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By Root 767 0

site owners and webmasters pursued anything they could do to increase their PageRank value. Links were traded and valued based on the PageRank of the linked page. People compared the PageRank of their home pages. Webmasters tried to crack the PageRank calculations to see which other pages on their sites were more valuable than other pages. Within only a few short months, many webmasters and site owners were more concerned about gaining PageRank than rankings or even business. The SEO community was focused on gaining links in order to increase PageRank. When it got to the point that site owners were beginning to buy and sell links to each other on the basis of PageRank, Google stepped in and changed the PageRank calcuations. Since that time, the PageRank display is rarely accurate and rarely updated. Many believe it was a public relations ploy to publish this part of the algorithm, because it did create an amazing amount of interest within the online marketing community.

The lesson learned from that entire stage in search marketing was that there were too many who followed the excitement of chasing their page ranking rather than focusing on getting more sales and leads out of their websites. People refused to link to low PageRank sites (because they may lower the linking site’s PageRank) and therefore didn’t link to sites as they normally would. This behavior seemed to be the opposite of what Google intended.

PageRank is still around, in some form, but it is one of dozens of ranking factors for websites. Links from other websites are still considered a valuable type of currency online, because the authority from high-value websites can pass to your site and increase your authority in your niche or industry.

Brand Exposure

A benefit of getting other websites to link to your website is that it increases your visibility online. By your website or business name having links on other sites, readers see you associated with specific topics and can begin to develop an idea of what your business is, which may also enhance your credibility within an industry. If your website is consistently cited in research, articles, and information within an industry, your brand credibility improves.

There are many times an article, video, or topic goes “viral” online. Somehow, the topic or information resonates with a particular group of people, and the article or video is shared, passed along, or emailed to others within a social circle and beyond. You may not get much business out of this type of referral network, but it does increase the number of people who see your brand or company name and are exposed to the information you provide.

Sales and Leads

As mentioned, a link is an online word-of-mouth referral. Getting referrals is important, because many links can provide a significant part of your business. When evaluating a website, I always search for the links to a website that produce a very high percentage of conversions, be they leads, sales, or engagement. By identifying these high-conversion links, a business knows that they should continue to develop the relationship with the business that is the source of that link and also look to create relationships with other similar businesses.

This is a necessary evaluation when looking for link partners and for evaluating the links currently sending traffic to your website. How valuable are your links? Knowing your high-conversion links will help you define a strategy for building more high-conversion links by understanding their source.

How Search Engines Use Links in Rankings

Links play an important part in establishing your website’s credibility in terms of the ranking algorithm. Beyond simply getting a link from another website, the next level of value is to get a link with a keyword in the anchor text, which will enhance the link with context. There is a large difference between the following links if they were presented within the content of an article:

www.wallstreetjournal.com/analysis

WSJ's financial analysis

The first option is simply the URL of the website. Although there