I understand that having links from others sites plays a big role in seo. What is the best way to get links? Should I just post a topic in the Installers category?

Industry specific links are better correct? Are there any links that you should not use? Of course, porn, gambing, etc...

I have started a link page and Tech Talk is already in there.

Thanks,
Larry

Well, you (members) have a good opportunity right here.
Why not exchange links between eachother?

Plus, having your text link in your profile's
signature also adds to potential indexing of
your website.

Tip: When creating a text link for your
signature you your targeted keywords. So
instead of "www.vwebworld.com" I use web design & hosting .

~Roland

I would suggest reading this: https://www.google.com/technology/
as well as this:
https://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

where's your link page Larry?

I would also suggest not using the word links all by it's self for your links page. In this case I would use something like Telecom Resources or something like that. And definitely do what Roland said...text (key work) links, if using images use the Alt text to get the same effect.

Just to follow-up on the page rank article, in general
it is better to get a link from a website
that is popular (higher PR) but that is not always
true. This is because PR changes at various times
and again is only a general indicator and should not
be taken as the absolute measure of a site's popularity.

So, exchange links, ask for links, etc... understanding
that the important thing is the site that you
get a link from is indexed (not banned) and
where your link is displayed on that site will also
be indexed/read by search engines. Do not ignore
sites with low or no PR... tomorrow they could be
a PR5.

~Roland

Thanks for the replys! Tom, I only have a couple of links. They are on the site map which is accessed from the home page by clicking the copyright at the bottom of the page.

Should I have an obvious link to the link page? Or is it better to have a subtle link like I have now? The web crawler will still see it correct?

Thanks Again,
Larry

Sorry, accidental double post
Larry

It is better to have a direct link from your
home page, although your site index can work.
The idea is to make it easy for the search bots
to find the page.

If you check your web site statistics you should be
able to see what pages the various search bots
are indexing.

~Roland

On another point...
Be very, very careful when hiring anyone who promises to improve your placement on the major search engines. We used one a couple of years ago that used "link farms". Our ranking on MSN, Yahoo, etc.. went way up. Google decided it was "illegal" under their policies and removed us completely from their searches. You could type in our URL into a google search and it would not find us. It took us months to get our google placement back up after that fiasco.
The company that we paid $3000 to do this insisted that they did nothing wrong as our placement was still high on the other search engines, thus fulfilling their obligation. I figure it cost us about 15% of our business for several months.

Good point! I have had to pull a few clients off of the black list from Google... due to link farming schemes... I will also point out that submission services are a waste of time, and can possibly get you put on a naughty list! Reason being, link submissions have not been necessary for a few years now. The robots read this forum, if you have a link in your sig to your site... they will follow it to your site and index you.

By submitting your site through site submission services you stand the chance to have Google pull your site because your linked up with a link farm.

Also to answer the original question, are there any links that you shouldn't use?

Yes, don't link to a link farm, this will hurt your standings! Also try to stay away from link exchanges that have 35+ links per page. I stick to 30 or less links per page on sites I trade links with.

And Roland has a very valid point about linking to PR 0 - 3 sites... you never know what they will become

Also make sure that you have all of your directory submissions done! These IMO are very important because they are all IBL's *In Bound Links* and count higher in the algorithm than reciprocal links

NeO