Ok … ok… yes you need inbound links to your website to get masses of targeted traffic and high search engine rankings.  Tons of inbound links are great… correct?

So therefore, people, businesses, and maybe even you spend money on getting as many inbound links as possible.  It really makes sense.  Doesn’t it?

If this is the case, then here are 5 things you need to consider when adding an inbound link (a back link) to your site:

1. The inbound link source must be a “good neighbor”
2. The page linking to you should have good page rank
3. The website providing the backlink should be relevant to your site
4. The page sending the links should not have too many outbound links
5. The linking page uses good anchor text for the back link

But there is one thing missing, and it could be the most important thing.  As StomperNet advises, you should not accept the link unless you know this one thing…

They say, “…make sure you check the cache date.”  Why?  Because this is how you ensure Google and other search engines are actually ‘spidering’ (that’s a word I borrowed from StomperNet) the page.  If the page is not being ‘spidered’ then the link is worthless.

I think this should be obvious now that you read it, but really, what good is a link on a page that the search engines are ignoring?

Here’s the rule of thumb that the StomperNet folks use.  If a page has not been visited by Google in 3 weeks or more, then there is a problem.  Maybe not major, but it is likely a page you don’t want to link from.

If it hasn’t been ‘spidered’ in a couple of months, then it’s a BIG problem, so don’t go there.

You can easily check the cache date of a page by typing the URL into the search box.  Any page that is indexed will show up as the first result, right at the top of the page.  Below the little descriptive text of the search result, you will see the link to the pager version that is cached…

… Just click it, and you will know when the page was cached.

Now you have everything you need to know if a link is good.  Don’t keep those links from ancient cached pages.  They are worthless.  Others will bring you tons of targeted traffic, and increase your online traffic from search engines.

See you next time…

- Wayne Sharer

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