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Topics: internal hypertextual linkage as a rich road map for Googlebot ; TITLE TAG and internal links symbiosis; the TITLE attribute for anchor texts
Internal links are the links that are on your site, pointing to pages that share the same domain name (i.e from www.yoursite.com/index.html to www.yoursite.com/products.html). They connect your home page to your products and information on your site and take your visitors from internal pages to the index page back.
Remember that EACH PAGE has a pagerank, so Google considers web pages as standalone sites. Internal linkage (the way you link, how links are published, where links are put into the page...) have the same importance than inbound links.
Google itself, in its webmaster guidelines pages (see www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html) states the identikit of a perfect link: "...Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images..."
Whether your site as a normal html structure or frames, it's good to make a site map. The map has two functions: first it offer customers a global vision of the contents, second one is to supply to Googlebot a road map to follow when it indexing your site. The best map is a HTML wrc validated page, with no particular specifications of font, colors, background etc. with text links that emphasize keywords. In this way every page will receive a weighted vote in addiction to what is normally obtained with a simple link from the Home Page.
MACROMEDIA™FLASH AND GOOGLE
After last revision, now Google can read links (get_url command) in Shockwave Flash (.swf) files so it's not uncommon now to see many *.swf querying "link:www.sitename.com" in Google search field. Google cannot read text into swf files yet.
While this new ability is not optimized (it may open many doors to spammers --see below) it's still a good thing providing links (or a complete site map) also in html somewhere in the page for Googlebot to follow the links and index the pages.
 swf files are compiled at a minimum of 18px x 18px, can have the same bgcolor of webpage they're included in and they can include multiple get_url (links) instructions. This can be a great alternative (but be aware that this could be considered SPAM) to hidden links. To maintain its database free from spam techiniques Google should consider not to index swf files that are not at least 100x100, penalize "wmode=transparent" parameter, and check out "bgcolor=" parameter before index swf files.
The ability to read text into swf files, still not implemented, will prevent its index from spammmers and assign a relevancy to links.
Notice also that if swf files backlinks are recognized, and they can be directly linked, this means that each swf file has a pagerank value, regardless of the pagerank of the page it's included in; it seems Google treats them as IFRAMES at the moment.
OUTBOUND LINKS
Many people try to avoid outbound links (links FROM your site), thinking that this could weaken their site's pagerank™ or relevancy. This is wrong. The correct and balanced using of outbound links can be a real boost in Google rankings.
It's not uncommon to see a small website getting an higher ranking than an other, for certain keywords, just because the small site links to a site that is very relevant for that keywords.
i.e. A small site about books has a text-link (mary cook biography) to an internal page of the official Mary Cook website that contains her biography. After one or two Google updates, searching for "Mary Cook Biography" you'll see (chance are 99%) the small site outrank the official one.
The reason resides in the guidelines of Google and its random surfer model. When a customer looks for something, he expects to find a series of sites that satisfy his demand. If Mary Cook's official site contains the biography of Mary Cook it is OK. But if an other site links to a page that contains the biography of Mary Cook is even better, because the webmaster introduces a reference -put under his responsibility- to the document that the customer is looking for. This aspect of the ranking on Google does not steal anything to the official site. If a customer is looking for the biography of Mary Cook and reaches the small site, he will reach however the right page of the official site.
The <TITLE> tag / Internal Links Symbiosis
An observation that demonstrate relationship between your home page and internal pages
Preliminary statements:
1. Google™ considers each single page as a website, almost regardless of its directory (root directory or a deeper directory). Therefore any link is considered either INbound or OUTbound;
2. Googlerank's Italian version (and its subdirectories) contains more links TO googlerank's main page than links FROM googlerank's main page;
3. Googlerank's main page (http://www.googlerank.com/index.htm) is MORE inbound-linked than Googlerank's italian version; (http://www.googlerank.com/ita/index.htm)
4. <TITLE> tag is definitely the FIRST part of the page that is indexed by Googlebot.
BUT:
Querying the keywords: "ranking google" we got the following result:
At n. 1 position: http://www.googlerank.com/ita/index.htm; below, as secondary result, we find http://www.googlerank.com
WHY THAT?
Assuming that there's NOT any particular optimization on Italian version's main page, the real difference is played by <TITLE> tag.
Infact, while Googlerank's home page has a keyword rich TITLE tag (ranking google methods search engine etc. etc. ... same old things!) , Italian version shows a short, specific, <TITLE> tag: ranking google
Fully according to Google optimization guidelines and the "random surfer model": Googlerank's main page gives the viewer (and Googlebot) GENERIC topics. Italian version gives theorically the exact "ranking google" content. That's why this page is ranked higher.
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To make things easy to be understood:
INbound links: links FROM a page to another page (i.e. : links from www.yahoo.com to YOUR webpage)
OUTbound links: links TO a page from another page (i.e. : links from YOUR site to www.yahoo.com)
INTERNAL LINKS: the inbound and outbound links structure within the SAME domain (i.e. : links from www.yoursite.com/page1.html to www.yoursite.com/page2.html and from www.yoursite.com/page2.html to www.yoursite.com/page3.html)
Conclusion: Don't use too many outbound links, but also do not be afraid of them. They can represent an effective strategy to get higher rankings for certain keywords. always use text links and ensure yourself that the sites you link have good pagerank value and contain exactly what you promise your visitors.
The TITLE attribute for anchor texts
(see also Image ALT attribute)
sintax:
<a href="index.html" TITLE="home page">googlerank</a>
This attribute tells the browser to display a tooltip over a link when the mouse pointer pass over it. The tooltip apperance is the same as the one displayed over an image with ALT attribute.
The TITLE attribute tooltip can be displayed by Explorer as well as Mozilla based browsers, and it is usually placed to explain a text link destination, when the text into anchor text is not that clear to viewer.
i.e. <a href="index.html" TITLE="Googlerank's home page">click here </a>
Anyway, Google does NOT index text into TITLE attribute. Google spiders consider the anchor text itself enough to give relevance to the link, and the page the link is pointing.
Using TITLE attribute will not help your page (or link) acquiring more relevancy but, in case of abusing it - like keyword stuffing it- could cause your page a strong penalization.
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