Over the past 12 months we've seen many changes in the way that search engines are responding to the various link building strategies being used by SEO professionals. Some of the more favored strategies no longer produce top rankings.

For example, many specific directory listings and some types of article and press release syndication are far less useful than they were at the beginning of 2007. While they're arguably useful for getting keywords into your anchor text, they don't convey much authority at a time when the emphasis placed on authoritative links coming from sites within your niche is greater than ever.

So today, as we usher in the new year of 2008, successful and top ranking link building strategy can be segmented into three categories:

1. Authoritative links — These links tell search engines your site is important and trusted and deserves to rank highly.

2. Keyword anchor text links — These links tell search engines what keywords to rank your site for. It isn't necessary that they come from authoritative sites (although it helps), but if they come from lower-value sites you'll need other authoritative links in your profile in order for the anchor text of your lower value links to actually boost your rankings.

3. Diverse IP links — These are links coming from a wide range of sites spread out over a wide range of IP addresses. They make your overall link profile look more natural. They also help establish your authority by showing the search engines there are many sites that feel your site is valuable enough to link to.

As you might suspect, it's best when you can integrate all three segments of the above link building strategies. One example for doing this is to:

1. Locate the authority sites within your niche and get links from them to build your own site's authority.
2. Then launch some press releases and syndicate some articles to build your anch...