Three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft account for more than 85% of all searches (based on the Nielson/NetRatings surveys in April and September of 2007). That translates roughly to 6.3 billion searches… a month.

Using search engines is the 2nd highest activity on the Internet, which is why search engine optimization is so essential.

Recently, Microsoft has made it known that they want to purchase Yahoo in order to better compete with Google. Although Yahoo, turned down Microsoft’s offer it seems Microsoft will be trying anyway possible to gain Yahoo. Personally, I believe the regulators will not allow the two to merge, but you never know.

Even though I don’t believe Microsoft will be able to buy Yahoo I still included this anyway since it is the biggest topic on the news today it seems. So if your site was banned from MSN, you might want to fix that. And now we are moving on.

Last time we talked about CSS, Flash, and Portal software. Today will we will talk about links.

All things being equal between multiple sites (which can happen, but rarely does) the ranking will fall on who is linking to that site. Heck, for Google links that go to your pages are almost the most important means for you to gain keyword placement.

What do Links do for you?

Inbound links to a lot of things for your site:

• They can add legitimacy to your original content.
• They give your site authority and trust
• They help search engines find your site more readily
• They drive traffic
• Can be a form of free or cheap advertising

If you write original content, chances are good that a) you want it to remain yours (you want people to know that you wrote it not someone else) and b) that someone has probably stolen it.

Do not fear though. Google and Yahoo have ways of making sure the original content is ranked higher than the copied off versions. In order to do this though you need links.

Say you have an article and you have noticed other people have copied and used it for their own sites without asking for permission. Now lets say that their version of your article is ranked higher on Google. What do you do?!?!?! Simple, take your article add a bio and a link back to the original on your site then see about getting sites to use that article with your bio info. Now when Google compares your original article to the copied version it will notice that several web sites list you as the originator. Once that occurs it will then move your site higher on the keyword placement for the article and the site that copied it will be sucking wind.

Inbound Links are how search engines determine how trusted a site is. If you have tons of links coming from trusted sites (PC Magazine, IBM, etc) then your site will become trusted. The level of trust or authority a site has is what determines how popular it will be on searches, will be given more credit as a originator for content, and how well other sites will do if you link to them. A site that has an authority of 6 on a scale of one to ten will give more value to the sites it links to than a site with an authority of 4.

If you have links from other sites that are connected to pages within your site you give search engines an easier means to access your content. Recently we tried this on Web Host Magazine with one of our community pages. The page itself was indexed by Google but was near the bottom of the pile as far as rank goes (I think it was on page 6 for results on the keywords it is targeting). As an experiment I was able to make a few link deals for authoritive sites to link to that page. Google and Yahoo both took notice and after one week, the page became number on for its targeted keywords.

Links are not just for spiders. A well crafted text link can send traffic to your site just as well as a good banner ad. Depending on the audience it might end up doing better than the banner ad.

Lastly, do not underestimate the mind share building abilities of a good text link. A well built text link cannot only give you added search engine authority, standing, and traffic, but can also aid you on marketing your product or service.

That’s all I have on why you want to look at optimizing your links, next time we will go through the process of link creation step by step. Until then happy hosting.