Link Popularity Explained From Examples

Link Popularity has been the talk of the webmaster community for years. You must be wondering why link popularity is so popular. I am going to explain it with some real life examples. Link popularity can be simply explains as the total number of links pointing to your site. But please remember link popularity is not all about quantity. It’s a mix between quantity and quality.

Step 1
Suppose a patient wants to channel a best doctor from this local area. So the first factor he will consider is the qualifications of the doctor. Suppose he finds several doctors who are qualified. But now how can he choose the best person?

We can apply same theory for search engines. This is like on-page optimization of your site. Doctor should have basic qualifications. Likewise your site should have basic qualifications to get index and rank.. But if search engine finds several sites with same type of contents, service and on-page optimization, how can they determine the best one?

Step 2
Now he has to listen to others, get reviews and recommendations.

Option 1
Suppose a professor who has a good name in medical industry recommends doctor “A” as a best doctor. Its a strong motivation for the patient to select doctor “A”.

Option 2
Suppose few patients who were already treated by doctor “A” recommend him. It is also a strong motivation to choose doctor “A”.

Option 3
Suppose one patient who was already treated by doctor “A” recommend him. It is also a motivation to choose doctor “A”. But it is less powerful than option 1 and 2.

Option 3
Suppose few people who know doctor “A” recommend him. It will also help to select doctor “A”. But it is less powerful than option 1,2 and 3.

Now you can see there are different types of recommendations for doctor “A”. Some are stronger motives while others are weaker motives. But all of them helps to choose doctor “A”.

We can apply the same theory for search engines. Search engines will appreciate high quality, authority links to your site most. Then they will favor relevant links and non relevant links on descending order.

So as a summary you can see any link will help your site. If you don’t have high quality authority link, some less quality relevant links can help you to get the same rank. If you don’t have few relevant links more and more high quality non-relevant links can help you to fill the gap.