Asia Insurance Directory - Link Popularity

An Important Ranking Tool

Link popularity is fast becoming the most important tool used by search engines when ranking a web page.

The logic of link popularity is quite simple: if other sites are linking to yours, it must be good. And since all search engines want to provide high quality results, websites with an abundance of inbound links are assumed to be better.

The result: a higher page ranking with search engines.

What is link popularity?

Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found for your website. In the myriad world of search engine technology, these inbound links are quite literally seen as "votes" for your website.

This critical page-ranking tool is now used by all major search engines to establish the importance — and relevance — of a website. "Importance" is loosely determined by the number of sites linking to yours, while "relevance" is determined by the number of inbound links from websites of similar content.

Both go hand in hand.

For instance, 5,000 inbound links from websites about "dating" will do little to increase the overall ranking of your "insurance" website, whereas 20 inbound links from other "insurance" sites will have a definite impact on your website's ranking.

Google, the largest — and most important — search engine in the world pioneered the use of link popularity with its own proprietary software known as "PageRank." Here's what they have to say about search engine ranking:

"Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content — and the content of the pages linking to it — to determine if it's a good match for your query."

In conclusion, it is more important to have websites with similar content linking back to your own website.

Note: Avoid "link farms" and mass submission software. Linking to the wrong type of site can actually damage your search engine ranking.

Is it important to host a reciprocal link?

Yes. For search engines, it is extremely important that your site be heavily networked across the Internet within your subject matter. Hosting the links of other websites with matching content — especially those that link back to you — will cause your website to be pulled by the search engines whenever keywords target that subject matter.

There are other things you should know on this point. A "Links Page" on your website will receive a high search engine ranking, as it contains links to quality sites that link back to your own website. Additionally, hosting quality links enables you to establish a portal resource for your industry niche, with visitors then returning to make use of such resources.

Finally, hosting a reciprocal link enhances the ranking of the other site. In return, your own link on that site becomes all the more important, with this directly influencing your website's own link popularity.

Most sites today expect you to offer a reciprocal link, so start planning for this now. The Asia Insurance Directory is no exception, and may at any time remove your listing if a reciprocal link has not been arranged.

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