Links are important for SEO because they make the page visible over the internet. When many different pages/urls redirect or point at your page, the probability of people visiting increases and thus resulting into more conversions. But time to time google updates has already taught us a lesson that spamy link building or link stuffing is a no way to improve search engine rankings. So how can one identify a good link and a bad link? The task is not a child’s play. You need to be keen and watch out for some link attributes that decide the usability of the link. Let us discuss those deciding factors in the order of priorities.

The Most Significant

This section contain all those attributes that are a must for genuine link acquisition. These can not be ignored or compromised. Let us go through each attribute. We will also tell you the right method to evaluate the utility of link based on the respective attribute.

1. Domain Authority. This is undoubtedly the most important deciding factor. The page that you pick to point to your particular content (targeted link building) or website as a whole (conventional link building); should be of high domain authority. Domain authority simply mean that the page should be ‘good’ in the eyes of the google. A high authority page has undoubtedly high volume of traffic because google put them at top and chances of clicks are more. Thus placing your link at such a page will fetch you a good number of audiences and possibly good number of conversions too. Links from low domain authority pages may be damaging for your reputation and business. Now you can find out the domain authority of a page simply by counting linking c- blocks.
   
   

2. Internal/ External Links. It is important to decide whether the link we are going to build is internal i.e. from your own website or external i.e. from other website or blog. While it is good idea to engage visitor in directing him to your pages and content, the external link brings traffic from other website to yours. Thus contributing to new visitors.

3. Follow/no follow link. This is still an important attribute to decide the validity of a page. Follow links add to the improved search engine ranking , while a nofollow link has no contribution in it at all. You can eyeball the no followed links.

4. Other Links of ‘The’ Page. Look out for the kind of other links that the page is pointing to. These links should not be spammy. This will spoil your reputation too. All the links that the page has should have good presentation over the web. They should have good authority, comparable to yours.

5. Page’s popularity. The page should have high popularity. It itself should have a huge volume of visitors. Then only its visitors will click on your link and reach to your article. Beware more visit does not ensure more engagement. Only if the page has some influence over its audiences, then only it can inspire them to visit your page too.

6. Spam test. This one is obvious. The page/site we are linking with should not be spammy. Associating with spammy site just for the sake of building a thick link acquisition database, is simply not worth. You can use various analytical tools to identify a spammy link or you can use your wits too. A bad site is rather easy to tell.

The Less Significant

These attributes are less important, but you need to still check whether the page is meeting these checklists.

1. Anchor Text. It is the text that is associated with the link that help in improving the search ranking. So is it important. Anchor texts are not so important. You may not want to rank for the keyword that the anchor text is carrying. But anyhow get the link. Collecting link is important, the anchor text- not so. You can use open site explorer for identifying the anchor texts you are targeting. But anyhow, if you can not find them, get the link if it is meeting all the other requirements.

2. Relevance. You may be thinking that relevance should not rank so below. But let us tell you we are talking about topical relevance. Some people think that if we are writing about new gadget, then we should target technical sites only. But that is not true now. Now the relevancy is judged beyond topical relation. Now a local business in your area can also be relevant as it is marking a geographical similarity. Now a business in close association with yours can also be relevant like- food and catering businesses.

3. Content Value. The page should contain information that people may find interesting. It should provide something to its readers. If the page has quality content, then more and more people get associated with it. You can use your judgement to decide whether the page is fulfilling the needs of its visitors(information/humour) or not.

4. Topical authority. Yes, similar to domain authority, google also rank pages on the base of topics they cover. The target page should have good topical authority. Clearly it is not as important as the domain authority, but you can type the topic you are covering, and see how well the page is ranking for that particular topic.

5. Position Of Link. Well..it also matter a little. If the location of your link is not good and it is not easily visible or accessible, then the number of clicks will be less and it would fail the aim of link building. The link should not appear as an advertisement.

6. Javascript. Well we are not talking about hardcore coding that you can not understand. But in Javascript sometimes link are just represented as texts and are not picked up by the google crawlers. Thus adding no value to your search rankings. So just make sure that the links are getting picked up. Use google’s cached snapshot for given url to do so.

7. The Author. Sometimes while focusing at the page itself, we forget about the author that wrote the content. It is not of paramount importance for SEO, but according to california seo, it can pump up your marketing. The author has high credibility, you can tell him to write something about you and then link to you. Thus you can use his quote about you, for publicity purposes.

8. Links from the Domain. We have identified other links from the page, but as an additional lookout, we can check out the links from the domain itself. Thus you can make a more informed decision about the suitability of that page for your business. Nowadays its all about credibility and association with better ranked businesses. Same stands for link building too.

The Least Significant

You can surely ignore these attributes while evaluating the importance of link. These may have some value to contribute in the previous time, but we have put them here because with changing time, they have lost their glory.

1. PageRank. Confused? Shocked? Well pagerank is not so important nowadays. What is important, we have already discussed i.e. domain authority. Some pages of a website may not rank good. They may not be their star pages in terms of search traffic. BUT..But..But they may be converting from the redirects or internal link building. Thus they may be converting but just not have a good pagerank.

2. Source depth. Some of us, new to the SEO may not know about it. Don’t worry. It is not important too. Earlier the pages that have good site structure, a few links away from homepage, were crawled by google bots again and again affecting the search engine ranking of these sites. But now google crawl everything. They can calculate the depth away from homepage. There is no need to waste your time in this.

3. Text/Image Link. You very well know now that text or image does not matter. Both can be effectively used for directing traffic. None is less than the other. Earlier when text was considered as a better option, images today have become equally good. Fetch whatever opportunity you are getting.

4. The Age. It simply does not matter how old the link is or the page is. The ‘old is gold’ is not relevant in this case. As opposed, new pages with new and fresh ideas have high reaches to people. Thus they can be proved more beneficial.

5. Speed of Link Acquisition. As far as you are doing genuine link building, you need not to think about that. It does not matter. But if you are doing something shady, and fear that google may not catch you soon, then good luck trying.

6. The first link to target in html. It does not matter how many times the link is pointing to your same page. All the links on the page, have equal priority for google. It indexes all the links and anchor texts; and just not the first one. More links means more clicks, more traffic and more conversions.

Now is the not the time of manual link acquisition where you need to contact a webmaster or web owner for link building. It is the time for social broadcasting. If your content is good, you will find no glitch in getting relevant links. Best Seo Company In boston focuses on writing a world class content first and then target links to increase its accessibility.