Link building or reciprocal linking is a mutual link between two websites for the purpose of ensuring mutual traffic as well as facilitating the ability for a website to increase its popularity by linking with other sites. If Scott’s website links to Claire’s website, and Claire’s website links to Linda’s website, the websites are reciprocally linked. Reciprocal linking is an integral part of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process because Google utilizes link popularity algorithms (defined as the number of links that led to a particular page and the anchor text of the link) to rank websites for relevancy.
An Inbound link is a hyperlink that directs you to a website without any reciprocal link; thus the link goes “one way” in direction. It is thought by many industry experts that this type of link is considered more natural in the eyes of search engines. Inbound links are also referred to as Incoming Links or one way Links. An effective way to utilize this method of linking is by circulating articles through various content forums and media. These articles should contain an About the Author box that includes a one way link back to the author’s URL. When publishers use these articles, those Inbound links help authors increase their page rank.