How Other Sites Are Linking to Yours

search engines need human help in their Eternal Quest for that
perfect ranking algorithm. They look for links to your website, not only to follow
those links and find your site, but also to determine more information about your site.
Does someone else link to your website using the words Click Here to Find Very Fancy
Foxhounds? That’s giving the search engine a clue that your website just might have
something to do with foxhounds. And the search engine may go even further, looking
at other words surrounding the link for more clues. If the linking page also contains
the words fleas, fur, and Finding a Breeder, it’s reinforcing the notion that your website
will be a good destination for that foxhound-seeking searcher.

While your ranks are the easiest aspect of SEO to grasp, don’t let them be the only thing
you care about. We don’t mean to be dismissive of people who really, truly live and die
by their Google rank. We know that there are industries that are so cutthroat and
specialized that this is the only thing that matters.


Competitor ActivityMany times, SEO success is achieved not by brilliant optimization,
but rather as a result of the laziness of a site’s competitors. If yours is the only site in your
niche giving SEO any effort, you’re going to come out on top. But you never know when
the other guys are going to get their act together and start a successful SEO campaign.

All of the rank-busters we just listed underscore the need to fill out your SEO campaign
to tide you over with targeted traffic should your high ranks desert you.
As the investment bankers will tell you: Diversify, diversify, diversify.
These aspects of the SEO campaign that  will help you weather ranking fluctuations.

The search engines are aware of the many sneaky ways that site owners try to achieve
undeserved ranks in SEO lingo, these underhanded activities are called spamming. If
they discover that your site is spamming, even if you’re not doing it on purpose, your
site may be penalized: Your rank may be downgraded, or your page