The Concept of Link Popularity

The greater your link popularity, the more important your site. It is the single most influential factor for determining how well a web site will perform in search engine rankings. Link popularity is commonly referred to as an “off-page” factor in the search engine world, and represents one of the more important elements in influencing a Web site’s position in search engine result pages (SERPS).

The link popularity of a given web page increases with every other web page that references it. You can think of link popularity as a way to determine which page, from a group of equally relevant pages, shows up first in the search results, which is second, and so forth. The relative authority of the site, and the trust the search engine has in it, are significant parts of this determination. Ultimately, it is the combination of relevance and importance that determines the ranking order of web pages.

Document Analysis and Semantic Connectivity

In document analysis, search engines look at whether they can find the search terms in important areas of the document-the title, the metadata, the heading tags, and the body of the text. They also attempt to automatically measure the quality of the document based on document analysis, as well as many other factors. Reliance on document analysis alone is not enough for today’s search engines, so they also look at semantic connectivity.

Semantic connectivity refers to words or phrases that are commonly associated with one another. For example, if you see the words “iPhone”, “iPad” or “iMac” you immediately associate them with Apple, not Microsoft, Samsung or anything else. Search engines actively build their own thesaurus and dictionary to help them determine how certain terms and topics are related. By simply scanning their massive databases of content on the Web, they can use Fuzzy Set Theory and certain equations to connect terms and start to understand web pages/sites more like a human does.

The quality and credibility of the sites that links to you is crucial. Even though Google does state that there is almost nothing another site can do to harm yours, almost nothing is not the same as absolutely nothing. Backlinks from a number of unethical sites, such as sites involved in spam or unethical results page (SERP) manipulation, can do serious damage to your site’s credibility and rankings. In extreme cases, you could even end up being pulled from the search engine index altogether. Thus it is critical that you should do your research before soliciting links from any site, and you should never solicit links from any site that may be engaged in spam or unethical practices.

A successful link-building strategy is built on painstaking research and a methodical approach can help you determine the right link-building strategy for your site. Links should be obtained gradually over time, not in the span of a few days or weeks. This allows your link growth to appear more natural and reduces the risk of search engines flagging your Web site for forced or artificial increases.

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