Link Popularity 101: What It Is and How to Increase It

Even if you're only starting with SEO or link-building, you must have heard of PageRank, Domain Authority, or Domain Rating.

But what about link popularity?

If not, don’t worry! In the article, I will explain:

• What link popularity is
• Why it's important for SEO
• What metrics you can use to measure it
• How to improve it

Let's get started, shall we?

What is Link Popularity?

Link popularity is a measure of your website’s backlink profile strength. Or in other words, how many relevant backlinks point to your site and their quality.

Now, you may be wondering: is it the same as PageRank?

No, the two are somewhat similar but not exactly the same.

You can use link popularity to describe the whole website, not just a page.

It also takes into account more factors than just the link count and the quality of the referring web page. Like topical relevance.

Metrics for Evaluating "Link Popularity"

The SEO community uses a bunch of metrics to gauge link popularity. These have been developed by SEO tools, and include:

DA and PA: Domain Authority and Page Authority were developed by MOZ, and they assess website or page link profile strength on a scale from 1 to 100. The calculation is based on multiple factors, mostly the number of links pointing to a site/page and their quality.

DR and UR: Domain Rating and URL Rating are proprietary Ahrefs metrics that depend on the quality and number of backlinks. They use a logarithmic scale of 0-100.

CF and TF: Citation Flow is a metric by Majestic that measures the number of backlinks pointing to a website or page, while Trust Flow — their quality and trustworthiness.

AS: Authority Score is a Semrush metric measuring a website's overall quality and SEO strength on a scale from 0 to 100. In addition to link quantity and quality, it uses other factors like organic traffic and spam risk.

These metrics are super-convenient to use because just a quick glimpse is enough to get an idea of the website's quality.

But here's the kicker:

The metrics are easy to manipulate, for example, by buying low-quality links off Fiverr.

And they don't give you a full picture.

For example, they don't consider traffic growth trends, the number of outbound links, or content quality, which all affect the domain's value as a link source.

Why Is Link Popularity Important?

Search engine optimization experts care about link popularity for two reasons.

First, link-popular websites rank higher in search results. High-quality backlinks are like endorsements or votes of confidence. They signal to the search engines that your website is authoritative and trustworthy.

The more these endorsements, the better, especially in competitive niches like SaaS or legal services.

High link popularity also means that it's easier to earn more inbound links. You rank higher, so it's easier to find you, so you earn links organically. And your website is more attractive for prospective link partners because it will help them improve their domain authority.

How to Increase Link Popularity?

Now that you know its importance, let's look at ways to boost your link popularity.

Prioritize link relevance

To make an impact on search engine results, links need to be relevant.

By relevant, I mean ones that come from websites in related niches, are in content covering topics related to your niche, and targeting relevant audiences.

Here's an example of a relevant backlink we secured for our website. It comes from Mangools, an SEO platform, and specifically, a listicle with the best link-building tools, which is very much down our alley.

The article was written for link builders and SEOs, which is also our audience, and on top of this, it has a relevant anchor text that clearly describes what the reader will find when they click on the link.

In my opinion, link relevance is the most critical factor when assessing link popularity. All the other metrics are of secondary importance.

Focus your link-building efforts on strong websites

The rule of thumb is that links from websites with higher authority pass more link juice, or simply put, have more impact on your SERP performance.

A link from a DR82 website, like the one we got from Surfer, will enhance your link popularity more than a link from a DR62 website (assuming all other factors are similar).

What link-building strategies can you use to get such quality backlinks?

In my opinion, your best bets are:

• Digital PR (pitching stories to journalists working for well-known media outlets).
• HARO (responding to journalist requests for contributions to their articles on platforms like Qwoted, Featured, or SourceBottle).
• Creating linkable assets (research reports, like our State of Link-Building report, stat roundups, or free tools often attract links from highly authoritative websites).

Don’t build multiple backlinks from one website

Tools like Ahrefs count multiple links from the same domain as one when calculating their authority metrics.

This makes perfect sense: If you get 10 glowing reviews from the same customer, it may mean you only have one satisfied customer. It isn't as convincing as 10 5-star reviews from 10 different customers.

Links work in the same way.

Let me be clear:

Multiple links from the same domain won't harm your link popularity and can help you achieve your business goals. For example, if you write regular guest posts for the Backlinko or Ahrefs blogs, they'll likely bring lots of referral traffic to your site and boost your visibility and customer trust.

Sometimes, you don't have any control over who links to you and how many times. For example, SEOptimer, where we secured links by responding to their HARO requests, has multiple subdomains whose content is translated into various languages. As a result, 500 pages link to us.

However, if you're building links actively, for example, through outreach, it's best to focus your energy on unique domains.

Choose dofollow over nofollow links

When higher link popularity is your goal, prioritize building dofollow links.

The rel= attribute helps search engines understand the context of the links.

A nofollow attribute "distances" the website from the content they link to. A sponsored link means they got paid for placing it, while the UGC one indicates that the content was created by users, and the website's editorial standards may not apply.

Again, it doesn't mean these links are useless.

First, they can raise your brand awareness and bring customers to your website.

For example, I would always choose a nofollow link from a nationwide newspaper with thousands of readers over a dofollow link from a website with similar metrics but a smaller following.

These links will also help you appear in AI search results, and there's evidence that they do have an impact on SERP performance.

However, only a dofollow link attribute indicates that the website owner endorses the linked page. That's why SEO tools count only them when calculating their authority metrics.

Final Words

Link popularity is a wider concept than PageRank, DA, DR, AS, and all the other metrics created by SEO tools to quantify backlink profile strength. It covers not only link quality and number but also their relevance.

To increase link popularity, you need to build dofollow links from relevant high-authority websites — the more of them, the better.

Identifying enough opportunities to place such links is often challenging for in-house teams or freelance link-builders. They don't have the industry relationships necessary to reach the right websites.

That's when an established link-building agency can help.

If you need help boosting your link popularity, Editorial Link can help. Get in touch to arrange a free chat with one of our experts!