To rank well today, you probably need to use links to vote the site up in the
search ngines. Links pointing to a Web page do several things:
- Links make it easier for search engines to find the page. As the searchbots
travel round the Web, they follow links. They index a page, follow
the links on that page to other pages, index those pages, follow the links
on those pages, and so on. The more links to a page, the more likely the
page is picked up and indexed by the search engines, and the more
quickly it happens.
- Search engines use the number of links pointing to a page as an indication
of the age’s value. If lots of pages link to your page, the search
engines place a greater value on your page than pages with few links
pointing to them. If you have lots of links from sites that are themselves
linked to by many other sites, search engines conclude 
that your site
must really be important. (Google calls this value the page’s PageRank,
but Google is not the only search engine to use links as an indication of
value; Yahoo!, for instance, has something called Web Rank.)
- Links provide information to the search engines about the page
they’re pointing to. The link text often contains keywords that search
engines can use to glean additional information about your page. The
theme of the site pointing to your site also gives search engines an indication
of your site’s theme. For example, if you have links from hundreds
of rodent-related Web sites, it’s a good bet that your site has something
to do with rodents.
- Links not only bring searchbots to a page, but may also bring people
to the page. The whole purpose of your search engine campaign is to
bring people to your site, right? Sometimes people will actually click the
links and arrive at your site.
Remember:
Links are very important. Sometimes they mean the difference between being
indexed by a search engine and not being indexed, and between being ranked
well in a search ngine and not being ranked well. HereI delve into
this subject, a topic often broadly known as link popularity, to give you a
good understanding of what links are all about.
See the PageRank Algorithm here
