Getting links from other sites is one of the key ways to improve the rankings of a website in the search engines. Generally, the more links to a site, the higher it ranks in the search engines. However, it is obvious that not all links are created equal. It appears that the search engines give less value to links that are easy to obtain. These easy to obtain self promotional links include things like getting the website listed in 1000’s of web directories; posting blog comments and posting in forums with links back to the website; and the writing and submitting articles to article directories. These links still carry some value, but do not carry as much value as a link from an authority site.
The search engines seem to value links from authority sites as being more important. These links seem to be given editorially because the site is worthy of being linked to and is not given through self promotional means. How might a search engine determine if a website could be considered an authority site? It is not really known how they might do this, but one way they could do this is look at for each keyword(s), what site or sites do most of the high ranking sites link to. If many of them link to one site or a couple of sites, what does it tell the search engines about those sites? It tells them that they are obviously an authority site and perhaps important in that niche.
The next challenge is to work out which are the authority sites in your niche and work out a way to get a link from them. This is not an easy task, but what does it tell the search engines about your site if they do link to you? It send a positive signal to the search engones about your link building.
