We all know that one-way links from authority web sites are essential if your link building efforts are to be successful. But what does it take to get those authority sites to link to you? Well, you’ll probably guess that it is not easy – quality links don’t materialize from feeble or automated requests. To get those ever so valuable links you’ve got to adopt the right mindset – the principles that show link targets you mean business and that you’re worth linking to.

Valentine’s Day is approaching fast, and Google has already given site publishers the equivalent of a basket full of Godiva chocolates with a Webmaster Central update featuring a much larger sample of backlinks than has been available.

There’s no denying that the number of inbound links is one of the most critical elements to optimizing a site to rank well in search. The methods employed in obtaining those links, however, is a platform for both ethical and practical debate. With all factors considered, is buying links a good idea?

When people visit a website, they have their own goals for that. To reach the goal, they need to click on URLs to get to other pages and read text only to click further.

Neither Hormel, the maker of Spam, nor Monty Python’s Spamalot would appreciate the sentiment in the title.

There’s a long standing debate in the search marketing industry about links versus content. Which is better?

The concept of something being undetectable to search engines, like attempts to game them for better rankings, became a topic again after V7N announced a link buying service that would make such links impossible to detect.

Here’s a shocker: Wikipedia isn’t the only major site that uses “nofollow” on outgoing user-generated links; YouTube does it too.

The release of the Job-a-matic tool will give bloggers and website publishers the option to add job listings to their sites, and to profit from them too.

It’s only been a few days since John Scott and Jeff Behrendt opened the new V7N contextual links to publishers and already the frenzy has begun with bloggers unable to sign up fast enough for the program.

I’ve never been a fan of the word “linkbait” but it has stuck within our industry and so I’ve learned to adapt and accept it, even use it.

Once done with creating and improving a website, you can very well spend your time on improving your online business.

Small Business SEM has an excellent post titled Ultimate Guide to Building the Perfect Link.

I have seen two great posts about link building in the past few days. One of these is by Jim Boykin on the limitations of link bait, and the other is by Eric Ward at the Search Engine Land blog about the "Circle of Trust".

Right now search relevancy algorithms are heavily tied to overall authority, but given enough time publishers and search marketers will undermine that measure of relevancy the same way that keyword density and raw PageRank died off.

If using a well-made Wikipedia entry to boost a site’s PageRank has been part of your search optimization strategy, you will have to cross that tactic off the list.

Links play an important role in the ranking of pages by the search engines.

Blogosphere buzz surrounding Google’s recent algorithmic changes to the way in which in evaluates landing pages for index inclusion and minimum bidding for keywords has propelled many site designers into a mindset revolving around updating, optimizing, and even totally revamping landing page content.

Here is a nice post from Jennifer Laycock about Link Building as Relationship Building.

Links aren’t easy to get. Let me rephrase that, quality links aren’t easy to get.

Jim Boykin gives an over view of link buying and link building strategy.