How search engines evaluate links is an important part toconsider when it comes to building quality links for a website. Typically asearch engine will give more value to links from pages with a higher PageRank. Thisprocess of determining valuable links has gotten more refined with the introductionof two new factors, relevance and authority.

Relevance

Relevance in simple terms is how relevant your website is tothe users query. This means that when users search for specific websites, theywill get related websites to their words typed in the search box. What doesthis mean for a marketer? It means that getting links from related websites isimportant.  If the keywords for a websiteare “used cars Miami”,that website should focus on getting links from sites that will support thosekeywords. A link from a car review website and a City of Miami website will be sufficient as far asrelevance is concerned. Although relevance deals with relating links, anotherimportant aspect is the considering which websites those links are from. Thisis where authority comes into the equation.

Authority

Website authority concept is the value the website has tothe community. To clarify, authoritative, or trusted, websites are those whospecialize on a specific topic. In continuation of the above example, a link fromthe City of Miami website would be authoritativeenough to support that our website is in fact doing business in Miami. The used cars partwould need to be supported by a website dealing with car reviews. Authoritativewebsites are not easily found and links from these sites are not easilyacquired. If a website gives out too many links from a single page and theselinks go to all kinds of different websites, chances are that site is notauthoritative. When building quality links, focus on building back linksfrom websites related to your own website. PageRank is first indication of howvaluable that website is, or how authoritative it is. Authority and relevancego hand in hand as you want link from websites that are related to yours andare authoritative. 

When building quality links, focus on building back links from websites related to your own website. PageRank is first indication of how valuable that website is, or how authoritative it is. Authority and relevance go hand in hand as you want link from websites that are related to yours and are authoritative.