BackLinks - Why are links so Valuable?
Posted June 12, 2009 – 10:01 am in: Link BuildingLinks are the main source of a page ranking for a given term in the search engines.
I recently read a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and one of the persuasion tactics in the book called Social Proof reminded me a lot of SEO and the high value placed on links. The persuasion tactics in the book generally generate an automatic response. And for good reason, generally social proof(one of the tactics in the book) is a reliable way to make a quick and correct decision.
Heres a scenario: You are walking to the beach to go catch some waves, rays or whatever you like to do at the beach. As your getting close you notice that everyone is running away from the beach. You decide that because everyone else is running away that you should turn around and do the same. It’s a good thing you did because there was a huge tsunami coming right for you. This is just one example but you most likely make many decisions on a daily basis based on Social Proof.
What does this have to do with Links?
The way the search engines are using links to rank web pages is based on social proof. The more links to your page, the more people are talking about your store. The anchor text used in the links to your page is what people are saying about your store. So it only makes sense that if a lot of people are talking about your store and saying that it’s the best place to find “cheap shoes”… Then your web page should rank for cheap shoes. right?
There’s more influence factors in this book that I believe are being used in placing value to pages and links.
Authority is another influence factor that generally generates an automatic response. This has been adapted to search engine rankings as well. The authority factor in the search engines is a little more complex and isn’t directly related to links but to a website domain. Links from an authority domain carry more weight for relevant topics.
Example: site A is an authority site about cheesecake. So if site A links to site B saying that site B has the “best cheesecake recipe” than that link will carry more weight for “best cheesecake recipe” than a link from another site about something irrelevant to cheesecake recipes.
So, if an authority site about car repair links to you with the same best cheesecake recipe link, it won’t carry as much weight because the site is an authority on car repair and has no credibility when it comes to cheesecake recipes.
Trust I believe is derived from the Liking influence factor in the book.
Trust as a ranking factor is why you sites like Wikipedia ranking for many different search terms all on completely different topics. When a site is trusted by a search engine it is pretty much given the benefit of the doubt. So any new pages created on and linked to on a trusted site are going to inherit the trust of the domain and be able to rank for competitive keywords a lot easier and faster than a page not associated with a trusted domain.
Also, getting a link from a trusted domain will carry more weight even to pages not on that domain. The link should be from a relevant page to carry the most weight possible.
There is a good video on Domain Trust & Authority over at Seomoz you can watch to get an idea on how the search engines calculate Domain Trust and Authority.
There are two more influence factors in the book that I don’t associate with search engine rankings but they can definitely help improve conversion factors if you adapt them for use on your website. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
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