"Quality rather than quantity" with links

21st January 2008

Ensuring a website has quality links built in is one of the most important but difficult parts of search engine optimisation, it has been reported.

Commenting on his e-consultancy blog, Patrick Altoft, director of Blogstorm, claimed that this element can make or break an online campaign.

"Gone are the days when just any old link would improve your rankings," he stated. "In 2008, you need to be extremely selective - quality rather than quantity."

Mr Altoft recommended that the best quality links are from news sites and blogs so the best ways to create these are putting something newsworthy on the site.

Emailing bloggers can sometimes be successful, he added, claiming that enhancing relationships with other sites is vital.

Another way of checking whether a link will be an effective one or not is to check its Google ranking, he continued, warning that sites which clearly sell links are likely to be removed by the search engine.

Internet advertising will replace magazines as the world's third-largest medium of advertising by 2010, Steve King, chief executive of ZenithOptimedia recently predicted.