Off-page ranking factors can be summarized with one phrase: inbound links. Inbound links from other websites are the real power that makes sites rank. In the competitive search markets, links might comprise 80 to 90 percent of the work that goes into a website.
The best way to think of the relationship between on-page factors an off-page factors is this: on-page factors are like tuning up a car for a race to make sure all the parts run reliably and strongly, off-page factors are the fuel.
So, if your car isn't running right, all the fuel in the world isn't going to make it go. Similarly, if you don't have any fuel, even the most highly-tuned car will go nowhere. In the world of search optimization, you need both.
Google, more than any other search engine, was the great innovator with respect to measuring inbound linking power and then adjusting search results in favor of sites that enjoy high numbers of inbound links. The reasoning is sound: sites with high numbers of inbound links are most likely superior websites, to those that have low numbers of inbound links. This innovation that links between websites are votes for the quality of the destination site, is now employed by all major search engines. And, for the most part, the principle does ensure superior search results when users search for information through a search engine.
What Google wants, ideally, is for inbound links to be natural links, not artificially generated links. If a website owner earns inbound links through paid link-building schemes, then the methodology is skewed—the lower value site that has paid for inbound links now enjoys higher ranking power than a superior site with fewer links. That result is not what is intended by the inbound link component of the search algorithms.
The search engines know that in the real world, not all linking between websites will be natural. They are fully aware that webmasters attempt to game the system through a variety of linking practices that range from relatively innocent reciprocal linking to more sinister practices, like automated forum spamming and hidden links. Google forbids link schemes in its webmaster guidelines, and penalties are common.
The task for the legitimate webmaster is to secure links naturally. Natural linking will ensure that your site will never suffer a penalty, and links that you obtain naturally will carry much more power than links obtained through any schemes or artificial means. We cover specific line building methods in Chapter 6, Link Building.