Google's goal is to show the most relevant, useful, informative results when somebody performs a search. Google wants to show the very best results. Nobody would use Google if it generated irrelevant, unhelpful results. Google has worked very hard and continues to work very hard to ensure that people can't trick the Google algorithm into putting their site atop the search results. People are constantly trying to find loopholes -- flaws in the system that the algorithm doesn't account for -- and expose them to beat the system. But inevitably, Google catches on and updates its algorithm to close up the loophole.

The recurring theme we continue to see with each and every algorithm update is that Google loves and rewards natural behavior. In reality, Google would like to see sites linking to other sites simply because they want to... no link selling, no link swapping, no link exchanging, no automated link-posting, no link spamming, none of that! If Google had its way, the only links ever posted would be links that website owners posted themselves for no reason other than that they liked the content of the linked-to page and chose to link to it. Of course, Google realizes that simply isn't the case. But the point is that Google would like that kind of behavior because it is natural. So that is the kind of behavior you need to use as your pattern. You want it to look to Google like websites were naturally linking to your store simply because they wanted to (even though you will, in reality, be "encouraging" them to do so). :-)

As you get links to your store, consider the following questions in terms of what behavior would look natural to Google:

• Would links come from totally random, off-subject sites? Or would they come from topically related sites? Obviously, only topically related websites would be linking to your site. Why would a blog about scrabooking be linking to an ecommerce store about motorcycle gear? You want your links to be on topically related websites.


• Would all of your links all come at once? Or would they be spread out over time? When you get 0 links one week, 0 links the next, 0 links the next, and then 200 links the next, it doesn't look natural to Google. You should try to get a few links every week consistently over time.


• Would every link have the exact same anchor text and look exactly the same? Or would the links all be a little different? If people were just linking to you of their own free will, the links to your store would all look different. It looks unnatural to Google to see the exact same link over and over again. You should make sure to change up the anchor text and content of your links.


• Would all of your links come from the same type of website (i.e. blogs)? Or would they come from a wide variety of different kinds of sites? It looks very unnatural to Google to see 1,000 links from blogs/forums and NO links from any other type of website. You should try to get links from a wide variety of sites: informational, educational, article, news/press release, social networking, social bookmarking, blogs, forums, directories, manufacturer, business, and so on.