There is a lot of talk about links (aka “inbound links”) and link building in the world of search marketing and when talking SEO.  I’ll skip the commentary and common reasons/need for inbound links to your website and just leave it at – you need them.

But not all links are created equal.  And if you can remember back to high school – neither are prom dates.

So let’s take a quick look at some common types of links.

Bad directory links – There are a lot of lousy directories out – A LOT!  Google knows it and you should know it.  This is the girl that doesn’t really want to go to prom but her Mom is making here and since your Mom is making you go this is who you go with.

Good directory links – Okay, so you have to go to prom. This is the slightly cuter girl who doesn’t really want to go but knows she may regret it someday if she doesn’t so like you, she has to go.

Paid Links – Do I really need to explain what paying for a date means?  Hey, prostitution is a huge industry in the world and although many wish it would go away – it’s not.  Why?  Where there is demand there is supply.  And if nobody gets caught and nobody gets hurt – where’s the harm?

Reciprocal link exchanges – This one might be the worst of them all. This is taking your sister to the prom.  Okay – maybe some are like taking your cousin at least and a few get upgraded to your hot cousin from out of town and if you’re really lucky nobody knows and nobody ever finds out you brought a relative to prom.  But still – you’ll always know.

One-way links with just your URL – Beggars can’t be choosers.  This is your kind of cute friend.  If you take her you’ll probably have a good time but you know there’s no love connection – she’s your friend and that’s all – in the back of your mind you think you could have done better.

One-way links with good anchor text – Your really cute friend that you’d like to more than friends with – does she feel the same way?

Home page links – She’s hot, she actually said yes and seems to be having fun!  This comparison alone (like many others) could have several variations based on the content of the page, the popularity of the page and the type of link but this isn’t a white paper, it’s a silly blog post about chicks and SEO.

Home page link on CNN – Head cheerleader, and you’re losing your virginity after the party!

There are of course many other types of inbound links but the attempt at humor with the analogy to a prom date only goes so far.

I’ve excluded some real bottom of the barrel type of links (auto generated link spam, link farms, etc…) because nobody wants the image of those girls.  We know who they were (or are) and they might be fine for a quick bit of joy but afterwards you feel dirty and don’t ever want to go there again.

The first of which is to talk briefly about the basic kinds of links – again, this is not all inclusive by any means.  One of the most common, and in many cases the least valuable, is a link exchange.  You put a link up on your site for me and I’ll do the same for you.  There is some value as long as the links are related.  For example if your site is about basketball and I sell basketball shoes there is some value to each of our readers to know about the other site.  But since most of these types of links appear on link pages with dozens, if not hundreds of other links the value is very minimal and fading.  There are more effective ways to do what is still essentially link exchanging but for this post on Purple Widget I’m trying to stick to some basics.  Perhaps at a later date I’ll explore link building more in-depth.  

Another popular linking method that fooled search engines for about 5 minutes is what’s called 3-way or triangle linking.  My site A links to your site B and your site links to my site C.  Again, if your linking to related quality content there is some value but in many cases search engines can sniff out this 3-way triangle link so the attempt to have links appear as one-way is really not helping you much.  

Lastly in my very high level overview is the every popular one-way link.  Someone, hopefully an authoritative highly trusted website, sees something on your site of value to them and their audience and links to you.  One-way links (like all links) come in many shapes and sizes and can be secured in a great many ways but as you’ve probably figured out by now I won’t be going extensively into these methods.  The one thing I will say that is probably the most valuable advice I can give on link building: Having GREAT content with value to a wide audience will get you links.

One of the many, many methods of getting links is to comment on articles on subjects related to your site.  Many of the links provided by comment posts are “nofollow” so they’ll have no strict SEO benefit but they can gain you traffic and exposure and since you’re in a subject related to your site this exposure could lead to something more – like someone seeing your site and deciding to link to it on their site because you have great content!  So how does this relate to PurpleWidget.com?  I’m glad you asked.  This is one method I’ve begun to use for Purple Widget.  Recently when commenting on SEO articles I’ve been using the name Purple Widget as my name and of course this site as the URL with my comment.  And although so far I’ve only done it a few times it’s already working as Link Diagnosis shows 2 links back to me from these comments.

Similarly, your profile and signature in forums that you regularly (and being a solid contributing member is important) participate in can provide links to your site and Purple Widget will start doing this as well in the near future.

I know what you’re thinking – the title of this post is Link Building and Stuff and you’ve given us great link building info but where’s my stuff!!??!  Here it is….hope you’re not disappointed.

Let’s check our rankings.  Even though we all know there’s a lot more to SEO and search engine success than simply your rankings it starts with rankings and they’re fun to check here is where Purple Widget ranks today.

Term: Purple Widget
Google #1 and #2
Yahoo! #1
Live – Not Indexed Still
Ask #1 and #2

Term: SEO Experiment
Google #25
Yahoo! #22
Live – Still not indexed
Ask – Not in Top 50

See – that was fun!

Next up for Purple Widget will be some press releases distributed via free pr distribution services.  Stay tuned!