Search Engine Optimization: Relational Factors

What I consider the "relational" part of search engine promotion refers to the relationships established between and among web pages and websites by means of hyperlinks.

Relational Elements = Links

• Inbound links from web pages
• Inbound links from directories
• Reciprocal linking between sites
  
• Linking out to other sites
• Page Rank (Google)
  

Link analysis is probably one of the most algorithmically complex aspects of the way that search engines score pages, and deserves exhaustive treatment, as well as references to academic papers and patents.

Some of the documents are collected here:

Link Analysis and Topic Distillation

Included are topics related analysis of links, Topic Distillation, Hubs and Authorities, and the Hilltop Algorithm.

More on linking is soon to come, and will be on a continuing basis, but in the meantime, for some excellent references with regard to linking and obtaining links, please refer to the resources given in these outstanding posts by Nacho, a Senior Moderator at Search Engine Watch Forums:

Link Building 101