I recently replied to a post on a forum regarding search engine optimization. This topic inevitabley led to the subject of Link Popularity. There was all sorts of information regarding Link Popularity and much well meaning and well intended advice.
Now, for those of you that do not know what I am talking about; Link Popularity is the term used to describe the technique search engines use to determine website rankings. It is a count of how many websites link TO a particular website. The logic here is simple. If a lot of websites link to whatever.com, then whatever.com must be an important website, and therefore, should be ranked accordingly.
One of the respondants remarked that Link Popularity was the magic bullet and was the best, and fastest way to increase site ranking.
No truer words have been spoken. HOWEVER, there are some things you should be aware of:
1.) Google considers the ranking of the site linking to you. If CNN.com links to you it carries more weight then if someobscurerealtylinksite.com links to you.
2.) If the number of links (in comparison to other content) is too high Google tags the site as a "Link Farm". Having a link to your site on a "Link Farm" will actually DECREASE your ranking.
3.) Multiple links from one site may be considered as one link. It is possible, if the content is original enough between pages that it may be more. I am not 100% on this and it seems to change.
4.) Self links don't seem to count.
5.) Links from other domains that you own are devalued. For instance, if you have more then one domain and you link one domain to the other, it doesn't get as much credit.
6.) No matter what is said, it may change next week at Google's discretion.
7.) Your best bet is to make the site as unique and informative as you can.
Link Popularity is a huge factor in determining link popularity, but the word from Google itself is, just make a good site. That is the quickest way to the top.
You can see how many sites link to your website by visiting this link RealEstateTechOnline.com Link Popularity
Good luck!
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5 comments:
I completely agree that linking to your own websites isn't nearly as valuable as it used to be.
This game is always changing and it's so hard to stay on top of it.
Unfortunately google controls much of this SEO game. They showed their power about a year ago when they went ahead and lowered the page ranks of man sites without much of an explanation. I think its time we had another search engine step up and even this SEO game out.
Sean Murphy, Rofo - Oakland Office Space
Well written article.
I think internal links will detrmine how important the page is within the website itself, I think the search engines are looking for ways to retrive always the most relevant results, but once this is known it gets abused by some websites, and its frustrating some times to see websites that have no or very litle usful contents to come up on the top just becouse they manged to get some important sites to link to them
Link popularity is very important in the case of online business. It results in more visibility and trust to the site.
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