This time it is all about search engines and the measuring of links.

PageRank and Links as Votes:

The initial idea behind Google’s legendary PageRank system was that a link to a particular page is equivalent to a vote by the linking page for the linked-to page. By measuring the keywords and their relevance on a particular page and also the number of “votes” or links it had, Google could determine which pages were considered by the web’s users to be most valuable for the given search terms. On top of this, links from web pages that already had a high PageRank would be more valuable than links from low PageRank pages.

What are the improvements in Link Quality Scoring:

Over the years all of the major search engines adopted the link-based ranking model with some variation from engine to engine. The technology, quality and “intelligence” of the various search algorithms continually evolve in an effort to improve the quality of returned search results. i.e the recent launch of Bing, Ask etc

Anchor text is now considered when evaluating the relevance of a given link to the given keywords. What is anchor text, the following HTML code will display as Wikipedia on the webpage but if you click on it, you will go to the following webpage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.
The anchor text in this example is “Wikipedia”

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikipedia</a>

This is a key component of any SEO optimisation a developer will do for you. Essentially it’s a description of the link. How often do you see on various websites, “click here for more info” or something similar. If a site about a famous shop, say Harrods has lots of links pointing to it with anchor text written as ‘Harrods ‘, those links will provide greater value to the link recipient than links with anchor text such as ‘click here for more info’.

Links as Quality Control:

By using the methods discussed above to measure link quantity and quality, the search engines create a ranking system that is much harder to manipulate than one based solely upon on-page factors. That is not to say, however, that page structure and actual content are not evaluated. The link-based model simply places more importance on links based upon the theory that only well-designed, content-rich pages will get high-value links from reputable sources.

Trusted Domains:

Link factors such as anchor text, semantic relevance and page relationship certainly matter, but perhaps no factor matters as much as the trustworthiness of the domain providing you with your link. Trusted domains have proven over time (ironically, through the acquisition of thousands of trusted links) to be worthwhile and
reliable sources of quality information about their given subject matter. As such, when the search engines see that these sites link to you when discussing your area of focus, they pay attention. This tells the engines that a reliable and trusted source thinks you are an expert and you offer content that’s extremely relevant to the topic.

In the online world, the search engines use their artificial intelligence algorithms to make similar determinations. This is a self-perpetuating process on the web. The more trusted, valuable links your site receives, the more trusted and valuable your site (and the links you give) becomes.

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