and possibly penalize for it).
5. Even noFollow Links Add Balance — If it became clear to search engines that your site was only seeking fully weighted incoming links (those that have no restrictions and therefore pass along rank to your page), this is a likely sign that you might be trying to unnaturally influence the search engines. While links that are restricted with the noFollow tag are often ignored because their lack of direct influence, the truth is that the lack of having these links might be damaging as well.

Again, it pays to keep it natural. The more it looks like you’re trying to force links, the more likely it is that the search engines will keep a more scrupulous eye on your site.

Until Next Time.
George Chaney
President/CEO
SEO King, Inc.

What Is Co-Citation And How Does It Work?

When a given website (Site A) links to your website (Site B), and also to several other websites (Site C, Site D, and so on), there is a link or tie between your site and the other sites linked to from Site A. It sounds complicated, but scale this example up many times over, and you’ll have a pretty good picture of what sites are related via co-citation.

Just because your site isn’t directly linked to or from Site C or Site D, because one or more other sites are linking to all of you, search engines are seeing you as related or similar to some degree. Ideally, the more relevant and better quality these sites that you share co-citation with are to your keywords and overall site niche, the better you’ll be in the search engines.

How To Benefit From Co-Citation

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to really to change, control, or manipulate co-citation in most cases. In other words, when someone decides to link to your site, you have very little control over that matter — hopefully the site that’s linking to you will have positive effects rather than negative when it comes to co-citation.

However, there is one instance where you can check ahead of time to make sure everything is A-Okay. Before asking another site to link to you, it’s a good idea to check the potential co-citation effects that could potentially result ahead of time. And doing a little bit of background research is simple.

Google Search

One easy way to grab a quick picture of how your website’s co-citation picture looks is to use Google’s "related" search refiner or "Similar" sites feature. Here’s how…

To do a "related" search:
Just type this in a Google search box (where "example.com" is replaced by the URL of your website or the particular website you are wanting to know more about): related:www.example.com

To view "similar" websites:
Simply do a Google search for your own site or any other site that you’d like to know more about. In the search results, look for the option under the chosen result that says "Similar" and click it — that’s all there is to it!

By following one of these two options with Google search, you’ll be able to get a pretty good picture of what co-citation looks like and what kinds of websites are being tied to yours (and visa-versa). So even though you can’t always control it in all circumstances, you can take a proactive approach to co-citation in other cases.

Until Next Time.
George Chaney
President/CEO
SEO King, Inc.

Just as you may have links on your site to other sites, backlinks are the ways that your site can be found throughout the internet.  Aside from search engines, backlinks are a very important part of your marketing program on their very own.

But the real magic takes place when search engines find your backlinks.

Backlinks are probably most important to your website because they help to indicate how popular your site is—and this in turn may help with your search engine rankings dramatically.

Of course, the search engine rating process is complex and uses many variables to help determine your ranking.  Some search engines use the number of backlinks in the rating process.  The more backlinks you have, the better the ranking will likely be.  While ranking is not based on this alone, it is a major factor in most of the popular search engines. 

Backlinks are also an important part of any online marketing program for the exposure they provide.  The more links that you have to your site, the more traffic you’ll be able to drive to your website.  The more traffic you can get to visit your website, the more money you can make by selling your products or services.

What about reciprocal links?

Reciprocal links are an easy and free way to get more potential customers to your site and should still be taken seriously.  However, it’s apparent that many popular search engines are no longer giving them much weight.

That said—the best links are those that are between sites that are in the same or similar type of business as yours.  For example, if you have a site that sells gardening tools, your backlinks would be well-placed on a site that sells garden plants. 

Here are some additional important things to keep in mind about backlinks:

• The best backlinks are from other sites within your industry.
• Find other websites and make a list of those you’d like to link with.
• Having quality backlinks will improve your search engine ranking.
• Reciprocal linking is a great way to use the marketing efforts of others to help your own website.
• Think of innovative places to put your links online—plenty of great options out there!
• Consider using forums, blogs, and social networks to place backlinks for your site for free.
• Review your backlinks online to see which ones are working for you.

That’s about it for now!

Until Next Time…
George Chaney
President
SEO King, Inc.