Link Popularity

This post is about link popularity and how to rank your website in Google.

Link popularity or domain authority can be one of the most challenging topics for marketers, but it doesn't have to be.

We'll take a look at some definitions, considerations and secrets that will help you get started on understanding this topic. We'll explore some strategies for building your own link profile and getting others to support it through their sites as well as a few things you should avoid while doing so. You’ll also find out what type of links are best for search engine optimization (SEO) efforts along with keyword research tools to help as you go about building links en masse.

…And more.

What Is Link Popularity?

Link popularity is a measure used by search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to gauge the value of your website in context with any given topic. For example, if you’re looking for a landscaper in Little Rock, Ark., you’ll likely use one of the local directories or search engines to find one because you know that these tools are going to show you trusted results. (Just be sure to read the comments on top reviews, as they can sometimes be funny too. You never know…)

What’s more, you can assume that a website with a high number of links and mentions on other websites is probably in the top 10 for search results because it's popular. That popularity is also known as its link popularity.

In the previous example, if an article on landscaping in Little Rock was attracting links from other sites, search engines would consider that a sign that the article was helping people to find what they were looking for online. After all, you wouldn't try to repel visitors by linking to a bad product or service on your website—so why would anyone else do it for you? It makes sense.

That said, link popularity is still one of the most confusing topics in search engine optimization, and that’s mostly because of the terminology. So let's clear that up.

What Are Backlinks?

A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. It might be an article you wrote on your own blog or a comment you posted on someone else's website. If you’re building links for your company website, this is where it all begins. You'll need to attract links to your website—and this is how you'll do it.

You can get more information about backlinks from Moz.com, a site which does a pretty good job at explaining everything I’m going to quickly touch upon in this article for all types of linking strategies.

What Is Domain Authority?

Domain authority is an entirely new measurement used by Google, Bing and Yahoo that combines several factors in order to rank websites. This formula takes into account backlinks, site structure, keyword density and the number of unique pages served by your site before arriving at an overall score you can use to find that perfect domain name for your new business or product.

Conclusion

Link popularity is a new and exciting topic for SEO. It takes into account the level of quality of site content, social media profiles and links, along with several other factors in order to determine the top users for a given keyword. It's not an easy thing to do, but if you know how to get there it can be worth it in the long run.

Your next step? Take your time, read every article on this page and get ready for Google's algorithm update that will take place in May 2017. You'll find all the information you need about that just below this text.

Google: Our link popularity engine is improved and now better fits our algorithm updates.