What is Link Popularity & Link Reputation

April 2004
By Alice Seba

A couple terms you'll need to understand before you proceed to understand how to optimize your website are:

link popularity & link reputation

You see...just like everywhere else, the Internet is a popularity game. :) Being popular is nice, but your reputation is actually crucial.

Let's keep it simple. Here are some explanations of link popularity & link reputation:

Link popularity - Very simply put...it's the number of links pointing to your website. The idea is that the more websites, that link to you the more important...and thus popular...your website is. Of course, search engines like Google, also look at the quality of these links...so don't be mistaken by thinking quantity is most important...quality is key (and we'll discuss that in the articles included in this section).

Reality Check: Being popular is nice, but doesn't really contribute where each page of your website will appear in the search engine listings. In most cases, you should be more concerned about your reputations. Which leads us to...

Link reputation - In addition to how many quality sites link to you, search engine want to know what each page of your website are well known for. That's why they look at what is written in the text that links to your web page (also known as anchor text). If you everyone links to you with the words:

"best kid clothes" - by golly, you must have the reputation for having the best kid's clothes.

Articles Found in this Linking Section

> What is a Link Farm & Why You Should Avoid Them
> Buying Google Page Rank: Is it a Good Idea?
> Increase Link Popularity : Planning a Link Building Strategy
> Google Toolbar : PageRank, Linking Strategies & More

Recommended for Building Quality Links to your Website:

Arelis Links Manager - create easy-to-manage links pages and find quality link partners.

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More Search Engine Information: Highly Recommended! 

Check Aaron Wall's SEO Book.  Aaron's book doesn't leave any stones unturned.  He covers everything you need to know about getting traffic to your website and legitimately ranking well with the search engines. His book covers all the nitty gritty details in an easy-to-understand way.