Thoughts Aloud on Link Relevance

Many of us doing, so called "link exchange" and in most cases we do it because we have to do it. Says who? SEO Gurus? Ask yourself - "Would I spend all the hours to exchange links with other sites I don't know, never used and never done business with?" You have to understand that almost all the information around about search engine optimization in most cases is speculation. Somewhat proved by tries and errors, but "link exchange" by itself is unnatural event - shortcut to success which search engines trying to prevent. It was not once mentioned that Google rank results by their relevance and linkage data. What is natural linking? How to link naturally? We have to think in the perspective of traffic - not some kind of logariphmic formula and unknown value of PageRank. Formula will be adjusted every time people will find ways to manipulate it. Better think which way traffic flows and will it flow your way if you provide awareness of yourself. It actually might, but you need the traffic that is interested in your services and product - you're not counting on luck. So, we come to relevance - content and page relevance. I was reading private Advanced Access forum the other day and Bob Wilson of San Diego Homes, as usually, posted a very interesting answer to one of the forum members and he allowed me to quote it here. I think this is very interesting and a little different way of thinking from most of us who does linking "semiautomatic" without really thinking in the perspective of relevance and traffic.

"I have been reading" You have been reading idle speculation. No different than any "Google update" thread on any forum. One day H1 tags are bogus, the next day it's anchor text and links. Candles can fall under home decor. They can be linked to with regard to home safety. Not related to homes or real estate? Says who? Google? Nope. So a link from my home decor section (if I had one) to a candle site is perfectly legit and would benefit them from an anchor text and PR perspective. How about a link to a fire extinguisher site (to put out the house fire caused by the candle)? Or a bike shop in the area under local businesses? Matt Cutts blog is not related to real estate, but if he linked to me w/o a no follow because he was in town and mentioned (he didn't, btw) how he was searching my site for a vacation home on the beach, the link would be perfectly fine and of tremendous value. I have links to agents under a relocation section. Even if many are linking back, it is still relevant to my outgoing relo page. Would I link to candle makers on those same pages? No. Home Inspectors? Not from a page that is part of outgoing relocation. What about movers and storage though? That is relevant top the theme of the page. Take Marlowe Harris's wonderful www.SeattleDreamHomes.com. Marlowe has incorporated architecture and artists into the fabric of her site far more than most. She has links to Arts and Crafts fairs, books on design, artisans homes, special events and just about anything Seattle. This opens up a world of related topics that wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for my site. That said, she probably doesn't feel that a link to surf reports is something that is relevant to Seattle. But it's a given in San Diego. So a link from Marlow's real estate site to Surfshot wouldn't seem as relevant as a link from my site to Surfshot. If Surfshot linked to me, it would make sense. If they linked to Marlowe, some would scream SPAM! How about gambling? Every joke of a real estate related SEO forum out there would scream bloody murder over any link related to gambling. Now I wouldn't ever link to online poker sites, but we have several Indian casinos that would be completely relevant to link to and a link from them to me would be no problem. After all, several are now full blown resorts that cater to out of town visitors. Think in terms of six degrees of separation and its easy to find relevance. Now define relevance, but do it in light of the FACT that Google indexes pages, not sites. How does this change your perspective on what is relevant? There is more to this links/relevance issue than most understand, but how relevance relates to content is an important part of it. How/where you link from/to is another part of it. This applies as much to paid links as well.

This is very interesting topic I would like to come back to. For now those are the thoughts and I hope they make some sense to you.