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This Week's Quote
Information technology and
business are becoming
inextricably interwoven. I
don't think anybody can talk
meaningfully about one without
the talking about the other.
- Bill Gates
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RSS
(Really Simple Syndication
or Rich Site Summary)
Refers to a group of XML based web-content
distribution, or syndication. Websites
issuing RSS feeds invite subscribers who
would then be alerted to new additions to
the feed since last reading. We'll cover RSS
in a future edition! |
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 One
Link or Two, or Three, Four... ??
In Issue #2 of The Tuesday Morning Click
Tip, our Glossary Pick of the Week was
Inbound Link. This week we expand on
this and talk about its significance in
managing for increased traffic to your site.
A Back Link, also known as an Inbound Link
is a hyperlink with your web site's URL
placed on another web site that will send
visitors to your own site.
They are less commonly referred to as incoming links, inlinks and inward links. For the most
obvious reasons back links can be very
beneficial. Generally the referring
web site's content is related or relevant to
your own site, hence the link. Therefore you
not only have the benefit of receiving a
visitor, but very likely one who is
specifically interested in the content on
your site.
From the point of view of major search
engines, back links carry a great deal of
significance in ranking your site for
related search criteria entered for search.
The more back links a search engine sees,
the more important, relevant and popular
your site is deemed. However, take
note that back links only count if they are
found to be of certain quality in nature.
A good and effective back link is high in
quality if it is found on a page that
already has a good search engine page
ranking. Good page ranking is achieved
by sites that follow compliance with good
practices, standards and accepted presentation.
Web sites that present as lacking in
content and are stale and outdated in content
will not rank high. Web sites that
appear as link portal farms and
attempt to robotically create endless
numbers of links to spam and scam search
engines are ignored. And as a side
note here, if your site is linked to sites
with unethical and deceptive practices, you
could find your own site being blacklisted
by search engines. Finally, a quality
back link will be one that is found on a
site with similar content to your own, and especially
if the hyperlinks contain related
keywords rather than just your URL. In
a future edition we'll talk more about what
kind of parties on the web you should align
yourself with and which ones to avoid.
So in summary, for example, hypothetically,
a search engine's assessment of relevance on
a website centred on safe driving practices
will score much higher if there are inbound
or backlinks from websites focusing on the
automotive industry such as auto
associations, auto sales and maintenance,
auto manufacturers, auto retailers, and
such. A site on baking tips with a link to
our safe driving web site will probably
score very low as a vote for your site.
And the back link should read, for example,
"Click here For Safe Winter Driving Habits". |
