Top Characteristics of Quality Inbound Link for Google in 2008
Objective
To determine the top characteristics of quality inbound link for Google ranking improvement in 2008 according to SEO practitioners gathered from top SEO forums.
Sampling Plan
In this study, the targeted population consists of all the members of the six SEO Forums, Yahoo answers and Google groups.
The response of each unique member which is at the same time a subscriber of the thread represents the data so the most appropriate sample value is at least 15 with 25% margin of error. Sampling makes collection of data not time-consuming at the same time efficient.Take note also that these contributors may or may not be associated with any reputable SEO company.
Population
Sample (Subscriber of the thread)
Thread Question
What do you think currently are the top characteristics of quality inbound link for Google ranking improvement?
Results
Findings
By looking at results table, clearly majority of the thread subscribers said that Website relevance is among the top and the most important characteristic of quality inbound link for Google ranking improvement. This constitutes 61.90% of the total respondents and is followed by 57.14% which represents all thread subscribers who said that Quality of website is also an important factor for Google ranking. According to some of the thread subscribers, these two top characteristics have quite good ranges which include the following:
a. Website relevance
-Useful to readers
-has a related topic
-related theme
-related niche
-related pages
-has similar keywords and anchor texts
b.Quality of website
-site has built up a lot of authority and trust over the years
-with history of posting accurate and valuable information
-has history of getting links from (and giving links to) other high-quality sites
-Links coming from authoritative domains of the subject matter, like from like .org, .info, .edu
Following the two most important factors, namely website relevance and quality, according to 23.81% of the thread subscribers are: Numbers of external links on the page where the link is on and links that are placed in pages with PR. According to them, the page must have low number of external links which would not exceed 30 or 50. Links that use keywords in anchor text and the location of these links are also important as stated by 19.05% of the respondents.
According to 14.29% of the thread subscribers, a good link is a link that has good number of backward links, links that are placed in pages indexed by Google and not banned, and this link is much better if it’s a one way link earned by reputation. Age of the link’s domain, page and link itself is also a factor as well as those links that contain descriptions as reported by 9.52% of the subscribers.
As little as 1 respondent among the 21 (4.76%), said that links from websites that have overall good and fresh content is one of the basis for a quality inbound link as well as those links that are followed, links that has naturally varying anchor text, links placed in high quality directories and lastly, links that brings quality and targeted traffic to the site/pages.
Conclusion
As our conclusion, website relevance and website quality are the two most important top characteristics of a quality inbound link for Google ranking improvement since they are voted by majority of the SEO practitioners.
Recommendation
Based on the findings above, one should consider the top/significant characteristics of a quality inbound link to maximize results in a link building campaign. Also since these survey is based on practitioners expert opinions and experiences, an actual test is needed to further verify the validity of these factors.
