Sunday 9 December 2007

Link popularity FAQ

Q. Why is Link Popularity important?
A. Link Popularity is important to several groups for different reasons.
Link Popularity (a concept mostly pioneered by Google) is important to the major search engines because it provides one of the strongest methods available for delivering highly relevant search results. If a search engine cannot deliver useful and relevant information to its users, those users will find another search engine.
For the website owner or operator, Link Popularity becomes a strategy or tactic that can be used to boost site referrals and develop new online relationships.
Market researchers and analysts are interested in Link Popularity because it provides a real-time marketing performance metric that is based on an index of independent and publicly available data sources (i.e. Google, FAST, Alta Vista, AOL, MSN, HotBot).


Q. Are all links created equal?
A. No. The search engines can look at the source of a link and weight it differently from others. For instance, a link to your site from CNN.com is better than a link from SomeDumbSite.com (in theory). So, if two sites are equal in every respect except that one has a link to it from the home page of CNN.com, and the other site has a link from SomeDumbSite.com, the first site will perform better for relevant keyword searches. If you've had your site posted to thousands of bogus link farms (sites designed to artificially inflate Link Popularity) don't hold your breath. Bottom line: attain as many relevant and credible links as possible and don't count on shortcuts.

Q. How do I interpret my Link Popularity score?
A. Your Link Popularity score should be looked at in two respects: 1) How do you compare to your direct competitors and others in the same keyword space? This will give you a sense of how visible you are within your online market. 2) Is your Link Popularity score growing or shrinking over time? If it isn't growing, this will help you understand that you must perform additional marketing in order to expose yourself to a wider audience.


Q. How can I increase my Link Popularity?
A. Link Popularity can be increased by implementing a variety of tools and techniques, such as a thorough site submission to all major relevant search engines and directories (for starters), link letter campaigns, viral marketing applications, and more great content with an ongoing search engine optimization strategy.


Q. Why does MSN Search report 0 link popularity? I know there are more than this!
A. Unfortunately, MSN Web Search does not support hyphens in linkdomain searches...
a URL like "www.some-domain.com" will result in 0 links from MSN Web search. Of course this does not necessarily mean that there are no pages linking to you. Until MSN Web Search can support hyphenated linkdomain searches, the Marketleap Visibility Index cannot support them.
You can try an "Advanced" search at http://search.msn.com/advanced.asp... enter your domain like www.some-domain.com, Select "Links to URL" from the drop down box, then check the "stemming" check box. Your search will produce the closest thing possible to a link popularity search. NOTE that the resulting links may not actually contain links to your URL... they may only contain a textual reference of your domain which is not considered "link popularity".


Q. Why does Google return 0 or very low link popularity? I know there are more than this!
A. Linkdomain searches at Google work better using the "www." portion of the domain name that you are reporting on. Google will many times return 0, or a lower value if you only submit the second level domain portion of the domain name. Include the "www." portion of your domain name (if applicable) for an accurate link popularity report from Google.

Having a high link popularity number (assuming those pages linking to you are quality sites) will help your ranking with search engines like Google. A high index count means that you have more pages available for the engines to consider when building its search results. The two numbers are not tied together. They are both unique ways to understand your availability and popularity online.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks, This one is great. Link popularity is the number of relevant quality inbound links pointing to website. Most major search engines use link popularity as part of their algorithm which helps to determine the relevance of website.
------------------
oliviaharis
smo

Sunday 9 December 2007

Link popularity FAQ

Q. Why is Link Popularity important?
A. Link Popularity is important to several groups for different reasons.
Link Popularity (a concept mostly pioneered by Google) is important to the major search engines because it provides one of the strongest methods available for delivering highly relevant search results. If a search engine cannot deliver useful and relevant information to its users, those users will find another search engine.
For the website owner or operator, Link Popularity becomes a strategy or tactic that can be used to boost site referrals and develop new online relationships.
Market researchers and analysts are interested in Link Popularity because it provides a real-time marketing performance metric that is based on an index of independent and publicly available data sources (i.e. Google, FAST, Alta Vista, AOL, MSN, HotBot).


Q. Are all links created equal?
A. No. The search engines can look at the source of a link and weight it differently from others. For instance, a link to your site from CNN.com is better than a link from SomeDumbSite.com (in theory). So, if two sites are equal in every respect except that one has a link to it from the home page of CNN.com, and the other site has a link from SomeDumbSite.com, the first site will perform better for relevant keyword searches. If you've had your site posted to thousands of bogus link farms (sites designed to artificially inflate Link Popularity) don't hold your breath. Bottom line: attain as many relevant and credible links as possible and don't count on shortcuts.

Q. How do I interpret my Link Popularity score?
A. Your Link Popularity score should be looked at in two respects: 1) How do you compare to your direct competitors and others in the same keyword space? This will give you a sense of how visible you are within your online market. 2) Is your Link Popularity score growing or shrinking over time? If it isn't growing, this will help you understand that you must perform additional marketing in order to expose yourself to a wider audience.


Q. How can I increase my Link Popularity?
A. Link Popularity can be increased by implementing a variety of tools and techniques, such as a thorough site submission to all major relevant search engines and directories (for starters), link letter campaigns, viral marketing applications, and more great content with an ongoing search engine optimization strategy.


Q. Why does MSN Search report 0 link popularity? I know there are more than this!
A. Unfortunately, MSN Web Search does not support hyphens in linkdomain searches...
a URL like "www.some-domain.com" will result in 0 links from MSN Web search. Of course this does not necessarily mean that there are no pages linking to you. Until MSN Web Search can support hyphenated linkdomain searches, the Marketleap Visibility Index cannot support them.
You can try an "Advanced" search at http://search.msn.com/advanced.asp... enter your domain like www.some-domain.com, Select "Links to URL" from the drop down box, then check the "stemming" check box. Your search will produce the closest thing possible to a link popularity search. NOTE that the resulting links may not actually contain links to your URL... they may only contain a textual reference of your domain which is not considered "link popularity".


Q. Why does Google return 0 or very low link popularity? I know there are more than this!
A. Linkdomain searches at Google work better using the "www." portion of the domain name that you are reporting on. Google will many times return 0, or a lower value if you only submit the second level domain portion of the domain name. Include the "www." portion of your domain name (if applicable) for an accurate link popularity report from Google.

Having a high link popularity number (assuming those pages linking to you are quality sites) will help your ranking with search engines like Google. A high index count means that you have more pages available for the engines to consider when building its search results. The two numbers are not tied together. They are both unique ways to understand your availability and popularity online.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks, This one is great. Link popularity is the number of relevant quality inbound links pointing to website. Most major search engines use link popularity as part of their algorithm which helps to determine the relevance of website.
------------------
oliviaharis
smo

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