Link Popularity Explained and How To Build Links

Link popularity is the single most influential factor for determining how well a web site will perform in search engine rankings. A web site’s link popularity is computed from the number and more importantly, the quality of links pointing to a web site.

Link Popularity history

To gain a better understanding of link popularity it is useful to know why it became so crucial for search engine rankings. In the past a web page’s ranking was determined, amongst other factors, by the number of keyword occurrences within ‘on-page’ elements i.e. in page text, META tags, title tag.

When web developers learned that they could trick a search engine to return their web pages by cramming keywords into their pages the search engines had to get a bit smarter. They were using ‘on-page’ elements to determine relevance so it was only natural that they would look to elements out of direct control of the web page creator i.e. ‘off-page’ elements. Search engines made the assumption that the greater the number of links from other sites pointing to a web site, the more popular the web site is and therefore a more quality resource. This worked nicely in theory but in practice it was also to be abused.

Web site owners figured out many ways to get links pointing to their web sites one example of which was through the use of link farms, pages the contained nothing more than a collection of links, Quantity of links was being abused so the search engines made use of the old saying “quality not quantity” and began to assign a quality factor to each of the links pointing to a web site. Now web sites that had a higher number of high quality links were looked upon favourably by the search engines. Building link popularity became a science in itself and today is still the most time-consuming and frustrating activity for a search engine optimizer.

Main classes of links

Note: In the following examples SiteA is our web site and SiteB is an outside site (i.e. a web site under a different domain name than SiteA).

Inbound links:

Inbound links to a web site are links that originate from an outside web site. An example would be a link on SiteB pointing into a page on SiteA.

SiteA (—– SiteB

Outbound links:

Outbound links from a web site are links pointing to a page on an outside web site. An example would be a link on SiteA pointing out to a page on SiteB.

SiteA —–) SiteB

There are two further classifications of links:

Reciprocal links:

An example of a reciprocal link is when SiteA links to SiteB AND SiteB links to SiteA, the link is reciprocated by both parties.

SiteA —–) SiteB

AND

SiteA (—– SiteB

To achieve a high link popularity the type of links to build are inbound one-way links. This simulates how natural links are created i.e. links that people create to point to your site because they found it worth linking to.

For outbound links it is natural to assume that they might decrease link popularity of a web site but this is not true. You do not give away your link popularity when you link to another site. They do not add to your link popularity though.

Reciprocal links can add to your link popularity if the web site that you exchange links with has a higher link popularity than your site. However they are not as powerful as inbound, one-way links as they are quite artificial in nature i.e. most probably created by communication between the owners of both sites.

How to build link popularity

So it is quite obvious that to help build up a nice link popularity many inbound, one-way links need to be created. This can be achieved in a number of different (and most importantly, legal) ways:

Directories:

Directories are categorized listings of links from around the web. Many, many directories exist and vary in their methods of getting your link posted on them. They provide a great source of quality inbound, one-way links. Getting listed in quality directories such as DMOZ or Yahoo can be more beneficial for your link popularity than a lot of links from smaller, newer directories.

Great site content:

The most powerful way to get inbound, one-way links is to have great site content that other web sites will want to link to. This allows you to get links from sites other than directories, which can definitely be better. The best thing about this is that it requires no communication on your part, it just happens naturally. If your site has poor content then others sites may not link, including the directories. Most of the top ranking web sites today got to the top because of great content. Writing interesting and informative articles for your web site is a good way of getting these kind of links.

Emailing web site owners:

If you come across a listing of links on a web site other than a directory e.g. a links page on a somebody’s personal web site, it can do no harm to write the web site owner a polite email requesting a link to your site from their page. They may request a reciprocal link in return but sometimes they do not and you can get a quality inbound, one-way link for your efforts. I have got many links in the past using this method. In my email I always ask them to visit my site first before making a decision to link and I personalise each email with a comment or two about their site.

Summary

The best and most effective way of increasing your search engine rankings is working to improve your web site’s link popularity. This can be achieved by getting as many inbound, one-way links as you can from quality sites such as directories. Other ways to get these links are having great content on your site and requesting a link to your site from other web sites.

Increasing link popularity is a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating process but is definitely worth the time and effort when you see a dramatic increase in traffic.

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Do it Yourself SEO – Building Link Popularity Using Profiles on Web 2.0 Properties

Link popularity is one of the major tools to make your web site more known and to increase your web site traffic. There are many ways to increase your link popularity. One of the methods that can be used for link building is to create profiles on web 2.0 properties and social media sites and leave a link back to your site there with your keywords as the anchor text.

To build link popularity in this method first you have to create a profile that well describes about your web site or your company in a community. Make sure that you will get a static address for your web site. It is better to have a static address for your web site in order to secure good link popularity. It is better to keep in mind that whether it is possible to you to create your brand within the address itself.

Be sure that whether the community in which you are creating your profile will give you “dofollow” links. With the “dofollow” links you are able to create back links which will point to your home page and deliver link juice. This increases your link popularity. If the community satisfies these you can create your profile in that community and can build up link popularity. After creating your profile in the community, you have to declare your business name.

Be sure to brand your business name (i.e.) it is better to use your company name within your account when you create your profile in the community. When you create any feed or any blog you have to put your company name in it. And you have to describe about your business in your profile. For this you can use the hobbies or description columns in your profile. This is a wonderful choice to increase your business popularity.

Now, you have to find the people of similar interests. So that you can build relationship with them by which you can make your business popular. You can exchange each others links. By doing this, you are able to share links with them and as a result you are indirectly generating a good traffic to your web site and as well as you are building up the popularity of your links. You can discuss with them and you can share both of your ideas so that you can use them in your blog or profile in order to receive a lot of traffic to your web site.

And one of the good methods to build your link popularity is to make your co-workers and your friends to refer your web site and to make their friends also to refer your web site. This makes your web site to receive a lot of viewers which builds up your link popularity. You can develop your business with this easy link building technology.

Building up link popularity by creating profiles in a community is a good way for link building services [http://link-building-services.net] and also it is not very expensive since profiles can be created freely. Y

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