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Links are the backbone of the Internet ... we all need links if we want our websites to be seen by others. And, since Google announced that it considered links to be some sort of 'vote' for the website that those links pointed to, almost all of us have been out there busting our nuts to try and get more links.

Of course there are some rugged individuals who have simply sat back and waited for the links to come to them and have steadfastly refused to exchange links. Sure they might have a few outgoing links but they've never done anything to pursue the exchange of links.

Now you might think that people who do that are totally insane ... don't they know that they're not going to rank well if they don't have a gazillion inbound links that are loaded with relevant anchor text?

Umm ... well ... one of those rugged individuals is sitting across the office from me. He has quite a few mainstream sites out there on the Net and he's never exchanged a single link with anyone. He's never responded to a single link request and yet he has plenty of inbound links to his mainstream sites and they all rank extremely well for the keywords that are important for those sites ... and several of them are in very competitive verticals.

But not everyone can be like him ... lots of people see the need for plenty of inbound links and they'll do anything and everything they can to get those links. They'll annoy the crap out of people with their link requests ... they'll buy links ... they'll trade links ... because they know how important links are.

They'll even ignore Google's own guidelines about links and build their link profile on some very shaky ground . And why not?

Various link schemes have been around for years and there were some very involved linking going on in adult almost from the day we all realised just how important links could be. Then when it became clear that Google was talking the talk but couldn't walk the walk and slap down link networks it was hard to resist the temptation not to get involved with them.

I'm sure that some people never thought that the day would come when Google would be able to turn words into deeds but it's finally happened. Actually it has been happening for some months now but it's taken a while for people to wake up to what Google has been doing and some didn't know anything was happening till Google whacked a very large blog/link network this week.

Now that we know that Google really does intend to enforce its linking guidelines perhaps it's time to take a step back and rethink your linking strategies but it may not mean that we have to completely give up on link networks.

If you're really desperate for links and you're prepared to pay for them from networks of sites that are obviously online for no other reason than to provide links just make sure that you choose small networks. There's no guarantee that you won't be wasting your money on something that will get hit by Google sooner or later but small networks do have a much better chance of being overlooked by Google.

But never count on those networks being overlooked forever. Don't make those link networks a major part of your linking strategy ... even here in adult. Sure it's hard to get links here without resorting to some sort of link network but don't make those networks your major focus.

Instead you need to start building your own link network ... not from crap blogs ... but from your own quality sites. And don't be fooled by the term 'quality' because just about any free site would be considered as a quality site when compared to the rubbish the link networks were using.

But that doesn't mean you should just rush in and start a link chain running from one site to the next until you have every site you've ever built joined by one long chain. Instead you need to do some research on the best way to link your sites ... maybe divide them into groups (with a blog at the heart of each group) where sites within the groups are linked together and then one or two sites within each group link out to other groups.

I have to say that I'm no expert here so what I've said above is really just to get you thinking and looking for ways to build your own web of links. There's no doubt that we all can't be rugged individuals when it comes to links but we shouldn't depend totally on others either.

With just a little effort we can build our own link network ... one that will fit within Google's guidelines.

(And hot off the press is something that I was reading over on seobythesea.com - a site well worth bookmarking and going back to often. Could it be that links become obsolete in Google's view? Look for the post about new page rank and see what you think.)