[G_Man]

I'll ask this here and someone can move it if this is a bad spot.

Backlinks - I don't see it in the glossary. I am wonder EXACTLY what constitutes a backlink and how you check how many you have, where they are from, etc.

Cheers.

[Code Monkey]

A backlink is a link to your site on any other site. Search engines find the link and follow it to your site and start crawling. Google will attribute some of the origin Page Ranking to your page that is linked to.

That is why it is a waste of time to submit your site to search engines or to pay someone to do it for you. All you need are backlinks and they will crawl your site. The more you have, the more they crawl. The higher the Page Ranking on the page your link is, the higher the PR of the page linked to will be. High and more, that is the name of the game at this time.

Think about it. The web is called the web because it is connected by all these hyperlinks. Like the strands of a web they give the Search Engines and avenue to move about and do their thing. So it is natural that they would reward you for making this happen.

[G_Man]

Excellent description, CM. Kind of solidified what I thought, but was very unsure about.

Now, how do you know where your backlinks are, like the one you mentioned in the other thread?

[Code Monkey]

There are various websites where you can check them. But to be more accurate you need a strong program on your own computer. Something like IBP or others.

What they do is look up your domain in many search engines and make note of the pages that link to you. Plus other settings to filter out duplicate domains and such.

These are nice when you purchase or exchange backlinks. They allow you to check on wether the deal is being honored.

Keep in mind that the best kind of backlink is a natural one. Just put up good content and people will link to it.

[G_Man]

Ahhh... I see. Very Cool.

Appreciate the education, CM.

[Loco]

Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found for your Web page. The more Web sites link to your Web page, the higher the link popularity of your page. High link popularity contributes to a high search engine ranking.

Note that link popularity is measured only for single Web pages, not for the whole Web site. Your Web site can have several Web pages with different PageRank numbers.

The idea behind the link popularity concept is simple. The more other Web sites link to your Web site, the more important your site must be. Other sites wouldn't link to your site if there wasn't something interesting on your site or if your Web site didn't contain any special content.

It's nearly impossible to manipulate link popularity. Previous ranking algorithms that took META keywords or similar factors into account have been quickly abused to mislead the search engines. On the other side, it's very difficult to manipulate the number of links that point to a site.

That's why link popularity is now one of the most important factors for search engines when they rank a Web page.

However, you cannot get high link popularity by submitting your Web site to thousands of FFA (free for all) link pages. Not all links are considered equal by the search engines. It does matter who links to you and how they link to you.

[G_Man]

So, how does Yahoo or Google 'know' your links are important?

[Loco]

by the website that they are on

[Zaiaku]

I'm a bit confused after reading all this. Are back links and link popularity the same, if not what exactly is the difference?

Also I notice that on yahoo my back links are doing great, while on Google my back links are considerably much lower. Is there a reason for such the big difference?