For all the seeming intelligence displayed by its system, Google is still a machine. This means that its every process is determined by an algorithm that, once cracked, is susceptible to exploitation.

Googless current algorithm (emphasis on current, more on that later) decides the ranking of an indexed page based on the latters keyword density, quality of content and the number of links that refer visitors to your site. In recent years, people have tried to manipulate page content, but eventually, every mechanical program that was invented to generate, rotate and fabricate content ended up as utter to moderate failures.

Links, on the other hand, are easier to machinate. There have been some proven methods that were designed by webmasters the world over. These linking strategies have been able to generate more visitors for the site as well as a higher ranking in search queries. Currently (again, emphasis on currently), these techniques have yet to fail.

Heres a rundown of these powerful linking strategies:

1. The trick is in acquiring inbound links from sites that rank higher than yours. The three strategies included in this area will help you be able to do such:

A: Find a well-visited forum. Enroll in a membership, then start posting. Your signature box should include a link to your site. Every time a visitor would view a thread where you posted, your link would be displayed prominently.

B: Find a well-visited free articles site. Write an article, and submit it to their database. Include a link to your website in the allotted resource box. Every time a visitor would search for a topic relevant to your article, your work will appear. Every time a visitor will read your work, your link would be displayed prominently as well.

C: Do the suggestion above. But explicitly allow your readers to distribute your article for as long as they retain the resource box. This is tantamount to making your article viral, meaning, it has the potential of garnering more inbound links at an exponential rate.

2. Look for a site that is related to yours. Send the webmaster a testimonial about his products, if he is selling any, or about the content of his site. As is usually the case, the webmaster wont be able to resist publishing your testimonial, and as courtesy, would add a link to your site.

3. Look for high traffic sites that sell products. Write reviews about them and post the same to your site or blog. Send the webmasters a link to you reviews, and theyll feel a moral obligation to thank you with a link. This uses the same principle as the previous strategy.

4. You could also try reciprocal linking, that is, publishing another sites link in exchange for that site publishing yours. Do not do this often, however, as search engines frown on a large quantity of ping-pong visitor exchanges.

5. There are many free directory listings and free advertising sites out there which would provide for easy one-way links. Subscribe to as many of these as you could find.

6. Once your Page Rank (PR) increases, you could start trying link membership sites. These are networks that require a token fee for access to many websites that would allow your links to be displayed.

7. Publish quality content. If you populate your site with definitive and original information, you might not have to look for links anymore, as webmasters would be knocking at your door asking if they could link their pages to your site.

Now, we did mention the word currently during the earlier parts of this article. This is because Google has recently patented a link history tracking system that might enable it to spoil the party for some of these linking strategies.

But that should be a tale for another day, or a topic for another article to be more precise.

As of now, these linking strategies work and they work well. So you might as well capitalize on them as much as possible!