by Marco Angioni II

Created on: February 13, 2008

A link is an object, as text or graphics, connected through hypertext to a document, another object, etc. As suggested by the definition, the link can be in the form of hypertext (hypertext is a computer-based text retrieval system that enables a user to access particular locations in webpages or other electronic documents by clicking on links within specific webpages or documents; hypertext usually shows up as a different color, usually blue, in the text of a post or document) or some other form, such as a picture. Links are important because they can drive traffic to your website and they can improve your search engine rankings. An improvement in search engine ranking can cause an improvement in the amount of traffic that comes to your website.

There are many types of links that you can utilize in order to direct traffic to your website. The two most common types of links are reciprocal links and one way links. Reciprocal links are mutual links between two websites, webpages, or some other Internet objects to ensure mutual traffic. Basically a reciprocal link is an exchange of links between web masters. For example, you and I make a deal that you will put a link on your website that leads to my website and in exchange, I will put a link on my website that leads to your website. This is a good deal because you will potentially be sharing traffic with another website. However, reciprocal links are hard to maintain because you have to constantly check to make sure that the other websites still have your link on their websites. Additionally, reciprocal links generally work only if the website to which you are linked is related to your website. In other words, if you have a website about sports, it will not be very helpful to you to link to a website that sells, for example, women's clothing. As such, your market for link exchanges is limited.

On the other hand, a one way link is a link on another website that leads to your website, and you do not need to reciprocate. Therefore, link management is far easier to do and links are far easier to obtain. One way links are usually placed in an article or some other posting that you submit to another website. Therefore, you get the link and the traffic.

These are two of the most common links that you can obtain. Even though reciprocal links are harder to manage and harder to obtain, they are easy to establish because you do not need to write an article or a post in which to imbed your link. One way links, on the other hand, are easy to manage and easier to obtain (because you do not need somebody else to agree to an exchange), but are harder to establish because you need to write an article or a post. Weigh these advantages and disadvantages and decide which links you want. Both are effective and thus, you should try to get many links in order to boost your traffic and search engine rankings.

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