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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 favorably 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 personalize 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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