What is Link Popularity?
Link popularity is now a key factor when the major search engines determine how to rank search results. At its most basic level, link popularity is a measure of the other websites that have links pointing to your site. While the actual number of links is important, even more significant is the quality of those sites, their relevance to your own site, and even the quality of the link's text.
Why do you need it?
Well-placed links are an excellent source of consistent and targeted traffic all on their own. However, because most of the major search engines now factor link popularity into their relevancy ranking it has become critical for any successful search engine marketing campaign. Strong link popularity means strong rankings which mean strong search engine traffic.
How do you know when you've got it?
There a number of ways to determine your current link popularity:
§ Use the search engines - Most of the crawler based search engines have specific queries that allow you to determine how many sites are linking to yours. A free service like LinkPopularityCheck.com allows you to do this from one central location (you can also easily check on your competitors this way too).
§ Use the Google Toolbar - This handy addition to your browser includes a graphic representation of a site's link popularity with the Page Rank bar. You can also use the drop down menu under Page Info to get Google to list the backward links to your site.
§ Analyze your log files - Use a program like WebTrends to analyze your web traffic logs. For link popularity you want to focus on the referral data. Make sure this metric is turned on and that you are reporting as deeply as possible. This will let you know exactly where your traffic is coming from.
All links are not equal
Not all links to your site carry the same weight or value. Many search engines give more credence to some links over others. That's why most free for all (FFA) links pages have zero effect on link popularity (and in some cases participating in these link farms can actually get your site penalized).
§ Link with the big boys first. A link from Yahoo! will carry more weight than a link from your best friend's family home page. List your site with major portals, with major site reviewers, and especially with the Open Directory Project.
§ Make sure you list your site with topical directories, engines, and web guides that are specific to the subject matter you offer. Niche engines are growing every day, and as the web gets more clogged, users are finding specialized topical search tools to be very useful. SiteOwner.com's Directory Guide is a good place to begin searching for these.
§ Don't just concentrate on building links for popularity purposes. A link to your site that search engines do not know about can be a very important link. Not everyone will use a search engine to get to your site. Besides, search engines might not even know about your links because they don't often spider beyond the second or third level. Even if a deep page on another site gets 10,000 hits per day and links with your page, it won't factor into link popularity because the spiders won't find it.
The more links the better?
Not necessarily. Brand new sites that are very successful won't have links until they've been up and running for a while. And quality is better than quantity. Numbers aren't as important as context and relevancy. It is better to have a few links from sites that are similar in content and topic to yours, a few links from the portals, and a few links from site reviewers, than to have 1,000 links on Free For All (FFA) links pages.
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Did you know?
According to a survey done by Georgia Tech, 85% of Internet users find websites through links from other sites. This method is only a couple of percentage points behind search engines, which were found to be the way 87% of users find websites.
Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
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eMage Sites of the Month
The Link Controversy Page
This site provides a wealth of information about the legal ramifications of using links. Follow links to articles about copyright infringement, defamation, trademark infringement, and landmark cases regarding the emerging law of Internet linking.
Link Popularity Check
This free service aims to make calculating your link popularity easy. Simply enter your domain, and the site will report your link-count from MSN, Lycos, and AltaVista. You can then click on links to display the actual results from those services. You can also sign up to have reports emailed each month.
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eMage Tip of the Month
Linkrot stinks. Linkrot is when a link no longer leads to a functioning URL. The reason may be that the webpage has moved to a new URL, has been deleted, or is temporarily down because of restructuring or upgrading of the site. Most often linkrot happens in the wake of a site redesign.
It is critical that links you have previously established to your site not be lost because of linkrot. What can you do to combat it?
§ Manually inform all the sites linking to you of the change.
§ Design a custom 404 Error page that maintains the look and feel and, most importantly, the navigation of your site. Otherwise visitors will see their browser's default 404 Error page which will simply tell them "the page cannot be found."
§ Use the old page to notify of the new location or automatic redirect from the old page to the new location.
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