Why Counting Links Is Not So Easy

Knowing what a link is… that’s SEO 101 right? Think again! It’s one of the most fundamental parts of SEO, but when we really asked ourselves the question, we found there were many different ways of counting links. We use both Open Site Explorer and Majestic SEO and decided to see if we can get a common census between the two tools. (Full disclosure: In case you didn’t know, one of the authors of this post is the Marketing director at Majestic.) Firstly, let’s get all the confusion out the way about the different terms that are used to describe this one key word. "Backlinks", "inbound links" and "in-links" and "links" are different words but...

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Testing the First Link Priority Rule

This post summarizes the results of a recent internal test conducted to understand how a website’s navigation menu affects the ‘First Link Priority’ rule. A method for avoiding the consequences of this rule was also tested with positive results. While these tests were in no way exhaustive, they do add to the body of evidence available on the subject. Optimized anchor text has long been an important aspect of search engine optimization because it helps the search engines determine the relevance of the target URL. And while a good SEO link-building campaign can help you achieve better optimized anchor text, a natural backlink portfolio will often...

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A New Perspective On Link Building

Dictionary.com defines a link as "anything serving to connect one part or thing with another; a bond or tie." Interestingly, the given definition for a relationship is "a connection, association, or involvement." From a semantic point of view, these two words seem to be synonyms. Yet from an SEO point of view, all too often they are mortal enemies. Let's be honest, link building is not the most glamorous task out there. We all know it has to be done. We all know search engine algorithms heavily weight link metrics. But no one ever looks forward to sitting down and building links. I believe this paradigm is self-defeating. If you don't want to...

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