Requesting for links, or simply a link request, is the process of asking for a link to your web site from another web site. The link to your site from another site is called a backlink. This technique existed since the early days of the Web. Webmasters shared links to each others sites to increase their traffic. However, With the rise in popularity of Google search engines in the early 2000s, links from others sites became more important in search engine ranking than the direct traffic from the sites.

This is due to the fact that one of the major factor in early Google site ranking algorithm is links to your sites from other sites. Today, most search engines give some importance to incoming links to your site in their ranking algorithm. Though I am not a big fan of link exchanges, it still has value if done properly. So, how do you request links from other web sites effectively?

First, never join any automated link exchange program. Most are useless and Google frowns upon this type of link exchanges. Google values that if your site has great contents, other sites will naturally link toy you. So, you don’t need any link exchanges.

Also, don’t get links from unrelated web sites. If you are selling dog products, don’t get a links from viagra and gambling sites. Get links only from web sites related to your niche.

The best links are from authoritative, government and university sites. Here is an article I worte a while back about how to get inbound links from government and university sites.

Also, when you ask for links, don’t tell the site owner to link to vague anchor texts like “click here” or the url of your site. Always use a good keyword related to your web site as anchor text.

Check your 404, or page no found, pages. You can find this information from your server’s analytic software. Contact each site owner who is linking to your non-existent pages and request them to fix it.

Also, search for you site name, business name, or contact  information in Google. Ask webmasters of these sites that are mentioning these information for a proper link to your site using a keyword-rich anchor text.

If you have a blog, check out “in the news” pages of other websites in your niche. These are pages where the site owner lists all the news about her site. You can get this information by doing a search like your niche + “in the news” in Google. Then write something about that site, their products and services in your blog and request a link back to your site from her.

Write egobait articles for your blog. It is our nature to hear good things about us and we gladly spread the word about it whenever we see somebody mentioned it. Egobaits are short articles like top list, interviews, testimonaials, etc. For example, if you are in dog insurance business, write a post on top ten dog training blogs. Contact each web site you have mentioned in your list and let them know that they made it to your list. You will see that they will mention the list in their blogs and link back to you.

Today’s link exchange process requires creative thinking. You can come up with other methods that are not directly asking somebody to link to you. If you know any other subtle techniques, please comment on it.