Links To Other Websites
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Links to other websites can be good or bad.
Not All Links Are Created Equal
We all want to be recognized in the search engines.
How you attempt to achieve this can be good or a disaster for your website.
Remember what they say, “You are the company you keep.” This is true with the internet and search engines.
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Relevant linking
If you give links to any website because they ask, without ever checking them out, can harm yours. The site needs to be relevant to your own and not a “link farm”.
Property of https://maryjstephenson.com/topics 2-12-2018
Let’s say you have a pet site and someone that sells handbags wants to link with you, don’t do it. When the combination doesn’t belong, stop and reconsider. A baby toy site linking to a farm equipment site makes no sense.
You can’t be everything and neither should you try.
I remember years ago when someone was eager to link to everybody. And with further investigation I saw a person so desperate to make money, they had everything you could imagine for sale on their website. On their home page was a comment, that “if anyone didn’t find something they wanted, to let him know and he would add the item”.
WOW! Just crazy and sad. Would you go into a candy store and buy a drill?
A very valuable lesson. The person who owned the website was oblivious of consequences to not define what their site represents. He probably never made a dime.
A good example why you should NOT link to just anyone. Now if Oprah wants to link to you, by all means do so! Big difference in the value of a link.
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Does the site compliment yours?
Try linking to a website complimentary to your site but not in direct competition. Such as pet bowls and pet food, or gift baskets and wine. A home decorating service might link to a furniture or home garden site.
When linking to another site, it is advantageous to link to a page with information that pertains to your site. Better than linking to their “links page”. This holds value for the consumer, a much better opportunity to click your link and head over to your site. It may seem that more exposure on a “links page” can be beneficial. But the monopoly of a one page link will relate more to what someone wants at that moment.
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Check out their link page
One last note on this. Check out the “link page” on a site before you decide to link with them. If you would be lost in a “sea of links” decline. Google will recognize the page as full of links and will devalue the site and your link.
