Wanna Trade Backlinks With Me?

What are backlinks? And, why do strangers keep emailing offers to trade them (backlinks) with me? Plus, why do the would be link traders, lie about the page rank number they have for their proposed back link web page? Why lie about PR when it's only one part of the whole she-boom-bang?

Finally, why would I want to enter any relationship with someone who lies to me out of the gate?

Simply put, backlinks are any link, to any spot on your website, that comes from a different Internet location, other than your website. In theory, the more outside links (backlinks) you have, the higher search engines rate your site as being an authority for your site's particular subject. At this moment of SERP time, this appears a valid assumption.

Belief in this assumption is the reason site owners, and their hirelings, are constantly on the prowl to trade links with other site owners. They want more back links.

Understandable. Laudable, even. But, one of my growing list of 'pet peeves' is having these 'link prowlers' try to up the ante by giving out false page rankings for the site, or site's page, when they're looking for a trade. Why bother lying? It's takes seconds to click on their offered web page and determine their PR.

Plus, page rank is only one part of your total SEO and linking strategy.

We're pretty sure you'll rank higher in the SERBs if your inbound links are coming from sites with higher page ranks. In other words, a back link from a PR 7 site transfers more authority than a link from a PR 3 site, etc. So, the higher the PR is for given backlinks, the better your site should do in the search engine results page rankings.

Personally, I think that's about to change...

In the future, I suspect the relevancy between linked sites will become more important than page rank. It's only logical. If my website's theme, or keywords are about toenail clippers, wouldn't a backlink from a site about toenail disease, be of greater interest to 'toenail clippers' web searchers, than a link from a PR 6 site about, say Flip cameras? Exactly...

If not today, sometime soon, the relativity test will trump the PR test.

And, that's another reason why it's dumb to lie about your page rank when looking for link exchanges. For me, and for the business model I operate, relevancy is more important than page rank, when it comes to inbound links.

Plus, hanging around with liars could put a crimp in my style...

Edward "Mr Ed" Thorpe: publishes the 'Online Beginners Guide' (OBG) a generic business and life principles ezine. Readers agree 'OBG' is "Honest, funny, sincere and different." Subscribe: Send any email to: A1OBG@aweber.com Visit him at: http://www.OnlineBeginnersGuide.Com