High Link Popularity

Link popularity refers to how many pages are linking to a particular page online. If you are getting backlinks from pages that have 'high link popularity', then these will carry more weight than pages that have low link popularity.

A useful FREE tool to check a webpage's link popularity is:
http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/link-popularity.html

This neat tool queries Google, Yahoo ad Bing in order to get a complete picture as to the number of inbound links pointing to a web page.

As per the screen shot above simply enter the URLs of the pages for which you want to check their link popularity, enter the access code, and hit 'Submit'.

The results will be rendered on screen immediately.

Anatomy of the PERFECT Backlink

Ok so we have determined that backlinks are simply links that point from third party sites to your own site. We have also determined that the higher the page rank of these sites, the more weight the backlinks will carry from the perspective of boosting your position in the SERPs.

The next important consideration is the anatomy of the backlinks you are creating. Let us now analyse what it takes to build the perfect backlink.

Aged Domain

The more established the site from which the link is originating, the more weight Google assigns to that link.

The age of the domain refers to the date with which it was registered. Aged domains are assumed to have more weight because they tend to be from established sites with a track record.

Google thus has a history for these sites and knows whether or not they have engaged in illicit black hat activities or are reputable repositories of useful information.

It is thus in vour favour if you can build backlinks from older established sites.

High Page Rank

We mentioned earlier in this chapter the concept of page rank. Your goal is to get as many back links from high page rank sites as possible. The easiest way to identify the page rank of particular sites is to download the FREE SEO Quake plugin for Firefox.

Visit http://www.seoquake.com and click on the 'Install SeoQuake' button (for the Firefox browser) or the link relevant to your preferred browser:

Next click on the "Allow" button

Next click on the "Install Now" button:

Next click on "Restart Now"

This will restart your browser and install SEO Quake.

You will now have an SEO Quake toolbar that includes page specific information such as page rank, inbound links, domain age and other useful information.

When you 'Google' a certain keyword phrase, the results will include the SEO Quake information pertaining to that site.

Content Relevant

It is far more potent to generate backlinks from sites that are active in the same niche as your own, and thus have similar content.

Google knows that it is highly unlikely that unrelated sites are linking to you for the purpose of creating customer value. Most likely backlinks from unrelated sites are a sign that web masters are engaged in link swapping or reciprocal linking.

So focus your efforts on getting links from sites that are focused on the same niche as your site.

What are backlinks and why are they important?

Before we delve into the creation of back links, let us consider exactly what back links are.

Backlinks are like a democratic voting system. If you were voting on the next President of your country you would go along to a polling station and cast your vote. The person who gets the most votes wins and becomes "President*.

In the context of SEO consider your site as a candidate for 'president' i.e. seeking the number ! position on Google for your keyword phrase. In order to get this position it is in competition with all the other presidential candidates i.e. competing websites.

Yes certainly the 'candidates* credentials (on page optimization, content, etc.) is an important consideration, but ultimately it is the number of votes that will determine who gets the number # 1 position.

Google considers each backlink as a vote in favour of your site. However Google goes one step further. Whereas in our presidential election example every citizen's vote has the same weighting, Google gives certain citizen votes more weight than others.

It does this through a system it terms 'Page Rank". A site's page rank or authority is ultimately determined by how many other sites are linking to that site. Page rank varies from 0 to 10 with a backlink from a page rank 10 site being far more valuable that a backlink from a page rank 0 site.

So if your website receives more backlinks than your nearest competitor site, then technically you should dominate the number one position on Google.

Now this is an over simplification as factors such as 'on page optimization* and 'quality content' are very important considerations also. But one thing is for sure. If you are intent on dominating page one of Google for your primary keyword phrase, then you MUST make it a priority to generate as many quality backlinks as you possibly can.