Permanent Vs Temporary Links

The most temporary a link can be is a paid placement on a search engine. When you sign up with Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google to pay for an advertisement spot for a given keyword, you are not buying a link; you are buying a paid listing in the search results that is not guaranteed to even show up. Search engines do not index these links, and they are completely ignored when they are determining how much of an authority your site is. This is a common misconception among newbies, and you should be glad that you won't be wasting any money on your SEO efforts purchasing paid placements on the big search engines.

Moving away from search engines, however, most websites allow you to purchase a monthly text link or banner placement in a designated "sponsor" section. While this type of temporary link might give you some good click through traffic, the benefit in terms of SEO is limited. Search engines can take months before they credit your site with the new link, so if you only purchase a one month placement, you'll probably not see a change in your rankings. For SEO purposes, try to keep a link for at least three months before deciding if it's worth keeping.

On the flip side, a permanent link might be a placement in a website's link section, a review on a blog, or even a new topic posted on a forum. These links are typically forever, unless a site is taken offline (happens more than you'll like) or the site is sold and redone. These nearly-permanent links are the best for SEO and are key to building up your site's authority with the search engines in the long-term.