Just a bit about search engine optimization.

If you’re working on your search engine optimization (SEO), what do you need to know about referrers and backlinks.

Did you know that “referrer data” means that a site is linking to you? A backlink simply means a link from some other website to your own. The referrer is the site that hosts that link. You might have more backlinks than referrers, since the referring site might have two or more links to you.

When you’re talking about site visits, a referrer is the site on which someone clicked a link to get to you. So if you see the word referrer on your Google Analytics data, that means that a visitor reached your site directly from the referrer site.

Keep in mind that a technical dictionary defines “referrer” as anyone with a link to you, but Google Analytics defines is as someone with a link to you THAT SOMEONE CLICKED. Important difference!

An SEO (search engine optimization) company will probably want to report the first kind of referrer to its clients: Any site with a backlink should be counted in SEO reporting. This is because no one needs to click on a link in order for that link to have value. In fact, an excellent SEO company should work hard to make sure those referrers exist in adequate numbers.

Backlinks help to generate authority. When someone links to you, search engines interpret that to means your site has something of value to say, is worth linking to, and therefore is worth finding in search engine results. Its kind of like when I write an article about, say, clowns, and use a footnote to reference the American Journal of Clown Laughology. By using that footnote, Im saying that the American Journal of Clown Laughology is important to the subject matter. It has authority. Therefore, backlinks have a powerful impact on your search engine ranking, and are vital in that quest for page one!

It may surprise you to learn that its not easy to determine the number of referrers you have in Google. Many times you’ll see people recommend typing link:www.yourhomepage.com into Google, but that usually gives you only a small portion of your real total. Google Webmaster Tools gives you a more accurate reading. In general, I prefer looking at Yahoo, which will give me a good sense of how SEO is going for both search engines. Type link:http://www.yourhomepage.com into Yahoo to see the results. You can check referrers to the home page only or to the entire site, and you can exclude links from your own site. A good SEO company might provide that information to you more easily.