Generating Link Popularity

Just getting listed in search engines isn't
enough these days. Search engines are finding that their visitors want better,
more relevant results. To achieve this, many engines take link popularity into
account when determining the order in which sites are listed.

How Does Link Popularity Work?

When some search engines index a page, they will
check their database for how many pages are linking to that page (or domain).
This will give the page a 'link popularity' rating. In some cases, such as
Google, it will also use the link popularity of the site that is linking to that
page to determine the quality of the link. For example, a link from C-net would
push the rating much higher than a link from a personal page.

When a search is performed, the engine will
first scan for relevant results. Once it has the results, it will use the link
popularity rating to sort the results. You can see great examples of this by
performing searches in Google. Most of the results for general query's are from
high traffic sites. For example, the top 3 results on Google for an
'entertainment' search are Netscape, Lycos, and Yahoo.

Getting Links

So how is it that you get links?

First, the Web site must have quality content. A
site with good content will get plenty of links from around the Web through no
extra effort by the webmaster.

Another great way to get "quality"
links is to get listed in search directories such as Yahoo and the Open
Directory. These count as links from high traffic Web sites, and will increase
your link popularity significantly. Getting a listing in the Open Directory will
get your link on several Web sites, such as Lycos, AOL, and Altavista, since the
data is syndicated on many engines.

You can find out more about getting listed in
directories here.

Maintaining an affiliate program is also
helpful. Many search engines will follow affiliate links and they will factor
into the site's link popularity. An affiliate program can effectively give a
site thousands of links on the Web.

Giving Links to the Engines

There could be thousands of pages linking to a
site, but they don't help unless the search engines are aware of them. we have
spent hours going through my referral logs and collecting urls of pages that
link to my sites. We keep these urls in a text file for a mass submission we
will do later on.

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