by Jennifer Marsh

Created on: December 29, 2010   Last Updated: December 31, 2010

Providing links in your online content to authoritative sites improves your Google rank and helps provide trusted references for your readers.  You must offer authoritative references for your readers, but you must link to high-ranking websites to improve your Google search engine rank. For this reason, you must have a linking plan when creating hyperlinks to outside websites on your pages.  These tips help you decide which links are the best for your readers and search engine ranking.

Link to “.edu” or “.gov” Websites

The top-level domain (TLD) extensions “.edu” and “.gov” always have a boost in Google. They are also considered reliable sources when you offer them for reader references. These two domain extensions are considered the best website references when creating external links in your web pages. They offer authoritative information that typically has a good PageRank (PR) from Google. The “.edu” domain extension is assigned to colleges and universities, and the “.gov” domain extension is standard for government websites.

Internal Web Page Linking

Google has a program called “GoogleBot” that searches your website for pages. Links created in your pages are followed by Googlebot. Good internal linking to other pages on your website help Googlebot find each page on your website. This type of linking technique leads to better traffic and website visitors, since you have more pages crawled and indexed by the Google search engine. Internal linking means you link to different articles on your website from each content page you provide on your site.

Create Hyperlinks from Keyword Phrases

Creating a hyperlink with the text “click here” does not tell Googlebot what is behind the link. For this reason, only create hyperlinks with keyword phrases. For instance, if your website hosts widgets, create hyperlinks on the term “widget.” Googleblot attributes your search engine rank with the term “widget,” so you are better indexed by the search engine. This type of link scheme is good for internal and external linking.

Avoid Linking to “Bad Neighborhoods”

“Bad neighborhoods” is a term given to spam websites or link farms. Search engine optimization (SEO) experts recommend linking to authoritative websites and avoiding blogs that host spam, link farms, link directories or other poorly ranked or low PageRank websites. SEO experts believe that Google devalues your website if you link to too many bad neighborhoods. It also devalues your website content, because readers are sent to a spam website with little reference value.

Make sure you link to authoritative websites, and provide readers with good reference links. With quality content and good linking, your website search engine rank will improve, and you will receive better traffic and more income from your content.

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Marsh.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.