asas !3213 of How Topical Links Impact SEO, in Theory and Practice

As SEOs, we well understand the value links contribute to ranking websites in search results. So much so, it's something we study regularly here at Moz.

At their most basic, links are counted as "votes" of popularity for search engines to rank websites. Beyond this, search engineers have long worked to extract a large number of signals from the simple link, including:

Trustworthiness – Links from trusted sites may count as an endorsement
Spamminess – Links from known spam sites may count against you
Link Manipulation – Looking at signals such as over-optimization and link velocity, search engines may be able to tell when webmasters are trying to "game" the system
One of the most important signals engineers have worked to extract from links is topical relevance. This allows search engines to answer questions such as "What is this website about?" by examining incoming links.

Exactly how search engines use links to measure and weigh topical relevance is subject to debate. Rand has addressed it eloquently here, and again here. Over the years, several US patent filings from Google engineers demonstrate exactly how this process may work. It's important to look at these concepts to better understand how incoming links may influence a website's ability to rank.

This is the "theory" part of SEO. As usual with these types of posts, a huge thanks to Bill Slawski and his blog SEO by the Sea, which acted as a starting point of research for many of these concepts.

1. Hub and authority pages

In the beginning, there was the Hilltop algorithm.

In the early days of Google, not long after Larry Page figured out how to rank pages based on popularity, the Hilltop algorithm worked out how to rank pages on authority. It accomplished this by looking for "expert" pages linking to them.

An expert page is a document that links to many other topically relevant pages. If a page is linked to from several expert pages, then it is considered an authority on that topic, and may rank higher.


A similar concept using "hub" and "authority" pages was put forth by Jon Kleinberg, a Cornell professor with grants from Google and other search engines. Kleinberg explains:
"...a good hub is a page that points to many good authorities; a good authority is a page that is pointed to by many good hubs.”
– Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment (PDF)
These were eloquent solutions that produced superior search results. While we can't know the degree to which these concepts are used today, Google acquired the Hilltop algorithm in 2003.
2. Anchor text

Links contain a ton of information. For example, if you link out using the anchor phrase "hipster pizza," there's a great chance the page you're linking to is about pizza (and maybe hipsters).

That's the idea behind several Google PageRank patents. Earning links with the right anchor text can help your page to rank for similar phrases.


This also explains why you should use descriptive anchor text when linking, as opposed to generic "click here" type links.
Beyond the anchor text, other signals from the linking page — including the title and text surrounding the link — could provide contextual clues as to what the target page is about. While the importance of anchor text has long been established in SEO, the influence of these other elements is harder to prove.

3. Topic-sensitive PageRank

Despite rumors to the contrary, PageRank is very much alive (though Toolbar PageRank is dead).

PageRank technology can be used to distribute all kinds of different ranking signals throughout a search index. While the most common examples are popularity and trust, another signal is topical relevance, as laid out in this paper by Taher Haveliwala, who went on to become a Google software engineer.


The concept works by grouping "seed pages" by topic (for example, the Politics section of the New York Times). Every link out from these pages passes on a small amount of topic-sensitive PageRank, which is passed on through the next set of links, and so on.

When a user enters a search, those pages with the highest topic-sensitive PageRank (associated with the topic of the search) are considered more relevant and may rank higher.

4. Reasonable surfer

All links are not created equal.

The idea behind Google's Reasonable Surfer patent is that certain links on a page are more important than others, and thus assigned increase weight. Examples of more important links include:

Prominent links, higher up in the HTML
Topically relevant links, related to both the source document and the target document.
Conversely, less important links include:

"Terms of Service" and footer links
Banner ads
Links unrelated to the document
Because the important links are more likely to be clicked by a "reasonable surfer," a topically relevant link can carry more weight than an off-topic one.


"...when a topical cluster associated with the source document is related to a topical cluster associated with the target document, the link has a higher probability of being selected than when the topical cluster associated with the source document is unrelated to the topical cluster associated with the target document."
– United States Patent: 7716225
5. Phrase-based indexing

Not going to lie. Phrase-based indexing can be a tough concept to wrap your head around.

What's important to understand is that phrase-based indexing allows search engines to score the relevancy of any link by looking for related phrases in both the source and target pages. The more related phrases, the higher the score.


In addition to ranking documents based on the most relevant links, phrase-based indexing allows search engines to do cool things with less relevant links, including:

Discounting spam and off-topic links: For example, an injected spam link to a gambling site from a page about cookie recipes will earn a very low outlink score based on relevancy, and would carry less weight.
Fighting "Google Bombing": For those that remember, Google bombing is the art of ranking a page highly for funny or politically-motivated phrases by "bombing" it with anchor text links, often unrelated to the page itself. Phrase-based indexing can stop Google bombing by scoring the links for relevance against the actual text on the page. This way, irrelevant links can be discounted.
6. Local inter-connectivity

Local inter-connectivity refers to a reranking concept that reorders search results based on measuring how often each page is linked to by all the other pages.

To put it simply, when a page is linked to from a number of high-ranking results, it is likely more relevant than a page with fewer links from same set of results.


This also provides a strong hint as to the types of links you should be seeking: pages that already rank highly for your target term.

7. The Golden Question

If the above concepts seem complex, the good news is you don't have to actually understand the above concepts when trying to build links to your site.

To understand if a link is topically relevant to your site, simply ask yourself the golden question of link building: Will this link bring engaged, highly qualified visitors to my website?


The result of the golden question is exactly what Google engineers are trying to determine when evaluating links, so you can arrive at a good end result without understanding the actual algorithms.

About those links between sites you control...

One important thing to know is this: in nearly all of these Google patents and papers, every effort is made to count only "unbiased" links from unnassociated sites, and discount links between sites and pages related to one another through preexisting relationships.

This means that both internal links and links between sites you own or control will be less valuable, while links from non-associated sites will carry far more weight.

Researching the impact of topical links

While it's difficult to measure the direct effect these principals exert on Google's search results (or even if Google uses them at all), we are able to correlate certain linking characteristics with higher rankings, especially around topical anchor text.

Below is a sample of results from our Search Engine Ranking Factors study that shows link features positively associated with higher Google rankings. Remember the usual caveat that correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint.


It's interesting to note that while both partial and exact match anchor text links correlate with higher rankings, they are both trumped by the overall number of unique websites linking to a page. This supports the notion that it's best to have a wide variety of links types, including topically relevant links, as part of a healthy backlink profile.
Practical tips for topically relevant links

Consider this advice when thinking about links for SEO:

DO use good, descriptive anchor text for your links. This applies to internal links, outlinks to other sites, and links you seek from non-biased external sites.
AVOID generic or non-descriptive anchor text.
DO seek relationships from authoritative, topically relevant sites. These include sites that rank well for your target keyword, and "expert" pages that link to many authority sites. (For those interested, Majestic has done some interesting work around Topical Trust Flow.)
AVOID over-optimizing your links. This includes repetitive use of exact match anchor text and keyword stuffing.
DO seek links from relevant pages. This includes examining the title, body, related phrases, and intent of the page to ensure its relevancy to your target topic.
DO seek links that people are more likely to click. The ideal link is often both topically relevant and placed in a prominent position.
AVOID manipulative link building. Marie Haynes has written an excellent explanation of the kinds of unnatural links that you likely want to avoid at all cost.
Finally, DO try to earn and attract links to your site with high quality, topically relevant content.

What are your best tips around topically relevant links? Let us know in the comments below!

Read more

907 Illustrations of How Topical Links Impact SEO, in Theory and Practice

As SEOs, we well understand the value links contribute to ranking websites in search results. So much so, it's something we study regularly here at Moz.

At their most basic, links are counted as "votes" of popularity for search engines to rank websites. Beyond this, search engineers have long worked to extract a large number of signals from the simple link, including:

Trustworthiness – Links from trusted sites may count as an endorsement
Spamminess – Links from known spam sites may count against you
Link Manipulation – Looking at signals such as over-optimization and link velocity, search engines may be able to tell when webmasters are trying to "game" the system
One of the most important signals engineers have worked to extract from links is topical relevance. This allows search engines to answer questions such as "What is this website about?" by examining incoming links.

Exactly how search engines use links to measure and weigh topical relevance is subject to debate. Rand has addressed it eloquently here, and again here. Over the years, several US patent filings from Google engineers demonstrate exactly how this process may work. It's important to look at these concepts to better understand how incoming links may influence a website's ability to rank.

This is the "theory" part of SEO. As usual with these types of posts, a huge thanks to Bill Slawski and his blog SEO by the Sea, which acted as a starting point of research for many of these concepts.

1. Hub and authority pages

In the beginning, there was the Hilltop algorithm.

In the early days of Google, not long after Larry Page figured out how to rank pages based on popularity, the Hilltop algorithm worked out how to rank pages on authority. It accomplished this by looking for "expert" pages linking to them.

An expert page is a document that links to many other topically relevant pages. If a page is linked to from several expert pages, then it is considered an authority on that topic, and may rank higher.


A similar concept using "hub" and "authority" pages was put forth by Jon Kleinberg, a Cornell professor with grants from Google and other search engines. Kleinberg explains:
"...a good hub is a page that points to many good authorities; a good authority is a page that is pointed to by many good hubs.”
– Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment (PDF)
These were eloquent solutions that produced superior search results. While we can't know the degree to which these concepts are used today, Google acquired the Hilltop algorithm in 2003.
2. Anchor text

Links contain a ton of information. For example, if you link out using the anchor phrase "hipster pizza," there's a great chance the page you're linking to is about pizza (and maybe hipsters).

That's the idea behind several Google PageRank patents. Earning links with the right anchor text can help your page to rank for similar phrases.


This also explains why you should use descriptive anchor text when linking, as opposed to generic "click here" type links.
Beyond the anchor text, other signals from the linking page — including the title and text surrounding the link — could provide contextual clues as to what the target page is about. While the importance of anchor text has long been established in SEO, the influence of these other elements is harder to prove.

3. Topic-sensitive PageRank

Despite rumors to the contrary, PageRank is very much alive (though Toolbar PageRank is dead).

PageRank technology can be used to distribute all kinds of different ranking signals throughout a search index. While the most common examples are popularity and trust, another signal is topical relevance, as laid out in this paper by Taher Haveliwala, who went on to become a Google software engineer.


The concept works by grouping "seed pages" by topic (for example, the Politics section of the New York Times). Every link out from these pages passes on a small amount of topic-sensitive PageRank, which is passed on through the next set of links, and so on.

When a user enters a search, those pages with the highest topic-sensitive PageRank (associated with the topic of the search) are considered more relevant and may rank higher.

4. Reasonable surfer

All links are not created equal.

The idea behind Google's Reasonable Surfer patent is that certain links on a page are more important than others, and thus assigned increase weight. Examples of more important links include:

Prominent links, higher up in the HTML
Topically relevant links, related to both the source document and the target document.
Conversely, less important links include:

"Terms of Service" and footer links
Banner ads
Links unrelated to the document
Because the important links are more likely to be clicked by a "reasonable surfer," a topically relevant link can carry more weight than an off-topic one.


"...when a topical cluster associated with the source document is related to a topical cluster associated with the target document, the link has a higher probability of being selected than when the topical cluster associated with the source document is unrelated to the topical cluster associated with the target document."
– United States Patent: 7716225
5. Phrase-based indexing

Not going to lie. Phrase-based indexing can be a tough concept to wrap your head around.

What's important to understand is that phrase-based indexing allows search engines to score the relevancy of any link by looking for related phrases in both the source and target pages. The more related phrases, the higher the score.


In addition to ranking documents based on the most relevant links, phrase-based indexing allows search engines to do cool things with less relevant links, including:

Discounting spam and off-topic links: For example, an injected spam link to a gambling site from a page about cookie recipes will earn a very low outlink score based on relevancy, and would carry less weight.
Fighting "Google Bombing": For those that remember, Google bombing is the art of ranking a page highly for funny or politically-motivated phrases by "bombing" it with anchor text links, often unrelated to the page itself. Phrase-based indexing can stop Google bombing by scoring the links for relevance against the actual text on the page. This way, irrelevant links can be discounted.
6. Local inter-connectivity

Local inter-connectivity refers to a reranking concept that reorders search results based on measuring how often each page is linked to by all the other pages.

To put it simply, when a page is linked to from a number of high-ranking results, it is likely more relevant than a page with fewer links from same set of results.


This also provides a strong hint as to the types of links you should be seeking: pages that already rank highly for your target term.

7. The Golden Question

If the above concepts seem complex, the good news is you don't have to actually understand the above concepts when trying to build links to your site.

To understand if a link is topically relevant to your site, simply ask yourself the golden question of link building: Will this link bring engaged, highly qualified visitors to my website?


The result of the golden question is exactly what Google engineers are trying to determine when evaluating links, so you can arrive at a good end result without understanding the actual algorithms.

About those links between sites you control...

One important thing to know is this: in nearly all of these Google patents and papers, every effort is made to count only "unbiased" links from unnassociated sites, and discount links between sites and pages related to one another through preexisting relationships.

This means that both internal links and links between sites you own or control will be less valuable, while links from non-associated sites will carry far more weight.

Researching the impact of topical links

While it's difficult to measure the direct effect these principals exert on Google's search results (or even if Google uses them at all), we are able to correlate certain linking characteristics with higher rankings, especially around topical anchor text.

Below is a sample of results from our Search Engine Ranking Factors study that shows link features positively associated with higher Google rankings. Remember the usual caveat that correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint.


It's interesting to note that while both partial and exact match anchor text links correlate with higher rankings, they are both trumped by the overall number of unique websites linking to a page. This supports the notion that it's best to have a wide variety of links types, including topically relevant links, as part of a healthy backlink profile.
Practical tips for topically relevant links

Consider this advice when thinking about links for SEO:

DO use good, descriptive anchor text for your links. This applies to internal links, outlinks to other sites, and links you seek from non-biased external sites.
AVOID generic or non-descriptive anchor text.
DO seek relationships from authoritative, topically relevant sites. These include sites that rank well for your target keyword, and "expert" pages that link to many authority sites. (For those interested, Majestic has done some interesting work around Topical Trust Flow.)
AVOID over-optimizing your links. This includes repetitive use of exact match anchor text and keyword stuffing.
DO seek links from relevant pages. This includes examining the title, body, related phrases, and intent of the page to ensure its relevancy to your target topic.
DO seek links that people are more likely to click. The ideal link is often both topically relevant and placed in a prominent position.
AVOID manipulative link building. Marie Haynes has written an excellent explanation of the kinds of unnatural links that you likely want to avoid at all cost.
Finally, DO try to earn and attract links to your site with high quality, topically relevant content.

What are your best tips around topically relevant links? Let us know in the comments below!

Read more

700 Illustrations of How Topical Links Impact SEO, in Theory and Practice

As SEOs, we well understand the value links contribute to ranking websites in search results. So much so, it's something we study regularly here at Moz.

At their most basic, links are counted as "votes" of popularity for search engines to rank websites. Beyond this, search engineers have long worked to extract a large number of signals from the simple link, including:

Trustworthiness – Links from trusted sites may count as an endorsement
Spamminess – Links from known spam sites may count against you
Link Manipulation – Looking at signals such as over-optimization and link velocity, search engines may be able to tell when webmasters are trying to "game" the system
One of the most important signals engineers have worked to extract from links is topical relevance. This allows search engines to answer questions such as "What is this website about?" by examining incoming links.

Exactly how search engines use links to measure and weigh topical relevance is subject to debate. Rand has addressed it eloquently here, and again here. Over the years, several US patent filings from Google engineers demonstrate exactly how this process may work. It's important to look at these concepts to better understand how incoming links may influence a website's ability to rank.

This is the "theory" part of SEO. As usual with these types of posts, a huge thanks to Bill Slawski and his blog SEO by the Sea, which acted as a starting point of research for many of these concepts.

1. Hub and authority pages

In the beginning, there was the Hilltop algorithm.

In the early days of Google, not long after Larry Page figured out how to rank pages based on popularity, the Hilltop algorithm worked out how to rank pages on authority. It accomplished this by looking for "expert" pages linking to them.

An expert page is a document that links to many other topically relevant pages. If a page is linked to from several expert pages, then it is considered an authority on that topic, and may rank higher.


A similar concept using "hub" and "authority" pages was put forth by Jon Kleinberg, a Cornell professor with grants from Google and other search engines. Kleinberg explains:
"...a good hub is a page that points to many good authorities; a good authority is a page that is pointed to by many good hubs.”
– Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment (PDF)
These were eloquent solutions that produced superior search results. While we can't know the degree to which these concepts are used today, Google acquired the Hilltop algorithm in 2003.
2. Anchor text

Links contain a ton of information. For example, if you link out using the anchor phrase "hipster pizza," there's a great chance the page you're linking to is about pizza (and maybe hipsters).

That's the idea behind several Google PageRank patents. Earning links with the right anchor text can help your page to rank for similar phrases.


This also explains why you should use descriptive anchor text when linking, as opposed to generic "click here" type links.
Beyond the anchor text, other signals from the linking page — including the title and text surrounding the link — could provide contextual clues as to what the target page is about. While the importance of anchor text has long been established in SEO, the influence of these other elements is harder to prove.

3. Topic-sensitive PageRank

Despite rumors to the contrary, PageRank is very much alive (though Toolbar PageRank is dead).

PageRank technology can be used to distribute all kinds of different ranking signals throughout a search index. While the most common examples are popularity and trust, another signal is topical relevance, as laid out in this paper by Taher Haveliwala, who went on to become a Google software engineer.


The concept works by grouping "seed pages" by topic (for example, the Politics section of the New York Times). Every link out from these pages passes on a small amount of topic-sensitive PageRank, which is passed on through the next set of links, and so on.

When a user enters a search, those pages with the highest topic-sensitive PageRank (associated with the topic of the search) are considered more relevant and may rank higher.

4. Reasonable surfer

All links are not created equal.

The idea behind Google's Reasonable Surfer patent is that certain links on a page are more important than others, and thus assigned increase weight. Examples of more important links include:

Prominent links, higher up in the HTML
Topically relevant links, related to both the source document and the target document.
Conversely, less important links include:

"Terms of Service" and footer links
Banner ads
Links unrelated to the document
Because the important links are more likely to be clicked by a "reasonable surfer," a topically relevant link can carry more weight than an off-topic one.


"...when a topical cluster associated with the source document is related to a topical cluster associated with the target document, the link has a higher probability of being selected than when the topical cluster associated with the source document is unrelated to the topical cluster associated with the target document."
– United States Patent: 7716225
5. Phrase-based indexing

Not going to lie. Phrase-based indexing can be a tough concept to wrap your head around.

What's important to understand is that phrase-based indexing allows search engines to score the relevancy of any link by looking for related phrases in both the source and target pages. The more related phrases, the higher the score.


In addition to ranking documents based on the most relevant links, phrase-based indexing allows search engines to do cool things with less relevant links, including:

Discounting spam and off-topic links: For example, an injected spam link to a gambling site from a page about cookie recipes will earn a very low outlink score based on relevancy, and would carry less weight.
Fighting "Google Bombing": For those that remember, Google bombing is the art of ranking a page highly for funny or politically-motivated phrases by "bombing" it with anchor text links, often unrelated to the page itself. Phrase-based indexing can stop Google bombing by scoring the links for relevance against the actual text on the page. This way, irrelevant links can be discounted.
6. Local inter-connectivity

Local inter-connectivity refers to a reranking concept that reorders search results based on measuring how often each page is linked to by all the other pages.

To put it simply, when a page is linked to from a number of high-ranking results, it is likely more relevant than a page with fewer links from same set of results.


This also provides a strong hint as to the types of links you should be seeking: pages that already rank highly for your target term.

7. The Golden Question

If the above concepts seem complex, the good news is you don't have to actually understand the above concepts when trying to build links to your site.

To understand if a link is topically relevant to your site, simply ask yourself the golden question of link building: Will this link bring engaged, highly qualified visitors to my website?


The result of the golden question is exactly what Google engineers are trying to determine when evaluating links, so you can arrive at a good end result without understanding the actual algorithms.

About those links between sites you control...

One important thing to know is this: in nearly all of these Google patents and papers, every effort is made to count only "unbiased" links from unnassociated sites, and discount links between sites and pages related to one another through preexisting relationships.

This means that both internal links and links between sites you own or control will be less valuable, while links from non-associated sites will carry far more weight.

Researching the impact of topical links

While it's difficult to measure the direct effect these principals exert on Google's search results (or even if Google uses them at all), we are able to correlate certain linking characteristics with higher rankings, especially around topical anchor text.

Below is a sample of results from our Search Engine Ranking Factors study that shows link features positively associated with higher Google rankings. Remember the usual caveat that correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint.


It's interesting to note that while both partial and exact match anchor text links correlate with higher rankings, they are both trumped by the overall number of unique websites linking to a page. This supports the notion that it's best to have a wide variety of links types, including topically relevant links, as part of a healthy backlink profile.
Practical tips for topically relevant links

Consider this advice when thinking about links for SEO:

DO use good, descriptive anchor text for your links. This applies to internal links, outlinks to other sites, and links you seek from non-biased external sites.
AVOID generic or non-descriptive anchor text.
DO seek relationships from authoritative, topically relevant sites. These include sites that rank well for your target keyword, and "expert" pages that link to many authority sites. (For those interested, Majestic has done some interesting work around Topical Trust Flow.)
AVOID over-optimizing your links. This includes repetitive use of exact match anchor text and keyword stuffing.
DO seek links from relevant pages. This includes examining the title, body, related phrases, and intent of the page to ensure its relevancy to your target topic.
DO seek links that people are more likely to click. The ideal link is often both topically relevant and placed in a prominent position.
AVOID manipulative link building. Marie Haynes has written an excellent explanation of the kinds of unnatural links that you likely want to avoid at all cost.
Finally, DO try to earn and attract links to your site with high quality, topically relevant content.

What are your best tips around topically relevant links? Let us know in the comments below!

Read more

21 Off-Page SEO Strategies to Build Your Online Reputation

As we all know, the Search Engine Optimization field is booming day to day with new inventions and innovations. People may not know that much of what they have learned yesterday will be out of date by tomorrow. Unless one updates his knowledge by reading SEO news/articles, there is no doubt he'll lag back in the SEO race.

Being an SEO Professional, I hereby suggest some the factors that deal with off-page SEO. I found this forum to be the best suited place for sharing. Below is a list of some things most people may be familiar with, but I have also added a few advanced things that you may not know. Try these Advanced Off-Page SEO Strategies to market your website, get ranked in search engines, and to build online reputation (branding) for your company/website so that you can survive in this competitive SEO world.

Note: These things have to be done after the completion of on-page SEO. Before doing these things you must be aware of your competitors who can able build a negative reputation against your company/website.

1). Community Creation in Social Networking Sites

Also known as online reputation management, this is the first and foremost step with which you have to initiate your process. Try to become a member of the most popular social networking sites like Orkut, Myspace, Facebook, Linked In, Ecademy, etc., and create a profile of your own. By doing this you can extend your network online, get connect with your friends, share things with each other, and promote your company/website to build an online reputation. This is most likely the same as Web 2.0 (Participatory Web), which means you have to show your active participation on a regular basis.

2). Blogging

This is one of the most powerful ways to promote your company/website online. Write a blog of your own for your company/website and include lots of unique content. Be precise in what you're trying to convey for the users in your blog entry and promote your blog in blog directories and blog search engines. You can also promote your blog/website by posting comments in other service-related blogs which allow links in the comments section that are crawlable by the search engines (these blogs are commonly identified as Do-Follow Blogs). If you're not very good at writing content for blog posts, hire a guest blogger for your blog and ask him/her to write precise and unique content so that your blog can gain more credit from a search engine point of view.

3). Forum Postings

Create a forum/online discussion board of your own and start a discussion or share topics with your friends. You can also post/reply to a thread in other service-related pre-existing forums that allow links in your signature which can be crawled by the search engines (aka "Do-Follow Forums").

4). Search Engine Submission

Submit your website to the most popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Alexa, Alltheweb, Lycos, Excite, etc., to get listed for free.

5). Directory Submission

Many people may say that directory submission is dead. As far as I'm concerned it is still alive. It is purely based on how effectively we are selecting those directories and how efficiently we are choosing the category for submission. Of course, I agree that it gives quite delayed results, but it is worth doing it. Submit your websites to the topmost quality directories like DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, ZoomInfo, One Mission, Pegasus, etc. Nowadays many web directories may offer paid listings but don't go for it.

6). Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is yet another powerful way of promoting your website, but nowadays most people are spamming social bookmarking sites without knowing how to use them. Since content in these websites update frequently, search engines like these types of sites and often visit them (this is commonly termed as Tagsonomy & Folksonomy in Web 2.0). Do some social bookmarking in popular bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Propeller, etc. You should be very careful while doing this and you must properly handle the tags which are very essential to broadcast your news on a wide area network. This may increase your website traffic based on how effectively you have participated.

6). Link Exchange

Exchange links with service-related websites (this is commonly termed as Thematic Link Exchange) that can help increase your link popularity, which is a major factor of Google's PageRank algorithm. Beware of Black-Hats while doing exchanges.

7). Link Baiting

Suppose you have copied/published another website's news or content in your blog/website. Don't forget to place their website link as a reference. Do it for others and, if your content is trustworthy, let others do it for you. This is another way to increase your link popularity.

8). Cross-Linking

Link to internal pages within your site wherever necessary (this is commonly termed Internal Linking). This increases your internal link popularity ,which is another major factor of Google Page Rank algorithm. The best known example of successful internal linking is Wikipedia. Also try to get a content link from websites/blogs that are related to your site theme. Try getting a link from within their site content using a targeted keyword as anchor text (much like Wikipedia does). We know that this strategy can often be hard to implement, but these types of links have more weight from a search engine point of view.

9). Photo Sharing

Publish/share your website product pictures and make them public. Let your friends see them and comment on them too, which will help drive traffic towards your website. Do this in major photo sharing websites like Flickr, Picasa, Photo Bucket, Picli, etc.

10). Video Promotions

Like with photo sharing, you can publish/share your product videos, expert opinions, and reviews of your product and make them public in YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, etc.

11). Business Reviews

Write reviews about others businesses or ask your friends/clients to write a review of your business in major business review sites like RateitAll, Shvoong, Kaboodle, Stylefeeder, etc.
12). Local Listings & Yellow Pages

Instead of going global and facing huge competition, make your website local so that search engines can easily view your website and fetch the content. This will help you to reach a targeted audience. Submit your website to Google Local, Maps, Yahoo Local, Yellow Pages, Superpages, Hotfrog, etc.
13). Article Submission

Write articles of your own and submit them to popular article sites like Ezine, Go Articles, Now Public, Buzzle, etc. This will help you to attain some deep links for your website (though it's usually a slower process).

14). Press Release Promotion

If you are a business/service provider then go for PR submission in popular PR websites like 1888pressrelease, Open PR, PR Leap, etc. This will help you to publish your site in Google News.

15). Classifieds Submission

Do some classifieds submissions to advertise your products for free. Try Craigslist and other major classifieds sites like Kugli, Myspace, iMadespace, Vivastreet, etc.
16). Social Shopping Network

If you own an e-commerce website, this is a good strategy for advertising and easily branding your products for free. Submit your products to Google Product Search, Yahoo Online Shopping, MSN Online Shopping, and other major social shopping network sites like Kaboodle, Style Feeder, Wists, Five Limes, Buzz Shout, Ohmybuzz, etc.

17). Answers

Participate in Answers by asking and answering relevant questions and placing a link to your website in the source section if necessary. If you don't spam, this is another great way to increase your link popularity (Yahoo Answers, Cha-Cha, Answer Bag, etc.)
18). Document Sharing

Share your website documents like business documents, information brochures, and slides in Google Docs, Slide Share, etc. This will help you brand your website.

19) CSS, W3C & RSS Directories Submission

If you have a web design site or offer services related to web design, submit your website to CSS and W3C website directories which may drive traffic towards your website. Also submit your website to RSS feed directories which, again, will help you attain more traffic.

20). Widget / Gadget Development

Develop some interactive and innovative widget/gadget applications (such as an online poll or game widgets) for your website and publish them on your blog/website or in other popular social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. Let your friends and others vote/play/use the widget/application, which will help you increase your branding and website visits.

21). PPC Ad Campaign

When none of the above strategies work for you, go for a PPC ad campaign with your targeted keywords. Remember that you have to pay to drive more traffic towards your website through PPC.


Note: Always keep in mind that you have to be very careful while implementing these strategies. You should not spam or overdo it. Whatever you do, just plan and execute. Otherwise, you can see adverse effects.

Thanks for reading!

Readmore: https://moz.com/ugc/21offpage-seo-strategies-to-build-your-online-reputation

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7 Illustrations of How Topical Links Impact SEO, in Theory and Practice

As SEOs, we well understand the value links contribute to ranking websites in search results. So much so, it's something we study regularly here at Moz.

At their most basic, links are counted as "votes" of popularity for search engines to rank websites. Beyond this, search engineers have long worked to extract a large number of signals from the simple link, including:

Trustworthiness – Links from trusted sites may count as an endorsement
Spamminess – Links from known spam sites may count against you
Link Manipulation – Looking at signals such as over-optimization and link velocity, search engines may be able to tell when webmasters are trying to "game" the system
One of the most important signals engineers have worked to extract from links is topical relevance. This allows search engines to answer questions such as "What is this website about?" by examining incoming links.

Exactly how search engines use links to measure and weigh topical relevance is subject to debate. Rand has addressed it eloquently here, and again here. Over the years, several US patent filings from Google engineers demonstrate exactly how this process may work. It's important to look at these concepts to better understand how incoming links may influence a website's ability to rank.

This is the "theory" part of SEO. As usual with these types of posts, a huge thanks to Bill Slawski and his blog SEO by the Sea, which acted as a starting point of research for many of these concepts.

1. Hub and authority pages

In the beginning, there was the Hilltop algorithm.

In the early days of Google, not long after Larry Page figured out how to rank pages based on popularity, the Hilltop algorithm worked out how to rank pages on authority. It accomplished this by looking for "expert" pages linking to them.

An expert page is a document that links to many other topically relevant pages. If a page is linked to from several expert pages, then it is considered an authority on that topic, and may rank higher.


A similar concept using "hub" and "authority" pages was put forth by Jon Kleinberg, a Cornell professor with grants from Google and other search engines. Kleinberg explains:
"...a good hub is a page that points to many good authorities; a good authority is a page that is pointed to by many good hubs.”
– Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment (PDF)
These were eloquent solutions that produced superior search results. While we can't know the degree to which these concepts are used today, Google acquired the Hilltop algorithm in 2003.
2. Anchor text

Links contain a ton of information. For example, if you link out using the anchor phrase "hipster pizza," there's a great chance the page you're linking to is about pizza (and maybe hipsters).

That's the idea behind several Google PageRank patents. Earning links with the right anchor text can help your page to rank for similar phrases.


This also explains why you should use descriptive anchor text when linking, as opposed to generic "click here" type links.
Beyond the anchor text, other signals from the linking page — including the title and text surrounding the link — could provide contextual clues as to what the target page is about. While the importance of anchor text has long been established in SEO, the influence of these other elements is harder to prove.

3. Topic-sensitive PageRank

Despite rumors to the contrary, PageRank is very much alive (though Toolbar PageRank is dead).

PageRank technology can be used to distribute all kinds of different ranking signals throughout a search index. While the most common examples are popularity and trust, another signal is topical relevance, as laid out in this paper by Taher Haveliwala, who went on to become a Google software engineer.


The concept works by grouping "seed pages" by topic (for example, the Politics section of the New York Times). Every link out from these pages passes on a small amount of topic-sensitive PageRank, which is passed on through the next set of links, and so on.

When a user enters a search, those pages with the highest topic-sensitive PageRank (associated with the topic of the search) are considered more relevant and may rank higher.

4. Reasonable surfer

All links are not created equal.

The idea behind Google's Reasonable Surfer patent is that certain links on a page are more important than others, and thus assigned increase weight. Examples of more important links include:

Prominent links, higher up in the HTML
Topically relevant links, related to both the source document and the target document.
Conversely, less important links include:

"Terms of Service" and footer links
Banner ads
Links unrelated to the document
Because the important links are more likely to be clicked by a "reasonable surfer," a topically relevant link can carry more weight than an off-topic one.


"...when a topical cluster associated with the source document is related to a topical cluster associated with the target document, the link has a higher probability of being selected than when the topical cluster associated with the source document is unrelated to the topical cluster associated with the target document."
– United States Patent: 7716225
5. Phrase-based indexing

Not going to lie. Phrase-based indexing can be a tough concept to wrap your head around.

What's important to understand is that phrase-based indexing allows search engines to score the relevancy of any link by looking for related phrases in both the source and target pages. The more related phrases, the higher the score.


In addition to ranking documents based on the most relevant links, phrase-based indexing allows search engines to do cool things with less relevant links, including:

Discounting spam and off-topic links: For example, an injected spam link to a gambling site from a page about cookie recipes will earn a very low outlink score based on relevancy, and would carry less weight.
Fighting "Google Bombing": For those that remember, Google bombing is the art of ranking a page highly for funny or politically-motivated phrases by "bombing" it with anchor text links, often unrelated to the page itself. Phrase-based indexing can stop Google bombing by scoring the links for relevance against the actual text on the page. This way, irrelevant links can be discounted.
6. Local inter-connectivity

Local inter-connectivity refers to a reranking concept that reorders search results based on measuring how often each page is linked to by all the other pages.

To put it simply, when a page is linked to from a number of high-ranking results, it is likely more relevant than a page with fewer links from same set of results.


This also provides a strong hint as to the types of links you should be seeking: pages that already rank highly for your target term.

7. The Golden Question

If the above concepts seem complex, the good news is you don't have to actually understand the above concepts when trying to build links to your site.

To understand if a link is topically relevant to your site, simply ask yourself the golden question of link building: Will this link bring engaged, highly qualified visitors to my website?


The result of the golden question is exactly what Google engineers are trying to determine when evaluating links, so you can arrive at a good end result without understanding the actual algorithms.

About those links between sites you control...

One important thing to know is this: in nearly all of these Google patents and papers, every effort is made to count only "unbiased" links from unnassociated sites, and discount links between sites and pages related to one another through preexisting relationships.

This means that both internal links and links between sites you own or control will be less valuable, while links from non-associated sites will carry far more weight.

Researching the impact of topical links

While it's difficult to measure the direct effect these principals exert on Google's search results (or even if Google uses them at all), we are able to correlate certain linking characteristics with higher rankings, especially around topical anchor text.

Below is a sample of results from our Search Engine Ranking Factors study that shows link features positively associated with higher Google rankings. Remember the usual caveat that correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint.


It's interesting to note that while both partial and exact match anchor text links correlate with higher rankings, they are both trumped by the overall number of unique websites linking to a page. This supports the notion that it's best to have a wide variety of links types, including topically relevant links, as part of a healthy backlink profile.
Practical tips for topically relevant links

Consider this advice when thinking about links for SEO:

DO use good, descriptive anchor text for your links. This applies to internal links, outlinks to other sites, and links you seek from non-biased external sites.
AVOID generic or non-descriptive anchor text.
DO seek relationships from authoritative, topically relevant sites. These include sites that rank well for your target keyword, and "expert" pages that link to many authority sites. (For those interested, Majestic has done some interesting work around Topical Trust Flow.)
AVOID over-optimizing your links. This includes repetitive use of exact match anchor text and keyword stuffing.
DO seek links from relevant pages. This includes examining the title, body, related phrases, and intent of the page to ensure its relevancy to your target topic.
DO seek links that people are more likely to click. The ideal link is often both topically relevant and placed in a prominent position.
AVOID manipulative link building. Marie Haynes has written an excellent explanation of the kinds of unnatural links that you likely want to avoid at all cost.
Finally, DO try to earn and attract links to your site with high quality, topically relevant content.

What are your best tips around topically relevant links? Let us know in the comments below!

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