The goalposts of search engine optimization (SEO) are continually changing. Once, keyword density was the critical factor. Nowadays, it's link popularity.

What is link popularity?
Link popularity is basically the number of pages which link to your site. If a lot of pages link back to your site, a search engine like Google will assume that your page is useful and relevant, so will rank you higher.

So do I need to send my link to as many websites as possible then?
Surprisingly enough, No.

When it first became apparent that a large number of links would boost your search engine ranking, lots of companies with deep pockets paid a lot of money to plaster their sites all over the web.

Google is well aware that a top 10 ranking can make a millionaire overnight, and in April 2007 Matt Cutts announced that Google was going to take a cut out of the 'paid links' trade. Soon Google's algorithms were limiting the effects of these paid links.

So what sort of links are effective?
You have to remember one thing, and that is that Google is a business just like yours. Google's mission is:

to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

They are very effective at upholding this mission, meaning that they are continually looking for ways to find genuinely useful pages and give them their best rankings.

At the time of writing (Early 2008), what Google like most are sites that are relevant and hand submitted. It essentially comes down to your site being validated as useful by as many humans as possible, and put onto hand maintained pages. An automated script listing your page won't work any more.

So how do I get these 'good' links?

  • Reciprocal Links - Offer to link to another site if they link to you.
  • Directory Listings
  • Frequent forums, and have your link posted in your signature
  • Write articles, and list them in article directories (with a link back to you)
  • If you have the money, press releases, paid blog reviews etc

The best way to get a reciprocal link however is by 'link bait'. Link bait is a resource on your page which other people just can't resist linking to. This is usually some kind of tool, like a colour selector, calculator or some other sort of java based application.