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PageRank & How to Get It (Part 2) 
By Bob Wakfer


Accumulating Backlinks

The title of my first article was "Google PageRank & How to Get 
It" (http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2004/jun/21.html). 
I thought I answered the "how to get it" question by indicating 
in the chart that accompanied that article how many backlinks, 
or inbound links (IBL), are needed from various PageRank (PR) 
level sites to achieve a desired PR. For instance the chart 
indicated that you can achieve a PR6 with either 101 links from 
PR5 pages or one link from a PR8 page. However, several readers 
wrote me and said that I had not answered the "how to get it" 
question. What they wanted was an explanation, or tutorial, on 
how to accumulate the necessary number of backlinks. This article 
will attempt to explain the various techniques that can be used 
to accumulate backlinks. 

Internal Backlinks and Navigation

Backlinks are normally thought of as links from outside or 
external sites. However it must be remembered that Google also 
counts internal links or navigational links within the site as 
part of the PR calculation. So let's take a minute and deal with 
that first. 

Google uses a program known as the googlebot to crawl, or read, 
web page content. The most important thing to remember about 
internal navigation is that the googlebot must be able to read 
and follow the links. The googlebot cannot do this if the links 
are exclusively javascript or some other non-html scripting or 
programming language. The best links for the googlebot are 
straightforward text links. Images can be used as links, but alt 
tags should always be used in conjunction with these image 
links. If you are simply in love with the mouse over, drop down 
navigation that you can program with javascript then you must 
also supply the googlebot with text links that it can read. 

This is normally done by placing simple text links across the 
bottom of each page, or on large sites with many interior 
pages or sections, by the use of a site map. 

Assuming that the googlebot can find and follow a link to every 
internal page, how do we maximize the PageRank that is generated 
by these pages? Normally our initial concern is to transfer as 
much PR as possible to our home page. The way that this is done 
is to make sure that there is a Google readable link on every 
page pointing back to the home page. If you use a site map there 
should also be a text link on every page pointing to the site 
map. 

I haven't got the space to go into all the other nuances of 
internal linking, but rather than try to link to every page from 
the home page, it is best to link only to the major category 
pages. The category pages will then link to all of the 
individual pages in their category and these third level pages 
will all link back to their category page as well as the home 
page and site map as mentioned above. This general hierarchical 
structure will transfer the highest PR possible to the home page 
and site map, and the next highest level of PR to the category 
pages. 

How to Get External Backlinks

Finally we arrive at the part of the article the readers were 
really asking for. There are an unlimited number of ways to 
accumulate IBL or backlinks. Here are the four most common ways: 

List your site in as many Directories as possible. Engage in a 
reciprocal linking campaign. Buy backlinks. Write newsletters or 
articles and get them published on other sites or in your own 
blog. Some purists advocate a fifth way of accumulating links. 
They maintain that if your page has enough outstanding content 
that people will put up links as a service to their viewers 
without asking for, or demanding, a link back in return. That is 
certainly possible for some types of sites, but is not generally 
a viable method for competitive commercial web sites. 

Submit to Directories

There are many directories, both paid submission and free, where 
you can submit your site. The most famous is probably the DMOZ 
directory, however be prepared for a long wait to get into this 
directory. Many of the other directories like GoGuides, Joeant, 
Gimpsy and the brand new Bluefind will charge you about $40 as a 
submission fee. Then of course there is Yahoo which will charge 
you $300 just to review your site with no guarantee of 
inclusion. 

Depending on your market place and demographics there may be 
many regional, local or industry specific directories available. 
Some are free and others have a nominal inclusion fee. 

Reciprocal Links

Let's deal with the objection that some people have to 
reciprocal links. Some "experts" claim that Google devalues 
reciprocal links. I don't believe this, but rather than attempt 
to tell you why I would rather refer you to "this article" 
(http://www.compar.com/infopool/articles/news29.html) written by 
a leading link building expert. 

So how can you find people who are willing to exchange links 
with you? One of the simplest ways is to search in Google for 
your prime keywords. Then do a "search within results" for all 
the pages that contain "add your URL" or "add your link". The 
other variation on this is to do a link: search on the top 10 or 
20 pages. This will show you all the pages that link to these 
sites. You can then contact the webmasters of these sites and 
ask them to exchange links with you. 

If you are really serious about reciprocal linking you may want 
to use some software that will help you organize and monitor 
your links. As part of managing a reciprocal linking program you 
need constantly to be checking for dead links from your site, 
and to verify that all the reciprocal links from other sites are 
up and running. The software I use for this purpose is 
LinksManager (http://linksmanager.com/cgi-bin/welcome.cgi?compar). 

Buy Backlinks

There are a number of sites that will sell you links. Some 
people are horrified at this thought, but I see no difference 
between buying links and online advertising. If you pay to have 
a banner displayed on a busy web site, you are also buying a 
link. 

It is possible to buy individual links, or to buy what are known 
as "run of the site" links. These are normally text links from 
every page on the site. An entire industry has grown up around 
link buying. There is an auction site dedicated exclusively to 
buying and selling links and there are several link brokers and 
re-sellers on the Internet. 

Anchor Text

To get the maximum return for your investment make sure that you 
use your prime keyword phrases as anchor text in all your IBL. 
This practice should even be employed with internal links. Try 
and exchange links with sites that are related in content and 
theme to your own site. This may mean that you will have to link 
to your competitors on some occasions. 

Articles, Newsletters etc. 

If you want to have links from relevant and related pages 
without linking to a competitor the easiest way to accomplish 
this is to write an article, or a series of articles, about your 
industry or market niche, and link to your site from these. 
There are many people who are looking for, and will publish, 
good articles. SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com/) is one 
example of this. I also publish a collection of articles in my 
InfoPool, and am always looking for new articles and good 
content. 

Link Building is Hard Work 

There is no free lunch when it comes to link building. With the 
possible exception of purchasing links, accumulating and managing 
an aggressive linking campaign is continuous hard work. However, 
experience has shown that if you want to place well in the SERPs 
for competitive search terms you really have no other choice. 

Addendum:

Since I wrote this article I have become aware of two exciting 
new linking opportunities. 

The first is a free Ad Network designed and operated by Shawn 
at DigitalPoint, the home of so many excellent SEO tools. The 
Ad Network is a network of web site owners who are displaying 
banners and text links for each other in available space on 
their web sites. If you are interested in investigating and 
using this interesting link exchange service here is a link to 
the "Ad Network" 
(http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/?signup=40) 

The other service is a paid service out of England offered by 
BriteCorp. For 39.95 British pounds per month (approximately 
$70 US) Brian of BriteCorp will create 50 new links a day for 
you. This is a approximately 1,500 per month or 10,000 over 
six months.  

Brian has offered this special promotional code to readers of 
this article: Code:"brite200/1" For complete information follow 
this link to BriteCorp 
(http://www.britecorp.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation/link-building/) 
and be sure to use the promotional code. 

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Bob Wakfer is the owner of Computer Partners (http://www.compar.com) 
and a long time student and practitioner of SEO. Computer Partners 
offers web site design, hosting and search engine optimization 
for its clients. If you would like to discuss any of these 
services with Bob you can email him at bob@compar.com     
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