Link Popularity

Link Popularity a.k.a. Referrals

Because this is has become such a large factor in search engine positioning we wanted to dedicate a whole section to its discussion.

Search engines are evolving as the Internet and its users are evolving. First, search engines used the keyword meta tag to determine a website's category. The robots that they sent out first counted the number of times a keyword phrase was used or repeated in the keyword meta tag. They initially thought that the more times a keyword phrase was used in the meta tag the more relevance the page had to that phrase. They also thought that all website designers where ethical. They quickly learned that neither was the case. When they found that the keyword meta tag was being abused they had to find a better way of rating websites.

Why all the fuss?

Why are the search engines and directories so concerned about finding, rating and referring "good" websites? Because, they are in competition with all the other search engines for customers like you and me who come to their referral service. They make money by the number of visits of searchers. If we stop using their referral service because we find that the majority of their referrals are bogus then they lose money. They are very motivated to keep us coming back. That is why they started placing more emphasis on the content of the web page than the keyword meta tag.

Refer a Referral

Someone at a search engine also figured out that the best referral comes from someone else's referral. A website might meet all of the search engine's algorithms but how do they rate a business on customer service, shipping, billing, stock availability, honesty, and all the other important things we rate a business on when we refer it to our friends. Since they can't rate these items they rely on other websites' recommendations. The search engines figure if another website has a link, or refers people to your website it is because they are happy with your product, service, customer care, honesty, etc. Otherwise that website wouldn't recommend you. Would you recommend a bad doctor to your friend? Of course not. As a matter of fact Google, DirectHit and other search engines rank websites heavily on "link popularity".

It was a great idea, for a while. Again, it didn't take long for people to figure out that since the search engines were on to them about misusing the keyword meta tag that now all they had to do was to get websites to link to them and they would get back to the top of the search engine lists. So people made up websites that had no content, or theme, nothing but links. Well, the search engines aren't stupid. They quickly found out this "technique" and now keep a list of all "link sites" that have no value and give no credit to websites who use these link sites as referrers. As with the other abused techniques if a search engine finds a site with links from one of these "link pages" they will consider that spam indexing and give a low rating or ban the site from their database. However, the search engines have found that the links that ethical websites have to other sites are of great value because they can judge things in the real world that their spiders can't.

The Right Referral

How can a search engine rate the referral? They do it in two ways. The first way is if the referring site is in the same industry as the site they have a link to. Just like I placed a higher value on the family doctor my friend who is a nurse recommended than the doctors my other friends recommended. I did so because I felt she is in the industry and had a better perspective of doctors. She could see things as a nurse that the patients couldn't.

The second way the search engines rate a referral is by how well the referring site is ranked in the search engine's database. If the referring site is ranked high in their database then the search engine gives the referral "extra credit" which boosts the referred site's position. Even though my friend who recommended the movie I took my wife to isn't a movie critic or in the movie industry. I trusted her opinion. Just like the search engines trust the highly rated websites in their database.

Link popularity is extremely important to the success of achieving top ranking the the search engines. At Advanced Internet Marketing we not only optimize web pages for the most productive search terms but we submit links to the search engines to your web pages to dramatically increase your link popularity. This is a vital step that is an exclusive service of Advanced Internet Marketing. Don't miss this step!

If you want to have highly rated links referring your website to help you win the link popularity war, contact us today. The sooner you act the more quality links you will have to your site and the better your positioning will be.

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