Eric Ward has a good piece over at Search Engine Land that looks at the concept of "algorithmic trust" when it comes to links influencing search engine rankings. That's nothing new, you may say. True...we've long talked about how important it is to gain links from sites that are respected and trusted by the search engines. What Eric is working toward is getting site owners to understand that sometimes their own site is the "trusted" site and that they shouldn't overlook the potential of internal linking to get a new page to rank.

In explaining his idea of Google "circle of trust" (anyone remember Meet the Parents?), Eric describes it like this...

He makes a simple, but powerful point. I see so many sites that fail to realize how important it is to make use of internal linking. I'm not simply talking about navigation structure either.

One of the things that bloggers have learned to do that many "traditional" content sites have not is to cross-link within their own sites. If I make mention of the time I talked about link building as relationship building I should include a link (like I just did.) If I mention my own skepticism about the popularity of link baiting, then I should link it. (are you catching on?)

When you add new content to your site, are you working to make sure that it's integrated with the rest of your content via the appropriate use of links? If not...why?