Many people have the misperception that all links are the same. As a SEO, one of the most important things to know are the different types of links out there. Knowing the difference is critical because it can mean the difference between a success SEO campaign versus one that does not produce any results.
Link discussions can get technical, but since I’m not a programmer, I’ll explain it in layman’s terms.
Static Links
- can be linked from a text or image.
- static links can either be DoFollow or NoFollow.
- DoFollow static links pass PR/link juice.
Example of a DoFollow static link:
<a href=”http://www.link.com”>Link</a>
- NoFollow static links do not pass PR/link juice.
Example of a NoFollow static link:
<a href=”http://www.link.com” rel=”nofollow”>Link</a>
Dynamic Links
- can be linked from a text or image.
- dynamic links may or may not pass PR/link juice depending on how the search engines handle the specific link.
- in affiliate links, used to track actions or sales.
Example of an affiliate link:
http://www.link.com/?affiliateid=123&sid=101
- used in dynamic websites which has not done Apache URL mod rewrites.
Example of a dynamic link:
http://www.link.com/article/bin/answer.look?language=en&answer=3&sid=98971591358906&query=URL
- Dynamic links are often converted to static links for the purpose of SEO. The .htaccess file is used to perform this task.
Example of a link conversion:
http://www.link.com/article/bin/answer.look?language=en&answer=3&sid=98971591358906&query=URL
to
http://www.example.com/article/bin/answer/en/3/98971591358906/URL
As you can see, the dynamic link is not as “pretty” as the static link. Also, the dynamic link is lengthier and contains certain symbols (?,&,=) which make it more difficult for search engines to crawl and index.