If you’ve spent any time reading up on SEO information at all, you’ll know that links are vital to today’s search engine optimization. A good link profile is the basis of the success of many sites. The need for links has turned linking into a valuable commodity on the net, and it’s caused some ethical problems for the average site owner.
The issue is this: the search engines prefer natural links. In an ideal world, according to the search engines, all links would happen naturally, without each site’s owner discussing the link, offering to trade, or any money changing hands. The search engines prefer natural links because, naturally, they are a good indicator of a site’s real popularity. Bought links are only a sign of a site’s resources.
If you want your site to prosper, though, you need to have a good link profile. As with everything, it’s mostly the popular sites that tend to attract natural links, and this leaves new and struggling sites in the dark. If a site owner were to stick strictly to the code of ‘natural linking only,’ their SEO would be an uphill battle.
It can be difficult to get a straight answer on links from the search engine optimization advice out there. As many SEO companies still resort to paid links at times, very few people will outright recommend against them. At the same time, most SEO experts are aware of the dangers of an all-paid links profile, and very few would recommend only buying links.
A lot of SEO advice recommends that site owners try to obtain links in as natural a manner as possible, and this is probably the advice to stick with. It may be hard to find natural links, and it may take a little longer, but it will serve your site better in the long term.