I submitted my URL to the Ham Radio Search engine. It has been added, but it appears near the bottom of page three in the search results. What determines search results rankings between sites? Is there anything I can do to improve the positioning of my site in search results?

Many factors determine search results rankings. One of the most important is the number of inbound links from other websites. Imagine that someone showed you a road map of an area of the world you knew nothing about. There were only single roads leading to some towns, but other towns had many roads leading to them. Which of those towns probably would be most important? Just as many roads usually lead to important cities and towns, many links usually lead to important websites.

However, the quality of inbound links also is important. Links from other ham radio websites are much more valuable than are links from sites that have nothing to do with ham radio. Search engines are very sensitive to attempted manipulation by webmasters. A ham radio site that has many links from other ham radio sites probably has those links because other hams thought the website content would be interesting to hams. However, a ham radio site that has many links from sites that have nothing to do with ham radio most likely has those links because they were exchanged or purchased to try to manipulate search results. Attempts to manipulate search results in ways like that may "backfire" and cause a site to be listed near the bottom of search results, or even worse, to not be listed at all.

-Bob

If search engines frown on link exchanges between websites, how is it possible to obtain links to a ham radio site?