Link popularity explained

A high percentage of #1 ranked web pages on Google don't contain the queried search term in the body text or in the META tags. How can that be? The answer is: These top ranked web pages have high link popularity.

Link Popularity is becoming the determining factor for successful web sites.

What exactly is link popularity?

Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found for your web page. The more web sites link to your web page, the higher the link popularity of your page. A high link popularity contributes to a high search engine ranking.

Note that link popularity is measured only for single web pages, not for the whole web site. Your web site can have several web pages with different PageRank numbers.

The idea behind the link popularity concept is simple. The more other web sites link to your web site, the more important your site must be. Other sites wouldn't link to your site if there wasn't something interesting on your site or if your web site didn't contain any special content.

It's nearly impossible to manipulate link popularity. Previous ranking algorithms that took META keywords or similar factors into account have been quickly abused to mislead the search engines. On the other side, it's very difficult to manipulate the number of links that point to a site.

That's why link popularity is now one of the most important factors for search engines when they rank a web page.

However, you cannot get a high link popularity by submitting your web site to thousands of FFA (free for all) link pages. Not all links are considered equal by the search engines. It does matter who links to you and how they link to you.

Not all links are considered equal

Not all links are equal. Some links count more than others. Links from important web sites have a greater effect on your link popularity and your search engine rankings.

A link from www.Yahoo.com to your web site has more weight than a link from a small private web page. A link from a web site with a high link popularity is better than a link from an unknown web site.

It's also important that the web site that's linking to you has a similar topic as your web site. Imagine that you sell shoes on your web site. A link from another web site that is all about shoes will count much more than a link from a web site that links to all kind of web sites.

Finally, it's important how the link to your site looks like. For example, one of your important keywords might be "brown leather shoes".

The link

<a href="http://www.domain.com">Brown leather shoes</a>

leads to much better search engine rankings for the keyword "brown leather shoes" than the following link

<a href="http://www.domain.com">Smith and Partners</a>

By the way, many people think that they can increase their link popularity by submitting their web site address to FFA (free for all) link pages and link farms (web sites that link to all kind of web sites). This doesn't work.

More and more search engines recognize FFA pages and link farms and choose to ignore these pages. Usually, submissions to FFA pages are a waste of time that only results in many spam email messages.

In addition, you should avoid services that promise you 2000 links to your site within a week or so. If they link to you at all, these 2000 links must be of poor quality or they don't have a similar topic as your web site.

Use common sense. Offers that sound too good to be true probably aren't true.

• try to get links from important web sites
• try to get link texts that contain your important keywords
• don't use FFA or link farm pages
• don't use services that promise lots of links within days
• focus on quality links, not on quantity

How to find good potential link partners

It's important who links to your site. Web sites that have a similar topic as your site are more important than web sites with different topics.

In addition, if you can convince web sites with a similar topic to link to your site, you'll also get targeted traffic from these sites.

People who visit your topic partner sites are usually interested in what you have to offer. They are more likely to come to your site and to buy something. It's the quality of the traffic that counts, not the quantity.

But how do you find good potential links partners?

There are several ways:

1. Search the most important search engines for your most important keywords.
   
   Among the search results, you'll usually find web sites that don't compete directly with your site. These web sites are very good potential link partners.
   
   They have a good listing on search engines under your important keywords. This means that they get a good amount of traffic from people who are interested in what you have to offer.
   
   If such a site links to you, you'll get high quality targeted traffic from them. In addition, their link to your site also increases your link popularity and your search engine rankings.
   
   
2. Find out who links to your competitors.
   
   Web sites that link to your competitors are probably web sites that should link to you. If a web site links to one of your competitor sites, it's a strong hint that it could be a very good link partner to you.
   
   First, the webmaster of that site has shown that s/he is willing to link to other sites. Second, those web sites are often related to what you have to offer. You'll get targeted traffic from them while increasing your search engine ranking.

Unfortunately, both ways are very time-consuming and it's hard to do it for many sites. The good news is that you can save a lot of time with the right tools.