Mostly Google likes web sites that are popular – and they define popularity by how many web sites link to a web site. So it used to be great to get links from everyone and anyone.

Well that changed a while ago – maybe 2-3 years ago. Google still liked links – but they only liked “quality links”. That means they don’t links from link farms – generally those sites are short on content, long on links. The magic number is 200 – Google doesn’t like links from web sites that have more than 200 links on them.

OK that’s fine. The goal shifted to only getting relevant links, which makes sense. Well, the latest hot topic is – should you pay for links?

In theory, the search engines seem to frown on paid links – but I think it’s very hard to define “paid” or ignore the fact that sometimes paid links are valuable. I work with lots of resorts and I can tell you that you pay to get listed on Explore Minnesota (www.exploreminnesota.com) and that you get lots of traffic from them too.

So what’s a web owner to do? Pay for links if you think it will bring you good traffic – so from your local Chamber or industry association. But the better bet these days is trying to get links from web sites related to your industry (or location, or targeting your general market) and offer them content.

I used to suggest writing articles for online newsletters – and that still can work if your industry is not flooded with articles (real estate is, manufacturing isn’t). Now I think placing comments on blog (related comments!) and/or contacting blog owners to ask them to mention you can be the way to go.

So there you go a few words on getting links for your web site.