The idea of a good link, is what I think has changed the most. Nothing you read can be taken for the hardcore truth unless it is a leak from Google themselves and even then… (who knows?) So, what I have to say I will not say is the truth but in our work with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) along with what some other SEO companies are writing, this is what seems to be the case:

Inbound links carry more weight then outbound links. It doesn't hurt to have a few outbound links however for relevancy, but that is all they will get you. Reciprocal links are about as worthless as outbound links, good for relevancy nothing else. (you may and will need a little relevancy) What Google is looking for now, is almost impossible for the normal webmaster to obtain. The golden egg that Google is looking for is the inbound link you get from a big, well trusted website that has very few outbound links. So how do you get a backlink from a well trusted site that doesn't give out links to everyone? Ummmm…… you can't!!!

When and if the sites were to give you or you and someone else a link from there site it degrades the value of the backlink and their link becomes no better then any other sites backlink.

The only way to combat this is to try not to have too many outbound links yourself just a couple to establish your market relevancy and add as many “inbound only links” that you can. These inbound links must have your chosen keyword (hyperlinked to your site) in the middle of your description text. This is what is called anchor text. Any other way can degrade the value of the link somewhat.

Sure, this is a good way for Google to fight against people that own or use link farms. It is also potent at stopping people from using reciprocal links as a means to get high rankings. But, if you are determined to get ranked on Google, it is safe to say it can still be done. After studying how the Jagger Aftermath has struck the population a murderous blow back in November, we have implemented some new SEO techniques that has really brought up Google rankings. Further proof that Google can still be a relevant search engine. However, they still show too many non relevant results for my liking. Most of the common people are still going to Google to do their searches. Right now you can take all of Yahoo's and MSN's user searches and still not get the number of searches Google gets.

What is stated in this article is not to be taken word for word this is just from my experiences and it only applies to Google so far as I have seen. If you are looking to get MSN and/or Yahoo the above does not apply. REPEAT THE ABOVE INFO IS BETTER USED TOWARD GOOGLE ONLY!!