SEO Blog

Information is the lifeblood of SEO. The more you know about a site you are working on, the better you will perform. Earlier this week, we looked at the most basic tools SEOs use and the steps they take when gathering information about a website they are working on.

Today, I wanted to write about how to figure out a site’s link and site structures. Both provide critical information to SEOs as they mentally outline their campaign techniques.

Standing in the Footprint of Backlinks

Links are the arteries of the web. Search engines tend to use links as a way to gauge the interest in and relative importance of websites. Theoretically, the more links a particular site has directed towards it, the better that site is in the eyes of the engines. Realistically, not all links are created equal and the way links are cultivated or pursued can have a direct effect on how the overall site is perceived by the search engines.
Your “link footprint” is somewhat like a fingerprint. Each website has a unique footprint that tells search engines a great deal about the relevance, seriousness and intent of websites in their indexes. The link footprint is tracked over time and helps provide the search engines a historic overview of the life-span of each site. Google and Yahoo! are both directly influenced by current and historic information drawn from links.