I thought would try to offer some perspective on links and their impact on Google rankings today. Google still values links and moves websites up in their organic rankings because of links. Inbound links to your website will always vary in quantity and quality. These variations will also determine whether your SERPs (search engine ranking positions) improve or decline.Here is my stab at rating links and their power to improve your search engine rankings. This is only based on experience and observation; there is no scientific evidence to support the hierarchy I have created. This assumes the link to your website is using anchor text that contains a search term you desire higher rankings for, the site is a trusted site and outbound links don’t exceed fifty on any single page.
#1: Contextual one way link from the home page of a related site.
#2: Non contextual one way link from the home page of a related site.
#3: Contextual one way link from theme related internal page of a related site.
#4 Non contextual one way link from theme related internal page of a related site.
#5: Contextual one way link from the home page of a partially related site.
#6: Non contextual one way link from the home page of a partially related site.
#7: Contextual one way link from theme related internal page of a partially related site.
#8 Non contextual one way link from theme related internal page of a partially related site.
#9: Contextual one way link from the home page of a non-related site.
#10: One way link from the home page of a non-related site.
#11: One way links from a related website where most but not all of the other links are related.
#12: Reciprocal link (assumes it is not contextual) from a related website where only other related links appear on the same page as your link.
#13: One way links from a non-related website on a theme related links page where only other related links appear.
#14: Reciprocal links from a non-related website theme related links page where only other related links appear and there are fifty or less outbound links on the page.
Note: I say links from websites here but the link could come from a blog or forum post too.
Now…which of these links do you want? Perhaps all of them but which ones will move your website up higher in the rankings really depends on the quantity, quality, and length of time the links to your competition have in place and the rate their links and your links continue to grow.
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