It is amazing how much control Google has over the internet. A first page rank for a good keyword can be worth thousands - even millions. Back in the day it was quite easy to get good rankings by simply manipulating your on-page elements. THOSE DAYS ARE LONG GONE. On page factors account for less than 10% of your Google rank.

Today it is ALL about links. If anyone wants to sell you on some secret Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technique, run the other way. If you want to make money online, spend your time, energy and investments on link building. That is it. There is no secret necessary. SEO is ALL about links, links and more links! It is amazing how "breakthrough secrets" keep selling on ClickBank while the real secret is to build links. This is what will get you ranked high and make you money. I used to spend my money buying ebooks to learn the same message over an over. Internet marketing is the most bizarre industry in the world. I bet that 99% of those marketers have never sold anything but marketing "products".

So why do we need links to rank high in the search engines? Well, Google introduced the Page Rank (PR) concept as a way of determining which sites are the most important. The way they determine importance is to look at who links to your site.

The reasoning is that if other sites think that you are important, then you must be important. If the site that links to you is "important", then the value of the link, in Google's eyes, is higher. In simple terms, the higher the PR that links to you, the more valuable the link. There are several factors Google looks at apart from just PR. If your link comes from a relevant site in your niche or even from the same keywords, then it has more value.

So, the purpose of links is to establish importance and authority. Authority sites in any niche gets linked to by other sites in that niche, because it has information that people in that niche will find valuable.

Building links in many ways is an "artificial" way of creating authority and importance. Google really wants to see "natural" links - these are sites that link to your site because of its value.