There are many ways how to improve link popularity. If you are webmaster who is hungry for better ranking in search engines, this article was written for you. There are hundreds of factors which determine your search engine position. Except on-page factors there are off-page factors too. And these factors seem to be most important for big search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

When I speak about off-page factors I mean not only the number of the links pointing to your website. If you want to achieve top positions in search engines you must care about relevance of your back links. Let's say you are a web designer.

In your case the most valuable links are from another web designers websites. Very valuable will be links from related industries like web hosting, search engine optimization (seo) or webmaster tools. By contrast, link from site like online casino will have minimal value for you. From this reason exchange links with relevant websites only. Internet is full of sites related to yours so why waste your time with gaining worthless back links?

When webmasters exchange links, a lot of them care too much about pagerank of partner's website. Yes, you are right -- link from PR8 site is better then link from PR0. But keep in mind that those new sites with PR0 will grow with time and their PR will grow too. It can easily happen that you exchange a link with PR0 website today and after 6 months this site gain PR5+. And now let's answer this important question: What is easier -- get link on PR0 website which will grow or on PR5+ site? From my point of view each link has big value as long as it is from relevant website.

Let's look at another factors used by search engines to determine the value of back links. You have probably heard terms "one-way" and "reciprocal" links. One-way links are links where webmaster of site A links to site B but webmaster of site B doesn't link back to site A. Reciprocal links are links where webmaster A links to site B and webmaster B links back to site A.

There are two important facts:

1. One-way links have a little higher value for search engines. Search engines suppose that one-way links are most likely natural and predicate the quality of the linked website.
   
   
2. Reciprocal links have a little lower value from the reason mentioned above. But it is easier to get reciprocal link then one-way link
   

(In case that your site is quality, of course. For poor websites it is always difficult to gain back links).

Anyway relevant reciprocal link is always better then one-way link from unrelated website.

The last factor I will describe in this article is the age of the domain. If you get link from the 5 years old domain the link will have higher value then link from the new site. Many spammers register domains for one year, use them as link farms and when they are banned by search engines (it takes probably less then one year) then they don't renew this domain and register a new one. On the other side, if the site is a few years old and had never used any unfair SEO tactics, search engines give this site higher importance.

So if you are trying to improve link popularity of your website, don't forget that it is not only about pagerank. You need links from quality websites. Making your website the best in your field is the right way how to get these valuable links.

Incoming Links - Another very relevant factor to achieving higher rankings in the search engines is the number of incoming links your site has. This is quantified by page ranks. Google especially targets this area for ranking purposes. The more sites that display links to your site, the better your chance are for achieving a higher rank in the search engines.

There are several sites offering to acquire these links for you for a fee. Be cautious. I've tested three of these sites, and spent some money to no avail. The results were not at all as promised. Most experienced webmasters will tell you using one of these companies can be a wild guess. As you pursue incoming links, make sure the site is one that complements yours. You don't want a link from a poorly functioning site, or one that doesn't promote ethical practices. There are many companies offering search engine optimization packages.

Just as with every other industry on the Internet there are scams, and there are reputable sites. There are a number of sites offering tremendous results at higher than reasonable prices. If the promises seem to be too good to be true, they probably are. Don't waste your bank account on false hopes. Investigate carefully, before you commit to hiring an SEO professional.