Semalt Expert Describes The Types Of Links In SEO
Today, we will talk to you about the different types of links that exist in SEO. Isn't that great? So, without further ado, let's get to the heart of the matter.
Here are the points that we will discuss in detail in the content of this article:
- what are links;
- how to make a hyperlink in WordPress and HTML;
- types of links on specific examples;
- what are external links to the site for, and from the site;
- what is the threat of "broken" links?
Everyone who is engaged in site promotion should know what hyperlinks are and what they are eaten with.
In fact, you can write a whole book about links, and even more. The world of links is so diverse and complex, there are so many pitfalls, nuances, and subtle points closely related to the promotion of Internet projects that a person who knows all this and can easily navigate should be given the Nobel Prize in SEO right away.
What are the links?
The entire Internet is a continuous tangle of links, it is not for nothing that it is also called the "World Wide Web". In short, no links - no Internet.
Let's see what Wikipedia writes:
A hyperlink is an active (highlighted) text, image, or button on a web page, clicking on which (activating a hyperlink) causes a transition to another page or another part of the current page.
According to another definition, a hyperlink is the address of another network information resource in the URL format (English Universal Resource Locator), which thematically, logically or in any other way is associated with the document in which this link is defined.
We will not come up with our own definition, but rather consider everything at once with an example so that each lesson is learned better. Well, let's start with the basics.
How to make a link in the WordPress text editor?
Creating a link in the WordPress text editor is very easy. Indeed, it is important not to just copy and paste the link into the text content.
The first thing you should do is target a word or a set of words under which you want to hide the link. After that, you copy your link and select the relevant part. Then you click on the WordPress link attachment button and finally you paste the link into the URL area and press "ENTER".
I advise you to check the box "Open in a new window", in this case, the visitor will not lose your page and after studying the material on a third-party site will return to you (behavioral factor).
That's how easy and simple everything turned out for you because WordPress did all the technical work for you. Sometimes, in modern conditions, knowledge of the HTML language is not necessary, but you still need to have an idea of how it all works. Often there is a need to find links in the source code of a page or edit, remove some malicious links, replace plugins with code, etc.
How to create links in HTML?
Creating these types of links requires knowledge of some programming tricks and mastery of HTML code management. If you don't know much about it, it's best not to get so confused with these things that you can do some bad manipulations.
Link types
I must say right away that there are many types and types of links:
- active and inactive;
- direct and indirect;
- absolute and relative;
- external and internal...
What are active and inactive links?
Several years ago, for me, all this was a Chinese letter. If you are not a confident Internet user, then do not worry, there is nothing terrible, we will figure it out.
What we did just above is an example of an active link, that is, this is such a link, by clicking on which, we will be transferred to another page or site in a strange way. From this, it can be concluded that, in turn, inactive links do not perform this action. To go, you will need to copy the URL and paste it into the address bar of your browser.
Some people wonder how to make a link inactive. Let me tell you, it's very simple. In a text editor, open the desired article, select the desired link, and click on the "Remove links" button.
What are the direct and indirect links?
Most of the links on the Internet are direct, that is, some site "A" links to site "B". This is one of the foundations of external optimization. Get the maximum number of links to your site.
If site "B", in turn, refers to site "A" - there is such a thing as a link exchange. More recently, webmasters have widely used this technique to raise the position of their web resources. When the search engines started getting banned for this, they came up with another scheme:
- site "A" links to site "B";
- "B" to "C";
- and that, in turn, to the site "A".
But PS also do not stand still, their algorithms are constantly being improved and now this trick (although there are different opinions) also does not work.
A feature of indirect links is that by clicking on it, you get to the required site not directly, but through a redirect, that is, in transit through another site. This is done using a redirect script. The use of an intermediate page is common in forums to preserve page weight.
If you have the legendary WP No External Links plugin installed on your blog, the main task of which is to disguise the original external links (masquerades as internal), then your visitors get to another site through a redirect.
What are absolute and relative links?
Absolute links are mainly used for documents or pages on a third-party resource. I am translating into human language. Let's say you announce your post and at the same time put a link to an article of this kind.
This is an absolute link, that is, the full path to the file is specified - protocol (HTTP), site, and page addresses.
Such links are usually used to organize links between pages of the same resource or files that are located within the same root directory. The "file.html" we need is inside the "folder" - this is the path we specify in the "link". As a result, we get relative links.
Anchor and non-anchor links
If you click on the "Semalt Blog" link, you will be taken to the blog page. It is the text under which the links are hidden that is called "anchor". The same link, but without anchor, will look like this:
- https://semalt.com/blog
Although the result will land you on the same page, anchor links have a greater impact on website promotion. Soon there will be an article on how anchor links affect website promotion and what types of anchors are there. Follow the blog updates and social networks.
External links to the site
Within the framework of this article, we will not disclose the question "How do links affect the position of the site". If many authoritative and related sites link to your resource, the chance of achieving success (high rankings and traffic) will increase significantly. Pay special attention to the highlighted words. Here the logic of the search engines is simple and straightforward: if there are many links from trust sites, then it is good, useful for people, and popular. This means that it needs to be shown higher in the search.
External links from the site
External links arise when you want to share a third-party resource on your site. It is very important to keep track of outbound links. If you leave everything to chance and if there are a lot of them, they will become a serious obstacle in terms of promoting your site. If there are a lot of external links leaving your site, you may even get a filter (ban) from the search engine.
Therefore, it is better to hide all external links with the rel = "nofollow" attribute or do it through a redirect.
Fun fact: Outbound links from a site are also a ranking factor. That is, if, when writing an informational article, you put external links to thematic pages of authoritative resources, this can increase your site in search.
Anchor links
Another important element that is often used by webmasters. If the document is very large, for the convenience of users, so-called "anchors" are set so that they can instantly move to the desired section within one page.
Almost every modern landing page has a menu with an anchor link. This trick is also used when installing the "Up" button on the site.
In order to make an anchor link, you first need to add the id = "anchor-name" attribute to any tag on the page. Mostly, to navigate a blog post, the id attribute is added to the titles.
Broken links
These are links that lead to pages that do not exist. Such links appear through no fault of the site owner. Imagine you have written an interesting article and added several external sources to it. After a while, the resource ceases to exist. As a result, broken links appear from your site, that is, links to a document that does not exist.
The same story could be with internal links. We put a link. We changed the URL but forgot about the links. As a result, we got broken links that negatively affect the internal optimization of the resource.
At the beginning of the article, I promised to give an answer to the question "what are the risks of broken links". Let's imagine the situation described above. You have a commercial resource, your blog on it. We put an external link to a resource that eventually ceased to exist. If your competitor has good SEOs, they will find opportunities to buy the domains you link to and restore old sites. These sites are called satellites. Of these, they usually put links to the resource that is being promoted. Thus, you will give the weight of your pages to the competitors' sites, which will transfer it to the main site. I hope you got what I meant.
Conclusion
That's it for today's article. I hope you have now understood several things about the usefulness of links in SEO and especially the different types of links that exist.
In addition, as you already know, Semalt is a professional SEO service with experts in the field able to help you at any time to promote your brand at the top of the search engines.
We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide you with the best services and guarantee you success in your industry. What else do you want? If you have any special concerns, please let us know. We will be happy to address your concerns and most importantly, to provide you with satisfaction.
Important thing! Don't forget to check the status of your site today for free on our semalt.com website.
Do you want to test better SEO tools to get the best possible results? If you are to succeed, we invite you to discover our two best SEO and website promotion tools namely AutoSEO and FullSEO.