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I sometimes wonder if there is some weird relationship between the time of year ... or perhaps the phases of the moon, maybe even sunspot activity ... and the way people go looking for links. Whatever the cause might be it's obviously affecting webmasters again because my email is starting to fill up with link requests.

You know the sort ... the ones that always start with fake compliments and end with instructions on how to put their link on the front page of your website while the form you're about to fill in will drop your link onto an orphaned link page that no self-respecting search engine spider will ever visit and no real person will ever see.

I wonder how many people still fall for emails like that ... it's certainly been around for years and for almost as long it's had little, if any, real value when it comes to boosting your rankings in the search engines.

Link Analysis
Now that's something that Steve and I like to play with from time to time. It's interesting to look at competitors and see where their inbound links are coming from and it can tell you some interesting things about the power ... or lack of power ... that a lot of inbound links have.

The more we look at it the more it seems that there are horses for courses and the effect a lot of inbound links can have on a site can vary depending on a number of other variables. Now don't stake your fortune on that ... it's just something we've noticed in relation to a couple of sites we've been looking at in a rather narrow vertical that is of interest to us.

So many of us think in terms of inbound links as only being of value when it comes to ranking well in the search engines but could all those links have another value to anyone who wants to look at them? If you were reading Search Engine Land yesterday you will know that there is links can do more than just boost a site up in the search engine rankings. If you take time to look a little more closely at where those links are coming from they can tell you a lot of interesting information.

For example, if you're checking your competitor's inbound links they can sometimes give you valuable clues about what your competitor is doing and what you should be doing too. People that your competitor is dealing with are quite likely to mention those dealings on their websites and link back to your competitor and if you're checking those links you can see what they are up to.

By following those links and learning from what you see you can take appropriate action to counter any advantage they might be about to gain. You might also see some new where you should be doing business and some new ways to promote your business. Spend some time back-tracking on some of those links and you never know what you might find.

Local Search Links
Of course you wouldn't expect me to talk about something as juicy as links without talking about their relevancy to search engine rankings and so I won't disappoint you. Last week I mentioned the launch of 100,000 local search sites by Marchex and that was something had us thinking about over the weekend.

Here in Australia you might think that local search is dominated by two big companies. One is the company that handles the Yellow Pages listings in our phone books and the other is a company run by one of the biggest newspaper publishers here in Australia.

Both offer free basic listings and paid listings that offer some worthwhile advantages. One has a lot of traffic and one does not. One powers the Australian variation of Google Local Search and one does not. One offers all listings a spot on Google Maps and the other does not. One is very easy to use and the other can lead to a lot of frustration.

But neither of them are really in touch with the true local areas. The mapping leaves a lot to be desired, some listings are out of date because businesses have changed address or shut up shop and even the best of them has a problem clearly identifying just what is local and what is in the next town.

I don't know what the situation is like where you live but if it's like it is here and you're thinking of trying something at the local level don't be discouraged. The opposition might look tough but do a little digging and you'll soon see where the big guys are failing at your local level. You might have to invest some money in some serious promotion but if you're really providing something that is useful at the local level you could succeed and beat the big guys at their own game.