Inbound Linking Strategies for
Latent Semantic Indexing

Monday, 01 October 2007

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is the new search engine algorithm currently being used by Google. LSI attempts to take a more holistic approach to website searches by employing advanced artificial intelligence to the search engine algorithm in order to mimic the way a human would search. What this means is that search engine results are based upon relevancy not upon the site having the right keywords or the most links. Sites with quality content, which is most relevant to the search terms, will end up on top of the rankings while sites with poor, nonsensical, or irrelevant content will not do so well.

However, site developers, while needing to focus on quality content and relevancy, must not completely disregard linking strategies altogether when they are optimizing their sites. LSI means that extensive linking may not win you the highest ranking by itself but LSI still does take linking into account. What is called for now is a new SEO inbound linking technique which should include the following strategies:

(1) Keep your links relevant. Ensure your inbound links are relevant to your site's content and theme. Irrelevant links, or link farms, could drop your ranking.

(2) Link from themed sites. Look for inbound links from sites with quality content having themes similar to yours since LSI runs comparison checks between similar themed sites. A link from a non-related site is of little value in today's LSI environment.

(3) Link from higher ranked sites. If at all possible, always look for sites ranked at least as high as yours; better yet, look for sites that are ranked higher than yours. This is the one area of inbound linking that has not changed from the pre-LSI days.

(4) Link from current sites. Ensure the site that links to you is up-to-date because LSI now looks for fresh and original content. A site that is not regularly updated will be of little help in optimization.

(5) Make sure inbound links do not all go to the same keyword or same page. Have inbound links go to a variety of different keywords and relevant phrases within your website. Also, it is no longer a good idea to have all inbound links go only to your homepage or a link page--it is much better to have them scattered throughout your site.

All five of these factors need to be observed when managing your inbound linking strategies. The days of optimization by having a hundred links to your site from posting the same article in numerous article directories, or by the use of link farms, are over. For many website owners this is welcome news since these 'black hat' SEO techniques are considered unethical by many developers who have been creating quality sites all along.

Keep in mind that while there is value in a good, "LSI compatible", inbound linking strategy, it must go hand-in-hand with a quality website. A high quality site will, in itself, help with higher rankings but it will also help in attracting the type of inbound links you need.

Source: http://www.latentsemanticindexing.com