The concept is simple. Affiliate and graphic links are for sales and marketing. These links can be "bought" so the search engines don't value them. But a text link required a Webmaster to inspect the target site and then post a link. It is visible to everyone. The implication is that the Webmaster has validated the authenticity and theme of the target website through the link. When the link text (anchor text), body or title includes the keywords, the link has a higher value and complements proper page optimization.

The Evaluation Process

The process begins with an accurate measurement of a website's existing link popularity and quality and compares it to highly ranked websites for targeted keywords.

Each keyword is entered into a search engine. The resulting top websites are cataloged. Then a specialized tool measures the link structure (popularity and quality) of each competing website for each keyword. This analysis yields a quantified measure of how many quality links are required to successfully compete for top ranking for each keyword.