1- I don’t think that links to your site are that important anymore. The Sploggers exploited that weakness in the Search Engine algorithms and created software that goes around posting nonsensical comments in blogs complete with links back to a certain site. I think Google has moved past this outdated mode of ranking pages. If there is some value to it still then it is from having links to your site from RELATED sites.

2 – I rarely give reciprocal links despite receiving requests to do so all the time. I think others are unlikely to do so as well.

3 – Metatags were also exploited years ago and I don’t think Google gives them much weight anymore.

4 – Yoohoo Stephanie, here’s what you should have said – to get a good ranking you need to find the search terms that people are searching for and introduce those keywords on your site. So you need a good ranking for the several different searches that people use to find your site. Only one number 1 ranking isn’t very spectacular if no one is searching for “banana fried turtlenecks.”

5 – She should have talked about the here today gone tomorrow ranking of search terms of blogs. The blog format results in a temporary high ranking that is often here today but gone tomorrow. I’ll explore that more in one of my posts on e-booknow.com/blog