Inbound Links

Inbound links or Backlinks are links pointing towards a specific website from other 3rd party websites. Inbound links are the most significant factor Search Engines use in establishing the popularity of a site.

The process of evaluation and calculation of the importance of each incoming link can be explained best by comparing it to the characteristics of a family voting system: suppose there is a family of 3 members, father (computer hardware), mother (housewife) and a child (toys). When voting on an issue, the vote of each family member has a value equivalent to the power of each individual in the family hierarchy, and also according to their area of expertise.

For example, if a decision is to be made about which computer to purchase for the family, father would ultimately have the best opinion as per his experience. If a suggestion has to be given on arrangement of a dinner at home, it would be best done by the mother, and if the family wants to buy a new remote control car, the best opinion would be of the child. This is because each family member is well versed in each particular area and can thus opine their best.

The same could be applied to the links. For instance, an online marketing site that point to an SEO site will contribute more to its popularity rather than a site that sells 'tomatoes'. By counting these valuable incoming links to one web page from another, Search Engines determines the value of a web page.

So it becomes imperative to achieve the greatest possible amount of incoming links, but also to ensure that these links come from websites with good visibility and address the similar theme related to the website. It is also important to consider the anchor text of incoming links because these keywords enhance positioning of the site in search engines accordingly.

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