Lower PageRank has been a hot topic in SEO forums and blogs over the last couple of weeks. Many highly regarded sites experienced drops in PageRank and in some cases, the drops are significant as reported on SearchEngineLand last week. Complaints about lower quality search results have sent Google back to the algorithm in a real battle with spam sites and others who would take over all the top search spots and lower PageRank for some is the result. The prime targets of Google’s efforts have been directories, blogs and other advertisers that are providing links for money.

Along with falling PageRank have come reports of significant drops in the rankings for some sites. Interestingly, there is not a clear one-to-one relationship between lower PageRank and falling search engine results rankings suggesting that Google is discounting the value of PageRank in their algorithm.

This comes as no surprise to some who claim that PageRank has actually been devalued for some time now in favor of Trust Rank – a method of evaluating links based less on quantity of links and more on quality of links. In particular, paid links from directories and blogs are expected to become less valuable to search rankings in the coming months.

So, why am I not worried? Because any good link strategy will cultivate inbound links with the idea of getting traffic - not just ranking - and because ultimately, content is still king. As search engine algorithms improve the quality of results, a well-designed site with good quality content will always rise to the top.

In many cases, we as SEO engineers know how to evaluate a potential link or directory to get the maximum benefit for a website. Many of these sites are broken up into very specific sub-categories. Sites such as DMOZ, the Yahoo Directory, Go Guides and many others are called authority sites. They have been on the web for many years, some from as early as 1997. With the age of the site, the search engines have found that these are not fly by night Spammer sites that just want to host Google AdSense to make money. A lot of directories are human edited so not every site will get in on the first attempt. These are the sites that are worth going after in your linking efforts. They are the kinds of sites we recommend people submit their sites to.

At first glance, a directory or link site may not look like much, but if you dig a little deeper, you can probably find a category that will fit every business type. The key to submitting to these types of sites is finding the most relevant category for your company. And, remember, even if there is a category that is similar but not exact, it is worth submitting to.

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Linking and link building can be scary stuff. Constantly, I hear people talk about being penalized for aggressive linking or getting into trouble by using link farms and link exchange programs that are just bad news. The question here is “How do I know if a link is one that will improve my rankings, or one that will end up causing irreparable damage?” In an effort to bring some clarity to a frustrating situation, I have listed below some things to look for when considering a link.

The thing to consider above all else is relevancy. In other words, is the site that I want to link to me somehow related to the content on the page? If not, forget it. Links from pages that are not related to your content in some way, are not going to be counted. Other things to consider include:

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