In recent months, you might have heard quite a bit about low quality and high quality links in SEO, especially in light of recent Google algorithm updates. While it’s fairly obvious what quality content is, (writing that is of higher caliber), the idea of a quality link – as opposed to a cheap link – may be confusing.
This is a relatively new aspect of SEO, and it was practically introduced by Google, the search engine company that works hard to perfect their algorithm and deliver what they perceive to be the “best” results for users. Years ago, there wasn’t much distinction between links or link quality. For that matter, the “search engine” simply wasn’t the Internet giant that it is today. The only search pages returned after a search belonged to websites that were officially submitted to listing directories.
When the modern Google and Yahoo search engines grew and proceeded to dominate the Internet, their algorithms became far more sophisticated – to the point that today, you don’t even have to submit your site to a search engine to be discovered. The search crawlers will find you, provided you make some reasonable effort to be have search-friendly HTML.
Nowadays, the search engine is paying closer attention to little details, which in the past were ignored or simply nonexistent. For instance, the authority of the link; Google is now only counting links that are of high quality when compiling its top SERPs. Quality links are, in effect, related to quality content. When the site has developed a reputation for having high quality writing, then having content published at that site gives you authority.
Websites like Entertainment Weekly, CNN or Wikipedia obviously have numerous pages of quality content. However, one of many nameless article directories that prints anything (including works by complete amateurs), or amateur sites that have pages full of “free for all” links, would obviously not be considered a link with “authority.”
So it is of vital importance that you ask the SEO company which article directories and blogs and other pages they are targeting. Only quality links count in the new age of SEO!
