Is Link Popularity Really Worth The Trouble?

There is no question that Google page rank and link popularity have been the two key focuses of search engine optimization. People often are confused as to what link popularity really is and how it truly does benefit your search engine optimization. The better your site is the more people are going to link back to your site giving you an increase in popularity and a higher page rank.

So what exactly is this whole link popularity thing? It is exactly as it sounds; as people from other sites begin linking to your site search engines see that it has some popularity. With an increase of people linking to your site, search engines see it as people viewing good websites and they boost your page rank. Obviously, we all try and link with sites that are equal to or better than our own to help our page rank.

If you're looking to increase popularity on your site, there really are two main ways to do so. First off you want to link with other sites that focus on the same keywords as yourself. This helps keyword optimization of your site and allows you to stay within the same theme for your website. Secondly, find links that are relevant to your category and subject. Often times there is no good linking to a swimming website if you have a sewing website.

Now, people often times get confused between page rank and link popularity. The difference ultimately leads to whether or not you are going to exchange links with that sewing website or not. Google page rank focuses on the quantity and popularity of links that you exchange with, not caring whether it is relevant to your site or not. Link popularity on the other hand keeps in mind quantity and popularity, but also adds a focus on the quality of links you are getting. So it is important that you know the difference when trying to increase your popularity.

How important link popularity really is just depends on the site. If you are trying to get to the top of the search engines with certain keywords, it is probably wise to target links that are relevant to your website. However, it seems that Google has more importance and power on incoming links than other search engines. With that said, as of today you probably would be more beneficial focusing on quantity as opposed to quality if you want to increase popularity of your site.

Try not to worry too much about link popularity because it is a tiny portion of most search engines' ranking algorithms. It is important to keep it in mind and try to increase your popularity, but nothing to lose sleep over. In reality, if you want to get the most links back just have the best site with the best content and most focused niche and you won't have a problem getting links.