One or Two Way Links?

The Internet is a network of interconnected websites so nevitably you will link to someone and hopefully someone is linking back to you.

One of the criterias Google uses to rank sites is the quality of incoming links, meaning how many other sites are linking to you. Google treats these links as votes of approval that you are a quality resource site for your targeted visitors. If your site doesn't have any incoming links, the search engine will deem that it's most likely not a good resource and probably not worth recommending by other sites. And you will be penalized by having your site ranked somewhere near the last of the search results, if anyone bothers to look for it.

So we know the importance of incoming links. But then you have also heard of two-way links, otherwise known as reciprocal links or links exchange.

This happens when you and another site link to one another. Some "gurus" say doing link exchange will hurt your ranking while some are all for it.

Below are a little primer on the two types of linking:

One Way Links
If you want to rank well in search engines results, you must have these one way incoming links. As I mentioned earlier, incoming links are viewed as approval or recommendation of you by other websites. And Google place a lot of weight on these links, especially from relevant sites.

So everybody wants one-way incoming links but how to get them?

Some of the ways you can do this are:

1) Submit your own articles to article directories. If you have written articles before, you will know what a resource box is. A resource box is basically contains relevant information about you, the writer and what you do. And included in this resource box is a link to your website.

By submitting to these article directories, you will instantly get multiple backlinks to your site. The major directories usually have a PageRank of 4 and above. If websites with high PageRanks are linking to you, your site will be seen as important by Google. But more importantly,
these sites have been INDEXED. When search engine spiders crawl the web, they will start with sites that are already indexed, then they will look at who these sites are linking to and crawl toward them. So this is an excellent way to get your site indexed fast by the search engines.

2) Start a blog and link it to your site. Blogging sites are usually highly regarded by the search engines. Incoming links from them will have a positive effect.

3) Buy links from other sites. Although much debated, many website owners do buy incoming links. This is mostly done through a link brokerage service like TextLinkBrokers.com. These brokers offer links from many sites across different industries and PageRanks.

Types of links include permanent one-way link and short term one-way links. Be ready to spend up to $100 a month on just one link from high ranked sites.

It is much debated because some marketers believe these brokers are selling links from link farms. Link farms are sites that have no real practical use except to link to other sites. And you will be penalized if one is linking to you. If you are seriously thinking of buying incoming links, always do your homework, ask questions and make sure it's not some shady fly-by-night brokers who are selling these links.

4) Do Nothing. This is the purists' way of getting incoming links. Their belief is if your site is good enough, with tons of practical and helpful resource, other sites in your industry will naturally want to link to you because they too want to be a good resource for the same vistors.

This poses two challenges:

One is to be able to build a site with that kind of high standards. Two is to be patient and wait for sites to link to you. But you must get some exposure before anyone will notice what a wonderful site you have.

TWO WAY LINKS

A simple concept: You link to me, I link to you. Even though search engines don't regard them as highly as one-way incoming links, two-way links or reciprocal linking are still valuable to your site. The major reason being an inflow of TARGETED visitors. And of course, it is usually free.

They key to get these targeted visitors is to do two-way linking profitably. First, don't just swap links with anyone, make sure you exchange links only with sites from your industry because you share the same target visitors. Whoever visited your link partners might be interested in visiting you and vice versa.

Second, make it easy with clear instructions on your site on how to exchange links with you. Always get them to link to your FIRST before you review their sites and link back to them.

Third, check how they are displaying your the link to you. Is it hidden somewhere in a clutter mess of links? And is it reachable within two clicks upon landing on their sites?

In conclusion, clearly one-way incoming links are much more highly regarded by the search engines. But this might take too long and too costly for some Internet marketers. So it's not uncommon to find websites balanced with both methods of linking.
=========================================================================
More artices are available at Zackery Lim's Internet home business website, which includes 400 free ebooks for download.
===================================================================