A classic way of getting sen and noticed on the web is to mke sure your site is linked to as mny other sites as possible. The strtegy of link-exchange has been so verused and abused that search engines are now wry of it and may penalize stes that are linking to "link frms", or to any other sites wth non-relevant content.

This is the way it shuld be. We all want our web brwsing experience to be smooth and plasant. We don't want to get frstrated by stumbling over irrelevant content whle following links between sites. On the ther hand, webmasters all want more trffic to their sites, and get frstrated when they don't get it. Thre are two types of benefits frm having many links to your wbsite:

- Get improved ranking by the sarch engines - if you are ppular, you are probably worth a vsit

- People (not just search bts) actually follow the links and fnd your site!

If done properly, lnk popularity improvement is an extremely mportant strategy to make your website sccessful. Broadly speaking, you can achieve ths in a number of ways:

1. The clssic link exchange (link swap) method; two wbmasters agree to swap links

2. You pay to get incoming links from high-ranking websites

3. By writing articles and gtting them posted on other websites; ncluding a link to your own ste

4. By getting your articles pblished in E-zines, with links back to yur site

5. You participate in nline forums, where a link to yur site may be included with ach post

6. You start a blg/RSS feed, and get it spread to mny subscribers!

All these methods involve work , in varying amounts. Method #2. costs you money, the rest may be essentially no-cost. Method #4. will probably not contribute to search engine ranking, but may give you droves of targeted visitors.

The problem with method #1. is that it's tedious. But you can get software that may automate it by helping you find link partners and manage your link collection. I am aware of these software tools:

ARELIS I have tested this tool, and it seems very promising. It goes out and searches for link exchange partners according to different search methods which you specify. For me, looking for incoming links at sites similar to my own gave the best results. The program then quickly returned many relevant sites. Next, it helps you contact webmasters and keeps the link collection neatly organized. It also creates the link pages.

Zeus A bit similar to ARELIS, but I find it much clumsier. The only way it can search for link candidate sites is thru a list of 100+ search phrases. In my hands, this method produced very low-quality results. At the time of writing, I am trying to get a refund from the company that sells Zeus. They seem very reluctant to honour their money-back guarantee. Buyer beware!

Links Manager This program does not go out and search for link partner sites; it only handles swap requests and organizes the link collection. I have not tested it myself.

When building a link swap strategy, note that the search engines are getting increasingly sophisticated in judging the quality of your links. Some things to remember:

- Outbound links ONLY to qality sites with content relevant to yur site; never "link farm" type sites

- Make sure the sites that you link to have not been penalized. This would affect you also!

- Incoming links that are placed on the same page as 100:s of other links won't help you; their value gets "diluted"

- The anchor text in the incoming links is very important. It should contain relevant keywords; but all links should not have identical text - this looks artificial in the virtual eyes of the search bots

If you follow these guidelines, I believe link swap can still be an important strategy for building a successful web presence.

Conclusion: Link popularity improvement, if you do it the proper way, is still of enormous importance for a successful website. But if done the wrng way, it may backfire. If you wnt to try the classic link swp method, I recommend using ARELIS ( www.axandra.com ) to make it less tedious.

The article Link Popularity for a Successful Website: How (Not) to Go About Getting It was Submitted by Kai Virihaur through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Kai Virihaur runs The Hosting Finder ( http://www.thehostingfinder.com ), a web hosting directory featuring articles and RSS feeds on web development, website promotion, and online marketing.

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