October 9, 2006 Link popularity is a very important aspect of SEO and website promotion. It not only brings traffic to your site, but also helps the validity of your website’s importance in the eyes of Google and other search engines. There is, however, a big no no in the industry. Link farms. Before reading further, you may want to check the last Link Popularity post I have for a good basic idea on what link popularity is, and a good analogy to help with the philosophy.
History
There was a time when having meta tags and stuffing your site with keywords would get your site ranked highly. The search engines noticed that webmasters noticed this, and had to change it up a bit. Realizing that they gave too much consideration to onsite optimization, the search engines decided to take into account off page aspects (enter link popularity). Now, we savvy web dorks knew that we could get a lot of links. Not as easy to manipulate the engines, but we could very well setup services or a whole bunch of sites that would link to one site. Thus creating, at the time, link popularity. And again, the search engines caught us catching on, and upped the requirements just a bit.
Today
The idea now, is to not have just any link to your site. Links are still good no matter what, but really only for traffic, and not as much in the SERP’s. Google has placed a ‘quality over quantity’ policy, meaning that a site that has an inbound link from a relevant, higher ranking site, that in turn has a lot of links coming in to it, will give more validity than a link coming from just anywhere. So, we want links from sites that are relevant, and have a better link popularity than we do. And now the reason for this post. There are still link farms out there. Basically sites that have nothing more than links on them, or services in which a ring of sites all link to each other (web ring). These services often cost money, and do little more than get you in trouble with Google. Believe me, they notice. It might not be today, maybe not next week, but the search engines will catch on. This could mean anything from bad rankings to blacklisting. So, do yourself a favor. Don’t fall for any «shortcuts» or services that will automate too much of the process. Implementation So how do you get links? There are a few ways.
1) Directories. This is something of a step one as it’s a way to get a good amount of links rather quickly. Simply look for directories (starting with DMOZ, of course), and submit your site to them. This will put your site in a certain category pertaining to your industry/ service, and help in link popularity just a little. Google seems to be giving less prominence to links that come from directories because they are so easy, but still a decent start.
2) Link Exchanging. The most tedious of the methods, requiring you to look for valid link partners, email/calling them, and setting up the link. If you’re site is still new, it’s pretty difficult to get this going, but more rewarding than the directories idea. It’s a good idea to place a link to the other site first, to show that you are willing to link to them before even asking for a return of the favor.Put those sales skills to the test, and explain what your site is all about and how you can mutually benefit each other. Don’t expect too much, but don’t get discouraged. It will come with finesse and time.
3) Quality. This idea still seems to elude webmasters and SEO Specialists alike. This is the single most important and rewarding method. Simply put, have a website that is rich in valuable content, providing a true service to the online community. With time and visitors, other site owners will link to you for no other reason than your excellent site. This will show to Google, and will indeed help with your ranking. Link popularity aside, your site should be this important anyway. There is already plenty of nonsense on the Internet, we don’t need anymore. Make a site worth making, and worth visiting.
So, this is link popularity in explanation. It’s a good thing, but be careful when getting these links. Remember, we aren’t trying to trick the search engines or exploit any loopholes. We are merely proving to the search engines that our site is indeed important.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/19/
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed: