What is Link Popularity?
Link popularity refers to the quantity and quality of backlinks that point to a given website. It’s essentially a measure of how “popular” or authoritative your site appears based on who is linking to it.
Analyzing link popularity means examining your backlink profile – looking at how many sites link to you, which sites those are, what anchor text they use, etc. – to understand your site’s credibility and to inform SEO strategy.
This concept goes back to the early days of Google. Google’s original algorithm counted backlinks as “votes” for a page’s importance (PageRank), making link popularity a core ranking factor. Even today, despite hundreds of ranking signals, backlinks remain a critical factor for SEO success. A strong link profile can significantly boost a site’s rankings, whereas a poor or spammy link profile can hurt it.
5 best practices for analyzing (and improving) link popularity
1. Number of backlinks and referring domains
At a basic level, how many total backlinks does your site have? And more importantly, how many unique websites (referring domains) are linking to you.
Generally, 100 links from 100 different sites is better for link popularity than 100 links from one site. Search engines look at the breadth of sites vouching for you. Analyzing this metric helps you gauge your overall link popularity relative to competitors.
For example, if competitor A has links from 500 domains and you have from 50, you’re likely at a disadvantage in link popularity. A famous study showed that the number of referring domains strongly correlates with higher Google rankings – top-ranking pages typically have significantly more unique sites linking to them than lower-ranking pages.
In fact, one analysis of over 1,000 searches found that over 96% of websites ranking in Google’s top 10 had more than 1,000 backlinks from unique domains.
While correlation isn’t pure causation, it underscores that high-ranking sites tend to earn lots of links.
2. Quality of linking sites
Not all links are equal. A link from a reputable, high-authority website (say, The New York Times or a .edu university site) greatly outweighs dozens of links from low-tier blogs. When analyzing link popularity, SEOs assess the authority metrics of linking domains.
Tools provide proprietary scores like Moz’s Domain Authority or Ahrefs’ Domain Rating as proxies for link quality. If your backlinks mostly come from sites with DA 10 or less (very low authority), your link popularity is weak despite quantity. Conversely, a few strong links from DA 80+ sites can move the needle a lot.
Also, links from trusted “seed” sites (like well-known sites in your industry, government or educational sites) carry more weight (thanks to algorithms related to TrustRank). So in analysis, you might list your top 20 links by authority to see the cream of your crop. If those are solid, you have a good foundation.
3. Relevance of linking sites
Search engines also evaluate how contextually relevant a linking site is to yours. A site about cooking linking to your tech SaaS might not provide as much benefit as a programming blog linking to your tech SaaS
Natural link profiles usually have relevance. So when analyzing, SEOs will categorize backlinks by topic. If you notice many links coming from completely unrelated niches, they might be less valuable or even suspect. For example, if an e-commerce fashion site somehow has lots of backlinks from gambling or adult sites (common in link spam schemes), it’s a bad sign. Ideally, your link profile should align with your industry.
4. Anchor text and link context
We touched on anchor text diversity above, which is also an analytics point. When doing link popularity analysis, you’ll often review the anchor texts of inbound links. This shows what keywords or phrases other sites use to link to you. It can reveal if your site is strongly associated with certain terms (good for SEO if those are your target keywords), and also flag over-optimization.
A natural spread might have a mix of branded anchors (“YourBrand”), generic terms (“website”, “click here”), and some keyword-rich anchors. If 70% of your anchors are exactly “best project management software”, it looks fishy and could trigger penalties. So analysis involves computing anchor text distribution. Many tools will list the top anchor texts for your backlinks.
4. Follow vs Nofollow Ratio
Another analytic point is how many links are “follow” (default) versus “nofollow” (the linking site marked them for search engines to ignore for ranking). While nofollow links may not directly boost rankings, a healthy profile usually has some of each.
It’s natural to get nofollow links from places like social media, Wikipedia, many forums, etc. Having zero nofollow links might mean you’ve only been building links in ways that always yield followed links – which could be a sign of manipulation.
So SEOs might say, “We have 10,000 backlinks, of which 6,000 are follow and 4,000 nofollow” – that’s a reasonable mix. If that ratio is heavily skewed, they might adjust link building tactics.
5. Link growth over time (Velocity)
Link popularity analysis isn’t just a snapshot; it’s also historical. Link velocityr efers to the rate at which a site is gaining (or losing) backlinks. A sudden surge in link acquisition could indicate a viral campaign or possibly link spam if unnatural. A steady upward slope is what you want.
When analyzing, SEO tools can show charts of referring domains over time. Consistent growth indicates content marketing and PR efforts are paying off, whereas flat lines suggest stagnation. Sharp drops might indicate lost links (maybe a bunch of links from one site went away if that site shut down or removed them).
Monitoring link velocity helps identify events – e.g., “Hey, we got 50 new domains linking to us in March, what happened? Oh, our infographic got picked up by some blogs.” It’s a useful diagnostic.
Tools for link popularity analysis
There are specialized SEO tools to gather and present this data. Popular ones include Ahrefs, Moz Link Explorer,
These tools crawl the web (like mini search engines) to build backlink indices. With them, you can: see all known backlinks to a site, filter them by authority or anchor text, compare your link profile to competitors, find new links gained or lost in specific periods, etc.
For example, Ahrefs’ Site Explorer will show you total referring domains, a breakdown of backlinks by type (text, image, redirect), the top pages on your site by backlinks, and even your competitors’ link gaps (sites linking to them but not you).
Moz provides a metric called Spam Score which can highlight potentially toxic links. Majestic gives metrics like Trust Flow and Citation Flow to gauge quality vs quantity of links.
Link Popularity vs Domain Authority
Often, people conflate the two. Domain Authority (DA) is a metric (created by Moz) that basically scores link popularity and other link factors on a 0-100 scale.
A high DA roughly means strong link popularity. So in analysis, SEOs sometimes shorthand “our DA is 45 and competitor is 60, we need better links.” Google doesn’t use DA specifically, but it uses the underlying reality of link strength that DA tries to model. L
ink popularity analysis thus is frequently about improving such authority metrics by obtaining more high-quality backlinks.
Frequently asked questions
How can competitive link analysis uncover growth opportunities?
It shows you where competitors are getting backlinks that you’re missing. Maybe they’re on review sites, contributing to popular blogs, or getting press coverage. Once you see that, you can reach out to the same sites or pitch similar content. Unlike other SEO factors, backlinks are visible. That makes them one of the easiest areas to reverse-engineer and act on. It’s less guesswork and more strategy when you know exactly who’s linking to your competitors.
What’s the benefit of analyzing anchor text in backlinks?
It helps you understand how other sites are framing your brand or content. If all your backlinks just say your brand name, you’re missing out on chances to rank for keywords. Competitors might be earning links with anchors like “best project management software,” which helps them rank. You don’t need to force it, but gently guiding editors toward more descriptive anchors can help. It’s a small tweak that, over time, improves search visibility.
When should you disavow backlinks?
Only if you’ve inherited a messy link profile or see clear signs of spam. For example, if you notice hundreds of backlinks from low-quality sites, auto-generated pages, or keyword-stuffed blog comments, it’s worth reviewing them. Google usually ignores low-quality links, but in extreme cases, disavowing can clean up your profile. The goal isn’t a perfect backlink list—it’s to avoid penalties or filters that could drag down your rankings for months without you realizing.
How does link popularity help in a zero-click search world?
Even if you’re not getting the click, backlinks still matter. They increase your domain authority, which can help your content land in featured snippets or rich results. In many cases, ranking higher on the page—even if clicks are lower—still boosts brand visibility and trust. Think of links as the foundation that supports all your SEO content. If your content ranks in a competitive space, strong link popularity probably played a role.
What should you track after a link-building campaign?
Look at the number of new referring domains, the quality of those domains, and which pages got the links. Then check how rankings shift over time. If you land 50 solid backlinks and move from position 8 to 4 for a core keyword, that’s strong validation. Metrics like domain rating, anchor text spread, and total link diversity also help. Keep measuring, because the real impact of link-building often plays out over weeks or months.
