Popularity Component

Popularity has become increasingly important among the search engines. A web site's popularity component provides the search engines with feedback about a site's usefulness to a target audience. In other words, sites that more users find useful are more relevant to a particular search.

If two web sites have similar text and spider-friendly link architectures, the site with greater popularity consistently ranks higher over time because of the following reasons:

• Credible web sites usually link to pages with valuable information.

• A site's end users tend to use the same web site over and over again because the information is relevant.

Therefore, building a site that appeals to both directory editors and your target audience is very important for getting and maintaining maximum search engine visibility.

As mentioned in Part 1, "Before You Build." the popularity component of a search engine algorithm consists of multiple subcomponents:

• Link popularity

• Click-through popularity

Link Popularity

The link popularity of a web page is the number and quality of links pointing to that web page. Link popularity is not as simple as obtaining as many links as possible to a web page. The quality of the sites linking to a web page holds far more weight than the quantity of sites.

The major search engines have gone beyond measuring the number of links to a web site. Some links are more credible than others, especially because many unethical search engine marketers have created free-for-all link farms in the attempt to boost link popularity. For this reason, sites with high-quality , credible links pointing to them gain more popularity than sites with low-quality links.

Therefore, sites with three high-quality links pointing to them (from Yahoo!, LookSmart, and Open Directory) often rank higher than sites with hundreds of low-quality links pointing to them. Thus, before beginning a link-building campaign, carefully select the places from which you want to obtain links, beginning with the most credible.

Directories

Let's say the fictional TranquiliTeas company created an online store that sells organic teas. On this site, they might sell organic teas, and they might also might have a series of web pages providing recipes for spiced tea. To get maximum link popularity from the major directories, the site can be listed in multiple categories. On LookSmart, the home page can be submitted to this category:

 Shopping > Online Stores > Food & Wine > Beverages > Tea >  Specialty Teas 

The page that shows the various spiced tea recipes can be submitted to a completely different category:

 Lifestyle > Food/Wine > Beverages > Tea > Tea Recipes > Spiced Tea 

Not all web sites can have multiple pages listed in the major directories. However, if a web page's individual content offers unique, substantial information (such as tips, advice, definitions, and how-to articles), and the individual page is submitted to a completely different branch of the directory structure, the chances of getting multiple directory listings are favorable.

Industry-Specific Web Sites

Some credible web sites offer information on very specific topics. For example, if you were looking for information on health-related issues, WebMd.com might be a good place to search for information. A link from WebMd.com to a health- related site can increase the site's link popularity. If you offer a free software demo on your web site, you can request a link from shareware.com or download.com. If you offer marketing tips, find a web site that publishes marketing tips and offer to write an article for them.

Professional Associations

Many professional associations offer links to member web sites. This is another way to help your site gain link popularity because professional associations are generally considered credible sources of information. A Chamber of Commerce site also can be a good place to obtain additional listings.

Educational Institutions

Many grade schools , colleges, and universities look for web sites that relate to the specific subject they teach. A religion professor might look for a site about the history of Japanese Buddhism. An art professor might look for sites that discuss the psychology of color . Links from educational institutions are valuable not only for popularity but also for branding purposes. Many students remember your site after they become professionals.

Requesting Links

To find credible, industry-specific web sites, use the major search engines and directories. If sites are consistently appearing at the top of the search results and are listed in the major directories, the search engines consider those sites important.

Important

Just because a site is listed in Yahoo!, LookSmart, and Open Directory does not mean it is a legitimate site. Directories are subject to spam as well as the search engines.

Go to the search engines and type your major keyword phrases and analyze the search results. Determine the best non-competing sites and see if they have a Links or a Resources page. These are sites from which you can request links. To get the best popularity boost, make sure that the sites linking to you are also listed in the three major directories.

When requesting that your site be added to an industry-specific or a non-competing site, do not waste the web site owner's time. Make your link request as easy as possible for the web site owner to process. Send the owner a polite email, complimenting him or her on site characteristics or specific pages with excellent content (to make sure the web site owner knows that you have read the site), the exact URL and description that you would like added to the Links page, and why you believe your web page is beneficial to the particular web site.

An even better way might be to add targeted web sites (that you like) to your Links or Resources page. When you email the web site owner, you can tell him or her that you have linked to his or her site. You then can ask the owner to review the title and description you have written on your Links page. Give the web site owner the opportunity to edit the title and description. If the web site owner likes your site, he or she is very likely to provide a reciprocal link.

Be Careful Who You Link To!

All the search engines make it very clear that linking to "bad neighborhoods" can get your site penalized . Though no one can control which web sites link to you, you have total control over the sites to which you link. Thus, do not participate in any free-for-all (FFA) web sites or participate in web rings to artificially boost your site's link popularity.

Important

Web rings, in and of themselves , aren't automatically considered "bad neighborhoods." For example, if all of the domestic violence shelters (with web sites) in the state of New York linked to each other, that would be an effective web ring.

Always make sure that your Links page is part of your web site and is hosted on your web server. If your Links page is not a part of your web site, your site might be penalized for artificial link building. For example, one of the best URLs for the TranquiliTeas site looks like the following: www.tranquiliteasorganic.com/links.html . Thus, it is best to link to credible sites.

Click-Through Popularity

Getting other web sites to link to your web site is not enough to obtain long- term search engine visibility. Your target audience must be able to find the information they are searching for when they arrive at your web site. Hopefully, your target audience can perform a search on a search engine, click the link to your site, and go directly to the web page with the information for which they are searching. However, this often is not the case. Sometimes, your target audience navigates your site a bit, usually between five and seven clicks, to be sure the information on your site is credible.

If your target audience cannot find the information for which they are searching, they will click the Back button to return to the search results. The search engines are able to measure whether your end users are returning to the search results or staying on your web site. This measurement constitutes a page's click-through popularity .

Many search engines can measure the following:

• The number of times end users click links to your site

• How long end users visit your site

• How often end users return to your site

If your target audience members continually click the links from the search engines to your site and they stay on your site to gather information, your site popularity increases . If your target audience members click links to your site and do not find the information for which they are searching, your site's popularity decreases. In other words, your target audience influences how visible your site is among the search engines.

Off-the-Page Criteria

Some aspects of link popularity are examples of off-the-page criteria , which are factors that web site owners cannot influence to increase search engine visibility.

Web designers have complete control over what words they place on their pages and where they place these words. They have control over how pages link to each other. In fact, on-the-page factors can be computer-generated for search engine visibility, which is one reason why doorway pages came to be a popular search engine marketing strategy.

Because items such as keyword density and keyword prominence can easily be created, search engines are relying more and more on off-the-page criteria to determine relevancy. Link popularity and click-through popularity are just two types of off-the-page criteria. However, unethical search engine marketers have discovered ways to artificially generate popularity through FFA link farms, affiliate programs, and domain spamming . Therefore, search engines are continuing to find other off-the-page criteria to determine which web pages receive top positions .