Link Popularity - A Quick Explanation of Page Rank and Linking Strategies
Many people do not pay enough attention to link popularity, and how page rank and linking strategies are related.
If they do, they frequently make the wrong decisions through ignorance of what linking strategies work and which do not.
In fact, it is not difficult to understand once you begin to grasp the fundamental theory of how search engines view your website.
This is not say that webmasters understand search engines, since none do.
Not unless they are also responsible for constructing the algorithms that determine your position in the search engine listings for the keywords, or search terms, concerned.
Let's take Google as an example.
It is by far the most important search engine at the moment since many others use their results.
Google search the complete world wide web to find all the web pages on the internet that contain thesearch phrases used by Google users, commonly called 'keywords'.
Google indexes all the web pages under various keywords, and the position of a page in each index is dependent on a number of factors that indicate the relevance and quality of these pages to the search term used.
No one is sure how Google establishes the effect of links to and from other sites, but they actively encourage you to build links back from other sites.
Google make it clear that this is a major part of their listing strategy, so you must build up as many good links back to your site from others as fast as possible.
The way to begin your linking strategy is get listed by Yahoo, and also the better of the website directories such as Dmoz and Joe Ant.
What makes one directory better than another for linking has little to do with 'goodness' , but is determined by its 'Page Rank'.
If you have the Google Toolbar on your browser, the Google page rank is shown by the green bar with 'Page Rank' above it.
This gives a ranking from zero to ten based on the link popularity of the website on your browser.
The higher the page ranking of a site you have a link from, the better it is for you.
An intelligent linking strategy, therefore, would be to have a reciprocal link only with sites with higher page ranking than yours.
A reciprocal link is one where you provide a link to a site from your website in exchange for a link back from the other.
If they do, they frequently make the wrong decisions through ignorance of what linking strategies work and which do not.
In fact, it is not difficult to understand once you begin to grasp the fundamental theory of how search engines view your website.
This is not say that webmasters understand search engines, since none do.
Not unless they are also responsible for constructing the algorithms that determine your position in the search engine listings for the keywords, or search terms, concerned.
Let's take Google as an example.
It is by far the most important search engine at the moment since many others use their results.
Google search the complete world wide web to find all the web pages on the internet that contain thesearch phrases used by Google users, commonly called 'keywords'.
Google indexes all the web pages under various keywords, and the position of a page in each index is dependent on a number of factors that indicate the relevance and quality of these pages to the search term used.
No one is sure how Google establishes the effect of links to and from other sites, but they actively encourage you to build links back from other sites.
Google make it clear that this is a major part of their listing strategy, so you must build up as many good links back to your site from others as fast as possible.
The way to begin your linking strategy is get listed by Yahoo, and also the better of the website directories such as Dmoz and Joe Ant.
What makes one directory better than another for linking has little to do with 'goodness' , but is determined by its 'Page Rank'.
If you have the Google Toolbar on your browser, the Google page rank is shown by the green bar with 'Page Rank' above it.
This gives a ranking from zero to ten based on the link popularity of the website on your browser.
The higher the page ranking of a site you have a link from, the better it is for you.
An intelligent linking strategy, therefore, would be to have a reciprocal link only with sites with higher page ranking than yours.
A reciprocal link is one where you provide a link to a site from your website in exchange for a link back from the other.
