Link Popularity- Its Role and Importance In Getting Top Search Engine Rankings

A website is said to have a high “link popularity” if a large number of other websites contain a hyperlink to it. The greater number of these links, the higher the link popularity. Google is particularly sensitive to a site's link popularity and will tend to rank such popular sites correspondingly higher in its results for a particular enquiry. Particular attention is being paid therefore to ways in which the link popularity of a site may be increased.

Google can show the link popularity of any site. Type “link: www.anysite.com ” (changing the name and suffix to suit) to the google search box. There is also a bar chart in Google's toolbar that provides a crude indication of the link popularity of the site in the active window.

There are several methods that one might employ to improve a website's link popularity. The “Reciprocal Link Exchange Program” is commonly followed.

RLEP Steps:
A RLEP deals in exchanging of links with several websites. This program involves several steps that need to be followed which have been described below:

Posting messages of your websites on various message boards and guest books.
Link popularity can also be pursued by posting your website link message to the message boards and guest books. In this method you have to pay more attention towards the selection of message boards and guest books. Always select message boards and guest books that have a PageRank of 4 or more and have already been indexed by Google. It is also necessary to submit the URLs generated after posting messages to the search engines. For example, say www.online-message-board.com is one of the popular message boards where you want to post your website link. After posting your website link at www.online-message-board.com, the message board will generate a particular URL, say www.online-message-board.com/your-website-link.html, which contains the particular information about your site. Submit this URL in various search engines so as to boost the link popularity of your site

Publishing articles about your website or company in other websites.
You can also improve the link popularity of your site by publishing articles or write-ups regarding your company or website in other websites. And make sure you do not forget to include a link to your website in these articles or write-ups. In this way your link becomes visible to the search engine robots. Paid ads also help in your link popularity plan.