Many webmasters who were thankful to leave
concerns about "being popular"
behind in high school are now learning that
popularity is still important. Link
popularity, that is. Led by
Google, many search engines include your
link popularity score in the algorithms
they use to determine your site's rank.
Learn how link popularity can affect your
site's search engine ranking - and what you
can do to improve it.
Link Popularity and Link Importance
Quite simply, your link popularity score is
the total number of external sites that
link to yours. Link importance is closely
related to link popularity, but with a
twist. It looks at the type of
external link and assigns higher scores to
high quality links.
Link importance helps filter out the
spammers who set up dozens of free sites
and then link their bogus sites to the main
Web site. Spamming is such a problem that
some search engines don't count free Web
sites at all in their link popularity
scores.
Some of the more complex search engine
algorithms combine link popularity with
link importance and use it to assign a
weighted link popularity score. The
weighted score looks at two things: the
number of sites linked and the relative
importance of those sites. For instance,
if CNN links to your site, that single link
might count a lot more than 20 links from
your friends' personal Web pages.
Check Your Link Popularity Score
Your link popularity score is a relatively
objective measurement and you can check
that with several search engines. However,
there's no single way to predict what your
weighted link popularity score is because
each search engine uses a different
algorithm to determine it.
Remember that numbers will vary between
search engines because they all query from
different databases.
How Does It Affect Your Rank?
Your link popularity score alone won't
determine your rank, but search engines
increasingly use it to score pages because
they consider it a sign of a high quality
site. As Google co-founder Sergey Brin
explains: "external approval raises a
page's ranking."
That makes sense if you think about it: one
site won't link to another site for no
reason, so a site with a lot of external
links must contain valuable content.
All search engines use different algorithms
to rank sites, but most of the major ones
consider link popularity in some form.
Google uses link popularity almost
exclusively to rank sites.
Google also recently partnered
with Yahoo to provide secondary results
for Yahoo's Web directory, so a high
ranking in Google may help you in Yahoo as
well. (To see secondary results in Yahoo,
enter your search term, then click on the
Web Pages selection on the top toolbar.)
Most other major search engines also factor
popularity into their algorithms.
Lots of links to your site can also improve
your search engine ranking by keeping you
in the search engines. As more sites link
to you, the odds increase that search
engine spiders will encounter your site
regularly and be less likely to drop it
from their databases.
Improving Your Link Popularity
The downside of link popularity as a
ranking tool is that it penalizes new
sites. Even if you have a terrific site
stuffed with valuable content, it still
takes time to publicize
your site and collect links.
Don't wait for other webmasters to find
you! Instead, search the Internet to find
sites related to yours and compile a list
of sites likely to be interested in linking
to your site. For instance, a local land
conservation group might put together a
list like this: state and local hunting
organizations; other environmental groups
in the area; as well as city and county
informational Web site pages.
Now spend some time networking:
- Email the webmaster of each
site and briefly explain how a
link to your site could benefit
their visitors. Make this a
personal appeal; don't send a
general form letter because
that is likely to be deleted at
once.
- Offer to trade links:
include a link to them on your
site first and include the
appropriate URL in your
message.
- Suggest the section of
their site where a link to
yours would be
appropriate.
- Make it easy for them to
link to you by including the
necessary HTML code in your
email.
|
Link Exchange Services
While you network, consider registering
with a link exchange service to quickly
generate more links pointing to your site.
Their operation is simple. You register
your site with the service and the service
adds you to the links page that other
members place on their Web sites. Some
services promise to add as many as 500
links pointing to your Web site within 30
days.
Most link exchange services are free, but
almost all impose some restrictions on
their members. The most common are:
- You must display a specific
icon on your home page that
points to the links page on
your site.
- You must upload the updated
links page to your site
periodically (usually every 30
days) or be dropped from the
service.
- You have to agree to submit
your site (including the links
page) to search engines on a
regular basis.
|
Before you register with a service,
carefully study its rules and regulations
to make sure your site is eligible (some
don't accept adult sites, for instance).
Also check to make sure that the links are
relevant to your site content. Some search
engines are beginning to penalize so-called
"link farms" that don't add any value to a
site.
In The Meantime
Both networking and link exchange can take
time to show benefits. While you wait,
focus on optimizing your page for search
engines. Most still rely mainly on your
HTML code and page content to rank your
site. Common techniques like TITLE
and META
Tags make your site attractive to the
search engine algorithms and help boost
your ranking even before you get many
external links.
