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Getting links may seem like a lot of work, but it's only a small part of your difficulties when it comes to website optimization. Once those links are in your profile, they are prodded, pulled apart, assessed and weighted. It is only after this that the search engines decide how much link juice to grant you.

A lot of factors go into the assessment of any link, but one that is rarely talked about is user behaviour. The way that internet users behave around your links can have a big influence on how that link is assessed. The search engines, bereft of any human objective of their own, take a very close look at how the average human being on the net reacts to your links.

Here are a few of the user behaviour factors that affect your links:

1. User language, interests and preferences. The terms that users use when they look for information has an obvious relevance to website optimization. You can't access SEO services without noticing this. The influence of search terms goes beyond the search engines, though, into the search industry's attitude to the internet in general.

The search engines look for topic groups that surround your link, and pay attention to how internet users react to them. The combination of user movement and topic groups gives the search engines an idea of the language internet users are using when thinking about your site. This allows the search engines to do several things. By noticing the words internet users are using when looking at topics related to your link, the search engines can judge how relevant your page is likely to be to them. The way users react to your link is also another clue.

2. Interactive information. This refers to the way in which internet users get to your link, and how they behave around it. Things like navigation and the entering of information count toward the link's value.

3. How often links are selected or ignored. Just as with the click-through rate from the SERPs, the click-through rate of your inbound links has an effect on your ranking. Oft-clicked links are popular, and the search engines love popularity. Links that are ignored in favour of others on the page, however, are seen as less valuable.

4. How often all links are ignored. The search engines are quite wily creatures, and know that the presence of a link does not a popular site make. They're aware that popular sites might have pages that are of less value to users than others. If users ignore all the links on a page, it's likely that the page is less than helpful. The value of those links is therefore toned down.

When it comes to off-page links, there is very little you can control. This doesn't make it less important to know about what those links are doing for you, or how the search engines are analysing them. If you have any questions about links, you can talk to us at SEO Consult.