Find out who is linking to your site with Backlink Watch

Backlinks are one of the most important factors that control how much traffic a site receives. They not only refer visitors to your URL, but are also used by search engines to rank websites. It should be no surprise to learn, then, that domains with a high number of backlinks routinely sell for more than their less-networked counterparts.

There are a number of tools out there used to track backlinks. They don’t always give the same number. Some over-count and others under-count. Most simply spit out the number of links found by one or more search engines, usually Yahoo, AltaVista, and/or Bing.
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Does PageRank Influence Search Engine Ranking?

As most webmasters are aware, PageRank is a numerical ranking Google assigns to each webpage it indexes. Ranging from 1-10, some will swear by the number, while others could care less about it. Should you be concerned about PageRank influencing search engine rankings?

In short, no. There is the old wives’ tale that PageRank correlates directly to search engine rankings, but this myth has been dispelled time and time again. Search engine ranking is determined by a number of factors such as the number and quality of inbound links, the title of these links, keyword usage on the page and in META tags, as well as how often relevant keywords appear.

PageRank is determined solely by the quality and quantity of links pointing to a page. These are often sites with high search engine rankings, so many correlate PR with ranking when in reality there is no relationship between the two.

Determining Domain Name Value: Part II

In Determining Domain Name Value: Part I, two important aspects of domain name value were discussed. Not only is it necessary to take a name’s extension into consideration when doing an evaluation, but keyword popularity is very important, too.

These two factors are just the tip of the iceberg. There are a variety of other indicators domain experts look at to determine the potential worth of a name.

How long is the name? Is it easy to spell?
The shorter a domain is and the fewer keywords it contains, the more valuable it is in general. Spelling, pronunciation, and brandability are also important. A domain like AttorneyAlley.com is much easier to remember, spell, and pronounce than AmazingAffidavitLawCentral.com, for instance.

A substantial market exists for very short domains, mainly .coms four characters and under as well as other TLDs with only three letters. These domains are not only short and easy to remember, but have great potential because of the large number of businesses and organizations using multi-letter acronyms. And if the three or four-letter name forms something pronounceable, it’s worth even more.
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