Search
Engine Ranking and "Link Popularity"
Link Popularity is an
important factor of search engine ranking. Link popularity is factored
into the search engines algorithm and they are known to be giving
increasing prominence to those sites that have many other sites linking
to them. The basic principal is that if your site has many links to it,
then it must be interesting and important and therefore worthy of higher
rankings.
Also, an important factor
is the quality of the links to you, and the link text used. For example
if your site is all about computer parts, and you had a site, lets say
Compaq, linking to your site, and in their hyperlink text they had the
term "computer parts", then this could be quite a significant
boost for your site. Compaq would obviously be rated as an important
site, one specializing in computers and computer parts.
If you can
exchange links or banners with sites of a similar subject to yours then you have a good chance to improve
your rankings. As of late (updated September 2007) Google seems to be revising its thinking on the value of inbound links. Several link directory sites have recently been omitted from Google's index, suggesting that the long standing art of purchasing incoming links might be coming to a close.
Consider writing to
webmasters on sites that you would like to exchange banners with, and politely
offer an exchange, stating the offer to be of mutual benefit. You might
try to 'sweeten' your proposal by offering to add a descriptive
reference back to their site, for example "Visit Top Web Promotion,
our number one choice for search engine positioning services".
Whatever it takes is worth the effort, but do not resort to spam.
If you do find site
owners that are prepared to exchange links, consider the topic of the
page on which your link is displayed at their site. For example, our
site focuses on search engines, though we also have pages on domain
names for sale. If we secured a link from a site that was all about
selling domain names, then we should have the link point to our specific
page about domain names, and not just our home page.
It is hard work but can
be well worth the effort.
Next Stage - Submissions
