Link popularity is a measure of the quantity and quality of other web sites that link to a specific site on the World Wide Web. It is an example of the move by search engines towards off-the-page-criteria to determine quality content. In theory, off-the-page-criteria adds the aspect of impartiality to search engine rankings. Link popularity plays an important role in the visibility of a web site among the top of the search results. Indeed, some search engines require at least one or more links coming to a web site, otherwise they will drop it from their index.

Link Popularity types:

One way linking (High Recommended)

One way link is a term used among webmasters for link building methods. It is a hyperlink that points to a website without any reciprocal link; thus the link goes "one way" in direction. It is suspected by many industry consultants that this type of link would be considered more natural in the eyes of search engines. One Way links are also called Incoming Links or Inbound Links.

An effective way to build this type of one way linking is by distributing articles through content sites and article directories. These articles generally contain an About The Author box that contains a one-way link back to the author's URL. When publishers use these articles, those one-way links help authors increase their page rank.

Reciprocal link

A reciprocal link is a mutual link between two objects, commonly between two websites to ensure mutual traffic. Example: Alice and Bob have websites. If Bob's website links to Alice's website, and Alice's website links to Bob's website, the websites are reciprocally linked. Website owners often submit their sites to reciprocal link exchange directories, in order to achieve higher rankings in the search engines. Reciprocal linking between websites is an important part of the search engine optimization process because Google uses link popularity algorithms (defined as the number of links that led to a particular page and the anchor text of the link) to rank websites for relevancy.

Three way linking

Three way linking (siteA -> siteB -> siteC -> siteA) is a special type of reciprocal linking. The attempt of this link building method is to create more "natural" links in the eyes of search engines. The value of links by three-way linking can then be better than normal reciprocal links, which are usually done between two domains.

Listed below are some of the important Quality Guidelines , which we should consider for acquiring links from other websites. These would ensure that your link building campaign gives you the maximum possible benefit .

Links with specified "Keywords" in the Anchor Text.
Sufficient randomization in the anchor text and associated link description text so as to not have a set pattern of linking.
Links from sites that have PR specified site.
Link to your site should not be through a "redirect" script.
No JavaScript links.
No framed sites.
No flash site links.
No robots.txt exclusions.
No paid links.
No SPAM should be used to solicit links.
No links from Link Farms.
No FFA networks.
Don't get links from Blogs and that have the Link Attribute, "rel=nofollow".
No links from PORN, racially prejudiced sites and other sites containing offensive content.
Only relevant established links should be counted in the final report.

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