The value of backlinks

There is so much talk about backlinks, but how many individual know what they are, what they do and why they are necessary to site builders.

Sometimes referred to as inbound links,backlinks are said to be the lifeblood of Search Engine and how a site is Positioned. In order for a website to be on the top of search engines such as Google Yahoo and Bing without the site owners having to pay big money for advertising. Websites have to have a large number of backlinks in order to be ranked high.

Websites often employ various techniques (called search engine optimization, ) to increase the number of backlinks pointing to their website. Some methods are free to be use by everyone while some methods like linkbaiting requires quite a bit of planning and marketing in order to work effectively.

Some websites stumble upon "linkbaiting" naturally; the sites that are the first with a hot 'breaking news' such as a celebrity are good illustration of such. With "linkbait" , many websites will link to the 'baiting' website because there is information that is of extreme interest to a large number of people

Back links are links on one website that lead back to another website. The more established, high quality, and high Page Rank the website that contains the link has, the more power it has to help the linked website with its search engine position. If the website that is getting back links gets many High Quality and High Page Rank back links, the better the chance it has of being in a high position on the Search Engines.

There are many innovative ways of getting backlinks, one may use social book marks like Twitters, faceBook .etc. "Social Bookmarks", these are actually websites that usually have very popular 'community' aspects to them. Users sign up and create profiles on the sites that contain photos and information about themselves later linking articles or webpages to their profile .

One can also implement backlinks by commenting on other individual blog and leave a relevant link in the comment. The comment must be of value to the blog and must not be seen as spamming. Web2.0 blog is also having a great impact on backlinks .With Web 2.0, gaining backlinks is easier now than ever. Most sites now have an "interactive aspect were readers sign in and create account and list their sites"

There are also many web directory that offer the service of giving free backlinks in exchange that you also link them. Too much of this type of linking is not welcome by Search Engines and could lower a site page ranking if linked to sites of poor ranking, backlink is more effective without reciprocal links.