For a business owner, being noticed is one of the most important ways of generating income. The advertising industry has enjoyed a boom for many years. In fact, you cannot drive down the street without seeing hundreds of advertising techniques in play; to the point most have become numb to them. The internet changed this and businesses that are not on the internet are being left behind. The problem is the internet is like advertising in a worldwide yellow pages, how will you be noticed. The term you need to become familiar with is called backlinks. 

In order to be noticed on the internet you have to be found in the first page or two of search engine results. If you sell widgets and someone searches for them, you need to appear. The problem is there are twenty thousand other pages that mention widgets, even if they do not sell them. Search engine optimization is the technique used to raise your page rank so you are found in the top results when someone searches for widgets and one of the most effective ways to do this is through backlinks, or links coming in from other sites to yours.

The search engines will see that other sites are linking to yours and assume that you are offering a quality experience. This is only one factor in page ranking, but it is an important one. Recently, a website found itself at the top of the page rank by making their customers mad, which caused many links to the site commenting on their terrible customer service. Unfortunately, this site reached the top position by manipulating negative publicity. The search engines quickly reacted and changed their formula to accommodate for this practice. However, backlinks are still a big factor, they are just checking for quality material now.

The search engines will always change their formula to adjust for the mood of the internet and to keep developers on their toes, but in the end backlinks count for a large part in page ranking. The other word is quality. Good information will generate backlinks and please the search engines as they find quality and informative material for those searching for it.