Internet Marketing &
Business Promotion
Building your Site’s Link
Popularity
By: Harjot Kaleka
What
is Link Popularity?
Link Popularity refers to the number of links pointing
to your site, from other sites on the web. The Search
Engines consider your site important and rank it higher
if several other sites link to your site.
Type in your domain name in the box below and hit the
'search' button, to find out the link popularity of
your site.You can also search for this on Google by
typing in the following command -
link:www.yourdomain.com
The above command gives you a selective list of links,
usually from PR4+ link pages. For a more extensive list,
you may search the following syntax -
"yourdomain.com" -site:www.yourdomain.com
History behind Link Popularity and Google PageRank
Web, by its very nature is based on hyperlinks, where
sites link to other prominent sites. If you take the
logic that you would tend to link to sites that you
consider important, in essence, you are casting a vote
in favor of the sites that you link to. When hundreds
or thousands of sites link to a site, it is logical
to assume that such a site would be good and important.
Taking this logic further the Google founders, Sergey
Brin and Larry Page formulated a Search Engine algorithm
that shifted the ranking weight to off-page factors.
They evolved a formula called PageRank (named after
its founder Larry Page) where the algorithm would count
the number of sites that link to a page and assign it
an importance score on a scale of 1-10. More the number
of sites that link to a page, higher its PageRank.
Google’s PageRank is important because it is one of
the primary off-page factors that influences your page’s
ranking in the search engine result pages.
PageRank in Google's own Words
Google explains PageRank as follows
(http://www.google.com/technology/):
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of
the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator
of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets
a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for
page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume
of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes
the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that
are themselves "important" weigh more heavily
and help to make other pages "important."
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank,
which Google remembers each time it conducts a search.
Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they
don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank
with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find
pages that are both important and relevant to your search.
Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears
on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content
(and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine
if it's a good match for your query.
For more information on Google PageRank, go to
http://www.google.com/technology/
http://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
Benefits of Building Link Popularity
Building Link Popularity is one of the most important
and critical aspects of any effective Search Engine
Optimization campaign today. The ‘off-page’ factors
such as link popularity, PageRank and Anchor Text in
incoming links play a major role in your site’s ranking
in the search engine results pages (SERP).
Search Engines consider your site more important if
more links point to your site. Building link popularity
improves the PageRank of your web pages (Read more about
PageRank). The higher the PageRank of your website,
the higher its importance for search engines and higher
it gets ranked in the search engine result pages. Search
engines also take into account the PageRank of the pages
that link to your site and its industry relevance to
your own industry. Links from higher PageRank pages
and industry relevant sites give your site a higher
value.
Note: Search Engines need to ‘learn’ all the links
you have created pointing to your site, in order to
reward your website. Patience pays.
Types of Links
There are two types of links you can establish on the
web. One way is to trade links (Link Exchange), where
you give a link from the links Page on your site to
the partner sites. The second method is to establish
‘only-incoming’ links also called ‘one-way links’ or
‘Non-Reciprocal links’.
Only-Incoming Links
Only incoming links are the links established on the
other websites where you do not need to link back to
them.
There are various compelling reasons and methods to
establish such one-way links which include linking back
from a different website that you may own, publishing
articles on sites, content syndication, listing in trade
directories and giving out press releases in news networks.
Link Exchange
Link exchange is an easier way to establish links from
other websites to your website. In link exchange process,
you trade links with prospective partner sites by offering
a link to their site from your own site. This method
is a fast way to establish several hundred links to
your website. However, it may not get you great benefits.
Only Incoming Links vs. Link Exchange
Google developed the PageRank algorithm to provide authentic
and quality information while making it difficult for
webmasters and site owners to contaminate the search
results by artificially inflating their PageRank.
The new algorithm came into effect with the launch
of Google in 1998. Google’s PageRank was based on the
logic that more the number of sites that link to a page,
higher its PageRank.
As Webmasters realized the importance of PageRank,
they found ways to artificially inflate their PageRank
by manipulating direct link exchanges. This defeated
the very essence on which the Google PageRank algorithm
was build. To counter this, Google has constantly been
fine-tuning and updating its algorithms. Read about
Google’s latest algo updates.
The search engines are aware that a large number of
sites are deploying link exchange campaigns to boost
their site’s PR. Search engines are working towards
fine-tuning their algos to discount direct link exchanges
in order to preserve the effect of their link popularity
related algorithms and rationalize artificially inflated
links popularity of sites.
While the algos are yet to reflect this change, we
believe that it may happen soon enough. In the long
run, we recommend investing your resources in an ‘only-incoming
links’ campaign for your website which is likely to
benefit your site more as opposed to a direct link exchange
campaign.
Important Parameters to Consider while Building Link
Popularity
Some of the important parameters that you need to consider
while establishing links with any website are discussed
below:
PageRank or PR of the Linking Page
PR of the linking page is one of the most important
factors. PR of the linking page determines how much
value of importance is passed on to your page. Higher
the PR of the linking page, higher the value you get.
The home page PR is not as important, but it is an indicator
of how much PR a linking page may jump to, in due course
of time. For instance, if the PR of the site’s link
page is 0, but the home page PR is 6, then, there is
a bright possibility that in a month or two, the link
page PR may also jump to a PR of 4 or even 5 due to
the internal linking structure of the partner site.
While sites would be happy to give out links from a
PR 0 page, you can estimate that in two months time,
this link page can jump to a high PR, giving you great
value in the future.
Identifying Total Number of Links on the Link
Page
The value your web page gets from a linking page is
equal to the total PR value of that page divided by
the total number of outgoing links on that page. Getting
a link from a PR4 page that has only 20 outgoing links
is much better than getting a link from a PR4 page that
has 60 outgoing links. With the same philosophy, it
is better to get a link from a PR2 link page that has
only 10 outgoing links than getting a link from a PR4
page that has over 100 outgoing links. It is therefore
as important to evaluate the total number of outgoing
links on a links page, as it is, to evaluate the PR
of the linking page. This is where many people often
falter, as they usually insist on getting a link from
a high PR page, but if that page has 100 outgoing links,
your page would only get 1/100th of that value.
Industry Relevance
Search engines give high importance to links pointing
to your site from your own industry segment as opposed
to those from an un-related industry. For instance,
a hotels and reservations website is likely to benefit
more from links pointing from a related industry site
like travel, vacation packages or cruises, than those
from an unrelated industry like a drug site.
Industry relevance also needs to be given a high weight
while creating resource directories. For example, if
you have a site related to hotels, then you can create
a resource directory related to your business that could
be pertaining to travel, tourism, cruises, vacation
rentals, vacation packages, car rentals, food and beverages
etc.
Page Relevance
Most sites offering links have several categories listed
on their sites. Try and get a link from a category that
closely matches your own industry. For instance, if
you have a site related to hotels, then, on your partner
site, a tickets site for example, try and identify a
resource directory pertaining to hotels, resorts, reservations,
vacation packages, travel, tourism, food and beverages
etc. If the concerned site has a directory on hotels,
you should request a link in that category, as a link
from that page would be relevant to a hotels site, thus
getting you more benefits. An algorithm called “Applied
Semantics” determines the industry relevance of a page
within a site. Applied Semantics algorithm studies various
keywords on a web page and tries to determine the industry
or business segment of each page. Applied Semantics
estimates the industry segments that are relevant to
a particular page. If the link to your page is coming
from your business specific segment, then you are likely
to draw more benefit.
Anchor Text
Anchor Text is the visible hyperlinked text on a web
page. Since anchor text is very important, make sure
that your most important keywords appear in anchor text
from the link pointing to your site. You should try
and work with at-least 10-20 keyword and link text options.
If you are creating a large number of links using only
one standard link text, then the search engines are
likely to detect a pattern. It is possible that future
algo updates may do away with all repetitive and similar
looking links to your site.
You can also refer to our article on Anchor Text Optimization
for more details.
Pre-Indexed Pages
Try and find link partners in Search Engines like Google
and Yahoo, and check if the links page is already indexed
in the search engines. Search Engines frequently re-index
the pages in its database. They are likely to detect
your link faster on a page already existing in their
database as compared to a ‘yet-to-be indexed’ page.
The safest way to check is to copy the prospective link
page URL and paste it into Google Search. If the page
is indexed, Google would show a result in response to
your search, otherwise it would respond with a ‘no result
found’.
The robots.txt file
robots.txt is an exclusion file that contains specific
instructions for search engine robots regarding the
content they are not allowed to index. Links placed
on a page that the search engines robots are not allowed
to index, would not benefit your site. Considering the
importance of robots.txt file, it is a good idea to
study a site’s robots.txt file to identify the excluded
pages before approaching a site for establishing links
with your site. Read our article on Working with robots.txt
file.
Dynamic Link Pages
You should also watch out for any link pages that are
generated dynamically. Chances are that such pages would
not get indexed soon enough, which means that a link
from such a page would not benefit you. Some dynamic
link pages are intentionally generated in such a way
so as to prevent them from getting indexed. Some unscrupulous
webmasters do this to trick you to prevent any PageRank
leaking from their site to yours. Links from such pages
therefore do not give you any benefit.
Java Script Link Pages
It is also important to identify pages that are generated
through Flash or a Java Script, as Search Engines cannot
read flash pages or the links embedded within flash.
These are some of the tricks unethical webmasters use.
While a site can claim to have placed a link to your
web page, in effect they are not giving you any benefit.
Re-Directed Links
A link that is first re-directed to another page within
your partner site before pointing to your site is a
re-directed link. You should watch out for such links,
as search engines do not give weight to re-directed
links. It is very unlikely that your site would draw
any benefit from a re-directed link.
Frame Sites
Avoid getting links from framed sites as search engines
cannot read texts within frames. A link placed on a
frame site would not get your site any benefit, as search
engines would not be able to recognize such a link.
Directory Depth
It is important to evaluate the depth of the directory
of the linking page. Avoid getting links from pages
that are embedded in a very deep directory or pages
that are more than two directories deep (e.g. www.domain.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/linkpage.htm
is not a good link page). Deep directories seldom earn
high PR. They are also slow in getting indexed, if at
all.
Building Link Popularity is a great way to help your
site gain competitive PR. Links from other sites also
sends direct human traffic to your site. Observing a
little care in developing links will go a long way in
getting your site rank high in search engines.
About
the Author Harjot Kaleka is an SEO Copywriter
at www.SEOrank.com,
a leading Search Engine Optimization services company.
She has a Masters degree in Mass Communications and
Copywriting.
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