Search Engine Optimization Tip 26: Get Links from Someone You Trust

Police Officer  Vizion Interactive Reading Time: 3 minutes

This is search engine optimization tip number twenty six in my continuing series of Search Engine Optimization tips. Remember that all of my search engine optimization tips are meant to be specific in nature, they should not take that long to review, and are “short and sweet” and directly to the point. This search engine optimization tip has to do with building links to your website, but focuses on getting links from the more “trusted” sites out there.

Not following along with my Search Engine Optimization Tips? You might want to take a look at the recap of search engine optimization tips I posted recently. There are a lot more search engine optimization tips coming in the future. In fact, to keep up with these SEO tips you might want to subscribe to our SEO RSS Feed.

Like I have mentioned before, we need links to our web sites from other web sites that are “on topic” to our web site. But these links need to be from the “trusted web sites”, not just any web site that appears to be about your topic.

A police officer is someone that we generally trust. And how do you determine whether he or she is a police officer? Well, they normally wear a uniform and a badge. Just like a police officer, we can determine (*usually) if a site is going to be a more “trusted” site than another site out there if the site has Google “site links”. Certainly that’s not necessarily the only determining factor, but it certainly helps to determine some sort of “trust”. Just like police officers, there are good ones and there are bad ones: and there are undercover police officers, so Google “site links” isn’t the only determining factor, as there are certainly sites that don’t have Google “site links” that may help your web site’s rankings.

How do you determine if a site has Google “site links” or not?

Depending on the type of search query you are using, Google “site links” will show up in the search results for the first site (the site that ranks number one for that keyword). Generally speaking, if you search for the site’s name you will probably see whether or not the site has site links or not. So, as an example, if you do a search for “Yahoo Directory” at Google.com, you will see the site links. But, a search for “web directory” may show the Yahoo! Directory in the search results but it may not show that the site has site links.

Another determining factor when it comes to finding a “trusted site” can be the domain age. Has the web site been around for several years? Take a look at the whois (who owns the domain name) and it will show the date that the domain name has been created or registered: the older the domain name is the better. Older domain names don’t necessarily have trust, but certainly brand new domain names (less than a month old) may not have the trust you need when looking for a link from a “trusted site”.

Look at the site’s Google PageRank. Take a look at what the Google PageRank number is (a number between 1 and 10). If the site has a grey bar or a Google PageRank of zero on the home page, there may be an issue with the site. Generally speaking, the more trusted sites will have a Google PageRank of at least 3 or higher. Certainly the higher the Gogole PageRank the better, but again, it should not be the determining factor. PageRank can actually be “faked”, so “buyer beware”.

There are many different ways to determine whether a site is “trusted” or not. Google Site Links are certainly one way to determine whether or not you want to “do business” with a web site or not. To my knowledge, there is really no list out there of web sites that have site links or not, so you’ll have to manually look to see if the domain name age, the Google PageRank, and the site links “add up” to being a trusted site, a site that you will want to get a link from.

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