Amongst SEO's, there is a lot of talk about link building - which strategies and tactics are the best. And, over time, the answers to these questions have changed. As Google has become more sophisticated and their algorithms more refined, they are able to detect many backlinks they deem as 'unnatural' and “neuter” their SEO value. Yet as Google advances, so do the tactics of SEO companies who desire to attain an unfair advantage on behalf of their clients. The 'cat and mouse' game continues.

Most certainly, natural organic backlinks are the best.  And these kinds of links come from having an established website that has been arround for years with superior website content that the market place craves.  Unfortunately, for many websites, this combination of factors is unrealistic.  In these cases, a link building campaign is required.

For those not familiar with the many link-building methods, an outline of 9 common tactics with relative cost is covered below.

1. Reciprocal Linking ($) This is one of the oldest form of link building. In essence, the process is simple: "you link to me and I link to you". But some time ago, Google figured out a way to determine if a backlink was reciprocated and neutered their SEO value. Today, it is widely believed that reciprocal links have no SEO value.
2. Directory Listing ($ - $$$) Directory submissions use to be common among SEO link building tactics. That was before Google neutered the PageRank of most directory backlink pages. There may be 3 exceptions still worthy of consideration: ODP, YAHOO and business directories. ODP is not a very well maintained directory and getting a single listing may require more time and expense than its value. Yahoo is a paid directory costing more than $200. Business directories don't pass much SEO value but they do add to Google's "trust factor". If a website is not currently in business directories, adding it through www.ubl.org may be a worthy exercise.
3. 3-way link trading ($$ - $$$). These links are traded among link suppliers and partners. Suppliers link to Partners and Partners link to a target site. Although these kinds of links do build some PageRank value, they are not very relevant nor to they live for a long period of time. Therefore, their overall SEO value is limited.
4. Guest Blog Postings for BLOG NETWORKS ($$). These are links that appear within a blog post and link back to a target website. They are contextual links and have some relevant content. But they do not possess much PageRank value (PR0-2). They do build some "Link Reputation" because the backlink anchor text includes the keyword. And the link lives for a long period of time. These types of blogs are syndicated throughout blog networks so one blog post may actually be used on several different websites.
5. Guest Blog Postings for INDUSTRY BLOGs ($$$) This kind of guest blogging is similar to the Blog Network style. The primary difference is that industry blogs have higher PageRank value but there are fewer of these kinds of blogs. The posts themselves are typically longer and have a more professional tone. Consequently, they are more expensive than the Blog Network posts but individually, they pass more SEO value.
6. Press Releases ($$$$) This kind of linking strategy attempts to build market buzz about your product/services. The backlinks themselves within the press release do not have much value as the release quickly goes into an archive mode. The purpose of press releases is to draw attention to your website so other websites will link to it and/or an editor of an online magazine might decide to run a story on the company/products.

6. Article Syndication ($$$) Writing and syndicating articles through article directories has been a long time favorite SEO link-building tactic. More recently, however, these links seem to have less and less value because they appear deeper and deeper within the article directories. The real hope of Article Syndication is that some other website may need content and is willing to use an article that includes a backlink as its source. The problem is that Blog Networks have provided a better mechanism for those requiring content and Article Syndication has taken a back seat.
7. "Text Links" ($$$$$) These are advertising links that are disguised and appear as natural links. If the link appears natural and passes Google's algorithmic tests, then the links pass real SEO value. Since these links are typically placed on high PR website pages, they have strong SEO value. These links are very expensive and paid monthly or annually- similar to a media-buy. For campaigns that require more PageRank value, "Text Links" may be the only way to gain an advantage. To reduce the chance of algorithmic "neutering" text links should be purchased in some quantity.
8. Social Networking ($) There is lots of talk about social networks and their link building potential. Yet few realize that account pages for FaceBook, Twitter and Delicious (3 popular social sites) have rel="nofollow" attributes in the backlink. Under these conditions, the SEO value of these backlinks is ZERO. Although social networking may add to the number of visitors, they do not directly affect SEO ranking efforts.
9. CHAFF links ($) There are some link building tactics that build worthless links. Among them are social bookmarking sites and profile pages. Most social bookingmarking sites have added rel="nofollow" tags to block SEO value. And profile pages can never be found by Google's natural spidering process because profile pages are password protected. Even though these tactics have no SEO value, some SEO companies promote them as part of their backlinking strategy.

For several years, Google has delayed the award of SEO value from backlinks. Links that are young still pass some value, but as the link matures and ages, Google seems to award more value. Historically, the waiting time is about 90 days before Google passes the majority of the backlinks value.

To estimate the number of backlinks needs to product a PR value, use the following table.

Assumes 50 outbound links on each backlink page

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