In the past all you had to do to get good rankings in Google and the other search engines was to trade links with several other web sites using your key words in the link text. Although this still holds true today, I have reason to believe sites are being penalized for not using a directory style link structure with no more than 25 links per page. Having a directory style links system on your site will make it more of a resource to your visitors and not just a bunch of un-organized links all lumped together on a single page.

There are of coarse other ways to attract incoming links to your web site without providing a link back or whats called a reciprocal link.

1. There are thousands of forums out there that will allow your links in a short signature file at the end of each post. Join forums that are related to your subject matter and take part in the discussions. Make sure you use your key words in you signature file link and not just your URL.

2. Submit your site to as many directories as you can. There are thousands of directories out there that will post your website into there directory for free and also some that charge a small one time fee. Again your title or link text is key. Make sure you are using your key words in your link text or title.

3. Writing and submitting articles like this one with a small resource box at the end is also a good way to attract one way links back to your site. When you submit your articles to the many article directory portals you are getting links from the portal site, plus people will search for and use the articles from the portal site on their own sites. If you write just 1 good article and submit it to 10-20 portal sites you could end up with 100s of back links over a very short time.

4. Writing and submitting press releases work almost the same way an article works. You write the press release and submit it to PR sites. The PR site will submit it to the major search engine for a small fee and your press release could end up on Google and Yahoo news search the next day. People are also looking for free news feeds to syndicate on their web sites and blogs. If you write a good news piece it could end up on 100s of blogs and other news sites around the web. Again make sure your web site link is in the news piece some were.

5. Free classifieds may not provide you with much traffic but you can create hundreds of back links to your web site with a little time and effort.

6. There are also web sites that will place your link on their front page as a sponsored link for a small fee. For this to work thou you need to make sure your links are up for more than a month or two. If the search engine picks up your link one month but its gone the next it wont do much good.

So for those of you who concentrate entirely on reciprocal links and are wondering what has happened to your Google ranking, you may want to consider a few or all of the above linking techniques.

Tom Worsley

Tom Worsley has been making money online with various business opportunities and affiliate programs for more than 5 years now. Tom has several work from home web sites and has just recently completed work on a brand new article publishing directory.