Links are important to search engines because they show the importance of a page in contrast to others and show how pages relate to each other. Links are an important part of how pages are ranked in search engines. While the exact way in which search engines rank their pages is unclear because this secret is closely guarded by the search engines, links are known to play a major role in ranking on SERP’s.

First, the search engine will take into account all of the links that go directly to one website from other sites, links known as inbound links. This is important because the number shows the popularity of the site. If a lot of people like and are linking to a site, that site is assumed to be of good quality and has a good reputation. If another site has very few links that direct users to that site, that page’s ranking will be lower because the page is presumed to not be as popular or as high quality as other pages.

Also, linking gives websites a kind of reputation. If shady sites known for spamming or deception link to a site, that site’s ranking is lowered. Since search engines want to keep spammers off of their ranks, these companies will punish spammers by lowering their rankings or removing them from rankings altogether. See the chapter “Black Hat SEO” for more information on this topic. This is also the case for the links to other pages found on a site, known as outbound links. If a page includes links to shady or deceptive sites, that site’s ranking is also lowered because the search engine presumes that that site is also a shady site. If webmasters link only to quality sites, their ranking won’t be lowered in search engines. If they link to bad sites, their ranking might be lowered, sometimes considerably.

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