The most universal analogy of a link is to associate it to a vote. If page A links to page B then page A is telling page B is a good page, page A likes page B. The only slight complication is the nofollow tag. In a nutshell the nofollow tag allows links to be added to a page that create a click-able link to another page without the link passing a vote. These are used for text link adverts for example where they will send traffic to another page without passing a vote.

I'm not going away to go into any more specify on the nofollow tag here. In short if you want to link from a page on your site to a page on another site without infer any kind of support use the nofollow tag.

Having well-known links are like votes it's not too hard to understand why links are important. Just like a politician wins an voting by securing more votes than other candidates, web pages secure the first position in a search result by securing more votes than other pages. However, unlike a political election where all votes are equal, where search engines are concerned this isn't the case, and this is where most of the confusion arises.

The term link target basically means a web page you would like a link from. Setting aside link spammers, who see all links as equal, identify a good link target is very easy. A good link target is a web page whose readers might be interested in the content of a page on your site. That's it.

increasing on this you could disagree a good link target is a web page with authority whose readers might be interested in the content of a page on your site, however this simply introduces a whole raft of complications that will see you mired in confusion. There are so many ways of establishing a site's authority, including Google's PageRank technology, Spam Signals and any number of other metrics that you should simply consider a page based purely on the simple rule offered above, would this page's readers be interested in my page.

If you accept this viewpoint with your link building work, you will build links that will send you priceless traffic whilst at the same time building your page's authority. It's a win win technique. Of course the link spammers will argue against this suggesting it's time consuming and tricky and they would be right. These same experts will no doubt want to sell you their amazing technique for search engine domination. They will no doubt have discovered the secrets of building long lasting and effective links with minimum effort and only a few hundred dollars. But ask yourself this. If they have indeed found a fool proof way of building valuable links why are they not simply dominate the search results themselves and making a fortune from affiliate marketing?

There's no hesitation some people do find out methods for creating effective links fast and cheaply. There's also no doubt these methods are more often than not discovered by the search engines and they fast cease to be efficient. By the time you get access to these get rich quick schemes it's a safe bet the person who discovered it has made their money and are now squeezing a few more dollars out of it by selling the technique to you. As with most things in life there's no such thing as a free lunch and these schemes are best avoided.

If you are still reading this you should by now have a very clear picture of what a link is, why it's valuable, and why links are a necessary part of your on-line marketing mix. As this article concludes I want to outline the composition of a perfect link. The perfect link should:

1. Send valuable traffic to your website

2. Tell the search engines your site is an authority

There are two clear paths to go along with value to link building, link spam and merit based. It should be clear link spam will require less effort but won't build long lasting links where merit based requires more effort but builds links that will stand the test of time. The path you choose will depend on many factors not least of which the resources you have available and your appetite for building a business that will stand the test of time.

The search engines are constantly trying to purge their search results of pages employing link spamming techniques although it's clear they have a less than 100% success rate. The link building methods you adopt will depend on your view of how effective the search engines will be at detecting link spam in the future. If you believe they have the resources to overcome it you are left with no option but to build merit based links. If you believe as many do, that the search engines are fighting a losing battle then you might throw your hat in the ring with the link spammers.

With a bit of luck now you've read this article whichever route you choose you can make an informed choice. If you take nothing else away from it you should understand that links that require minimum effort will likely bring little advantage in the long term. Link building is a cause of much frustration even for SEO specialists and it's easy to see why so many spam techniques are employed. The web is awash with poor quality content created for no other reason than to create a link to poor quality websites that can't attract links based on merit. Indeed many website owners simply can't see a way of creating anything worth linking to on their sites and resort to link spam out of desperation. This author believes there's a better way and eventually taking this road less travelled will create a website that will stand the business it represents well for the prospect.