I am not going to bore you by loading this article with a bunch of redundant, irrelevant garbage you already know. So let's just cut to the chase.

I'm tired of reading the same old Link popularity articles. No one is saying anything new. The main question on everyone's mind is "How can I get and keep a good ranking in the major search engines?" Even those websites doing well are fighting to keep their place. There must be a way to consistently appear in a good position with the major search engines?

Reciprocal links, Obsolete

Webmaster long ago realized the importance search engines attached to link popularity for top search index positioning and resorted to reciprocal linking hocus pocus. However this practice does not indicate either site as being an authority and actually gives a slight edge to the lesser ranked site. This strategy has already become obsolete and very soon the search engines will change their algorithms and teach their spiders to take it into account.

Inbound One Way Links, Almost Impossible

To achieve high link popularity the best type of links to build are inbound one-way links. This simulates how natural links would accrue when other webmasters point to your site because they found the content worth linking to. Unless you are a manufacturer getting other webmasters to link to your site without you linking back is almost impossible. Be honest, would you do that? If you are interested in building inbound links here is an excellent article with lots of suggestions by Salihu Ibrahim

Link popularity, Same Old Stuff

So to build link popularity you resort to the same old stuff. Directories are categorized listings of links from around the web so you spend an evening getting listed in quality directories such as DMOZ or Yahoo, then a few more hours searching out smaller link directories. Here a new problem arises. I have noticed a trend in smaller directories today, you pay for a listing or for a free listing you have to reciprocate. Spend cash or get trash. Now what?

Content, Content, Content

We all know the most powerful way to get inbound, one-way links is to have great site content that other web sites will want to link to. So you write a few interesting and informative articles for your web site. Most of the top ranking web sites today got to the top because of great content why not you. Now you can send out a few e-mails to webmasters whose sites are in the same category and offer links to your content thus creating one way links, but they may ask for reciprocation, so what do you do?

The Real Silver Bullet, Three Way Links

If you are observant you will see that many websites are part of a group, sometimes owned by the same person. In many cases this has been done to push visitors, influence spiders or just for convenience. What ever the reason, if you can find this situation you can set up the perfect link scenario, three way links. I will give you only a couple examples. For these examples you are site A.

Text link from site A (your article) (PR3) linking to a similar article on site B (PR4) and a link back to site A's index page (PR5) from site C's index (PR5)

Or

A link from the partners page (PR3) on site A to the main page of site B (PR4) and a link from one of site C's category pages (PR4) to an article on site A (PR3)

In each link scenario everyone gets a one way link. This can be set up in any field of interest, internet, photography, fishing, hunting, shopping, anyplace where articles or content would appear. Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the key. If you come across an opportunity like this simply send an email to the web site owner requesting a possible three way link exchange. Ask them to visit your site and read your article first before making a decision. If your site is laid out well and the article content has some quality a smart webmaster will jump at the chance.

They may like a number of your articles so make sure each article has your byline with a link pointing to your site. Make sure that the text link has your keywords in it and not your domain name and remember that good author tag lines have a maximum of two links. Associating a Creative Commons license to your work is also a good idea, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit -- and only on the conditions you specify.

Summary

Increasing your search engine ranking is best accomplished by improving your web site's link popularity. This can be achieved by using your sites content as leverage in setting up one-way links via three way link exchanges. Each exchange takes a little time and a lot of thought but the end result will benefit both parties and seeing your efforts turn into a dramatic increase in traffic will be your reward.