One of the problems faced by those who hire companies to enhance their search engine optimization is that many of these companies use automated software to build links and gain organic rankings for their clients’ sites.

Automated software tends to work toward quantity, not quality, which ultimately can result in site rankings experiencing a quick boost followed by a severe and longer-lasting fall; that is when SEO goes bad.

Distinguishing between link building and relative linking is imperative to the health of your site’s ranking. Relative linking joins sites of similar topics to enhance your site’s organic ranking, and though the market changes and shifts, topic relation does not.

Take, for example, a site selling caramel covered apples that links to a site that sells carrots. Both apples and carrots are food, and so a relation exists, making the link a relative link.

While it is true that an apple site linking to another site selling apples would carry a stronger relation and thus gain more value than linking to a carrot site, there still exists a relative topic that, once drilled down by crawlers, will not damage the apple site’s general value.

However, if that apple site links to a site selling pool-cleaning services, the relation dies. There is no common topic between caramel covered apples and pool-cleaning services.

Another way to think about relative linking is a movie rental store. Aside from new releases, movies are typically divided by genre: mystery, drama, comedy, children’s and thriller, to name a few.

If you were looking for a movie about Dracula, you would first look in the thriller section. However, if someone had misplaced a film about the well-known vampire in the children’s section, you would be unlikely to find it in a timely manner, if at all.

Linking your caramel covered apple site to a pool-cleaning service site is like misfiling Dracula in the children’s movies, with one exception: whereas you can ask the video rental clerk to provide some insight as to the location of the Dracula movie you seek, crawlers aren’t going to go to the virtual front desk to ask for help finding your site.

Don’t subject your to automatic link building software that could cost your site valuable rankings. Instead, be sure that you’ve utilized relative linking, and let your site selling caramel covered apples shine.