by Mary Killelea, September 6, 2009 

One of the most important things is to check the Cache date of linking page and make sure Google has visited it recently.

Acquiring quality links to a site is a major part of any SEO effort.  If you are good at SEO then you take certain steps in acquiring links. The days of randomly acquiring huge number of links are over.

Follow these steps to get good quality links:

• Make sure the linking page is not from a “bad neighborhood”
• Check to make sure the number of links on the linking page isn’t too high
• Be sure the linking site is relevant to your topic
• Confirm the link anchor text is relevant to the keywords
• Look to see that the linking page has a good PageRank

In general, the quality of the link is established through several factors.

When and if the link passes all tests and is worth acquiring there is one final step make sure you check the cache date. Often, we go to great lengths to make sure the site is a real link, that it looks good, and isn’t “spamming”…that we fail to ensure Google is actually spidering the page.

Because if Google isn’t spidering the page then, the link is essentially worthless. This is probably the most vital step that too many Webmasters fail to check.

Think of the cache dates as a carton of milk in your fridge. Milk is generally good for about three weeks. Beyond that, you start running into “problems,” right? The same is true for indexing. If a page goes longer than three weeks without being spidered by Google, there’s a problem.

If it’s been a couple of months, there is a MAJOR problem.

It’s easy to check the cached date of a page. Just put its URL in the search box and if it is indexed it should show up at the top of the search results. Below the snippet you will find the link to the cached version of the page. Click on it and you will be able to know when it was last cached.

That’s it. It’s really simple, Yet so many link builders skip this step and end up linking to pages that have no link juice to offer.

Recommendation: Before you spend a lot of effort in determining the pedigree of a linking page, do a quick check of the page’s last cached date. If it is not very recent don’t bother enquiring further and move on to the next option.

Note: Be sure to check for Spam Links - especially in a Blog.

With malware infections becoming more and more common online these days, sites and blogs are being jepordized without the Webmaster even knowing it. Typically, the Spammer will place dozens, hundreds, or even thousands and links “hidden” in the code to their Viagra, Casino, Porn, etc. sites.

Here is how you can check to see if your blog has fallen prey to this:

Just do a site command in Google. For example:  site:lampshoppers.com casino

This will check the domain for any reference to the word “casino.” If you get a few hundred pages returned and you are NOT in the casino business, chances are VERY good you’ve been hacked.

Other phrases you should check would be:

porn , Viagra , cialis, casino

Another good tip is to set up a Google Alert for your own business so you can follow it and see it’s activity.