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Link Popularity Considerations
November 15, 2004 By Webposition SEO Team
by Mark Nelson
Link popularity is the term used to indicate how many other web pages link to your web page and is calculated by counting the number of links coming into a particular page. This includes pages linking from within your site as well as from pages on other sites. Most search engines measure the link popularity of an individual web page as opposed to your entire web site. Often times you hear people talk about the link popularity of a site and this tends to lead to confusion about what it is and how it is actually measured.
The most popular search engines, including Google and Yahoo, have built in indicators on their tool bars that will give you a visual indication of the link popularity of a page. With that said, you should take caution not to focus too much on the particular link popularity measure from the search engine tool bars, but instead, use it as a general guide.
There are many in depth articles available that concentrate on the intricate details of link popularity for each search engine. however, we will focus here more on considerations in building link popularity as part of your overall optimization efforts and suggest a simple and effective strategy in increasing the link popularity of your pages in a way that will help maximize your keyword rankings.
There are at least four questions many people ask when first learning about link popularity and its impact on keyword rankings:
- How important is link popularity?
- How can link popularity be improved?
- Are all links created equal?
- Which sites should be considered when exchanging links?
How important is link popularity?
The importance of link popularity to your site’s overall visibility is usually about 30% of all factors affecting your keyword rankings. This percentage varies according to the particular search engine’s emphasis on link popularity.
The value of link popularity cannot be ignored as part of your overall optimization efforts and a percentage of your time should be spent considering the linking structure of both pages within your site as well as the links on the pages of other sites that link to your pages. There are two components of link popularity. The first has to do with the linking structure within your site, while the second has to do with how many pages from external sites are linking to the pages on your site. It is best to focus on your internal linking structure first, then focus on increasing the number of links from external sites.
How can link popularity be improved?
The first and best approach to building external link popularity is to build compelling and unique content that others will link to on their own, based on the intrinsic value of your product, service or message. When you take this rather obvious approach, you will be rewarded with highly relevant visitor traffic genuinely interested in the content you offer.
You will also be following the intent of the search engines that consider link popularity in their rules by providing unique and relevant content to search engine users.
Are all links created equal?
In other words, is it only the number of incoming links that determines the impact to your keyword rankings? The answer is NO, definitely NOT. Many WebPosition users already know the reason for this and it has to do with the theme of your content. This is also where many people get into trouble when developing and implementing their linking strategy. The name of the link and the content on both the linking page and destination page play an important role in determining the relevancy of the keywords on the destination page. Let’s illustrate this by walking though a simple example many of us have probably experienced.
Let’s say you’re looking for travel destinations in the Caribbean and reading a page that talks about the Caribbean and various vacation options in the region. You notice a link called “Cheap Widgets”. You might think “ok, I just might buy one of these widgets while on vacation in the Caribbean”. You click on the link only to end up on a page that talks about inexpensive ski equipment. Since it is unlikely you are going to go skiing while in the Caribbean and the link gave no indication of it pertaining to ski equipment, clicking on the link has probably been a waste of your time.
Many search engines will take the same view. Search engines will usually give more weight and higher rankings to keywords where the content on the origin page, destination page and the link itself are closely related. When you have a choice, always make sure the links coming into as well as going out from your page are related to the content on your page and the name of the link itself. Not only can this improve your keyword rankings, but it also helps to create a better experience for your visitors.
Which sites should be considered when exchanging links?
Many sites will not simply exchange links anymore, but will want you to pay for a link from them based on their link popularity, as your site will most likely benefit from their link popularity. The subject of choosing which sites and pages to exchange links with (or pay for) is full of potential benefits and pitfalls. I will be covering this subject more in depth in the near future, so stay tuned.
Maximize your rankings by leveraging the five areas of the WebPosition Page Critic
By Webposition SEO Team
by Brent Winters
If you’ve had a chance to try WebPosition Gold 3 released in August, you may have noticed that the Page Critic report is now divided into six tabs. As this report is so crucial to improving your rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other engines, I believe the new format merits some explanation.
The first tab of the Page Critic report is simply a consolidation of the other report areas found on the remaining five tabs. This first tab is useful for those that wish to print the entire report, or for those that prefer to see everything all on one page. It provides an impressive volume of SEO advice and can be rather overwhelming at first glance.
The remaining five tabs serve to divide the content into smaller, more digestible pieces. These areas guide you through the process of tuning your Web page to the preferences of your selected search engine. The tabs are entitled Page Averages, Page Advice, Engine Advice, Page Analysis, Page Properties.
Everyone’s Web site and target market is different. While there are some commonalities, most search engines rank pages based on differing criteria. Therefore, it’s important to realize that the Page Critic custom tailors its advice for the specific Web page, keyword, and search engine that you select.
Page Averages:
The simplest way to improve your page rankings is to mimic the major attributes that cause other pages to rank at the top of the list. In September, I discussed the various comparison tools that WebPosition makes available to you. One of these methods is to compare your page’s key attributes to the averages of other pages that already rank in the top 5 positions. For example, if the average top-ranking page on Google includes 5 words in the title tag area, then you should logically do the same in your title. In reality, you will not find every top-ranking page having precisely 5 words in the title. There’s often a range of “acceptable” values that Google will give preference to. Therefore, you will notice that the Page Averages report will advise you to conform to a particular range of acceptable values. For example:
A word count from 4 to 6 is suggested for the Title area. Your word count is 12 right now so you might consider decreasing your word count in the Title.
A keyword frequency from 1 to 7 is suggested for the Link Text area. Your frequency is 0.0 right now so you might consider increasing your Keyword count in the Link Text.
A word count from 1 to 270 is suggested for the Link Text area. Your word count is 0 right now so you might consider increasing your word count in the Link Text.
You’ll notice that in some cases, the range is fairly narrow like 4 to 6 words in the title area. In other cases, the range is broad, such as 1 to 270 words in the link text area. These values are based upon how widely top ranking pages deviate from the average.
If your page has 7 words in the title, rather than 4 to 6 words, does that mean your page can’t rank at the top of the list? No, of course not. There’s more than one way to rank at the top. WebPosition’s report is only meant to be a useful guide to what the typical top-ranking page should look like.
In addition, some factors will be less influential than others. For example, your title tag will almost always have more influence on your ranking than your meta keyword tag. However, your best strategy is to tune your page to mimic as many of the averages as possible.
To save you time, only the “problem” areas will be mentioned on the Page Averages tab. If your title already has the optimal number of words, then WebPosition will not make any suggestions for that area.
Tip: If any of this search engine marketing terminology is confusing, you’ll find many of the terms hyperlinked in the Page Critic report. Simply click on the underlined words to learn more
Page Advice:
Like the Page Averages tab, the Page Advice tab contains WebPosition’s suggestions based on your selected Web page, engine, and keyword. In contrast to the previous tab, Page Advice includes all the page-specific tips that are unrelated to average word counts or average prominence. Instead, you’ll find that WebPosition scans for missing tags and other elements that should be either present or excluded from a top-ranking page. For many well-built pages, this list will be relatively short as only the “problem” areas will be flagged.
Engine Advice:
Here you will find a wealth of engine specific advice. There’s so many advice items to help you improve your rankings, that this section has been organized into eight categories:
- What’s New – Tips added within the last few months.
- Keyword Selection – Advice for choosing the best keywords.
- Relevancy Tips – Techniques for improving your page’s relevancy to the search engines. The more relevant an engine finds your page, the higher you will rank.
- Link Popularity – Strategies for building your link popularity to increase your traffic and your rankings.
- Submission and Getting Indexed – Guidelines for proper submission.
- Spam Warnings – Educate yourself on best practices and how to avoid spamming a search engine.
- Marketing Strategies – Online marketing techniques that will work hand in hand with your search engine marketing strategy.
- Other Information – Search engine news and miscellaneous SEO tips.
Page Analysis:
This tab gives you a table showing the keyword frequency, word count, keyword weight, and prominence of your page compared to your competitors. If you’re serious about optimizing your page, this is the place to go. While the Page Averages tab gives you much of this data in easy to understand sentence form, here you’ll see all the statistical data at glance. The exact averages are given here rather than “ranges.”
The Page Analysis table divides your page into “areas” such as title, meta tags, link text, body, and so forth. You can then compare each area of your page to one or more top ranking pages. Some areas that are known to be ignored by the selected search engine will be omitted by default from this report. That way you don’t waste time optimizing page areas that an engine does not even index.
Page Properties:
The final tab on the Page Critic report contains a list of useful traits relating to the page being analyzed such as whether it uses frames, contains java script, or repeats the same keyword more than once in a row.
Conclusion:
While the scope and breadth of the Page Critic module may look a little intimidating at first, you’ll quickly learn your way around it. Although WebPosition is well known for it’s impressive rank reporting features, you’ll find the Page Critic module to be the key to improving those rankings. After all, it does you no good to submit your pages and to track your positions if you don’t work to improve those rankings.
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