With so much attention being paid to Google's Page Rank (PR) system, it's no wonder that one of the first things webmasters want to learn about when optimizing their site, is link popularity and how it can impact their web site's search engine rankings. Although it is true that the number and quality of links to your site plays an important role in the way that Google (and even some other search engines) rank your web site, this is not the only reason to be concerned about building link popularity.

The reality is that Google could drop this method of ranking at any moment, so focusing on building links solely as a means to rank well in Google isn't really the best reason to work on link building. Even apart from its impact on your search engine rankings, link building plays two other vitally important roles for a web site that each webmaster should consider when starting a link building campaign.

Perhaps the most obvious reason to build links is for the traffic that they can send to your web site. Before search engines even existed, hyperlinks were the primary method of moving from one page to another on the Web. Webmasters recognized quality sites that had something to offer to their own visitors and placed links to those sites on their own web pages. Web site visitors used those links to find their way to other valuable content on the Internet. Even today, a large portion of Internet users navigate from one site to the next via links. By seeking out web sites that offer complimentary products or information related to your own site and linking to them, you are offering a service to your visitors and enhancing their experience at your site.

The other reason, and the one that is more important in terms of SEO, is because a good link building campaign will help your site get indexed more quickly and more completely by the major search engines, even those that you might be tempted to pay for inclusion with. Spider-based search engines like Google, Alta Visa and FAST/AlltheWeb find new sites to include in their directory by following links. Nearly all of the major search engines use the popular directories (Yahoo!, DMOZ, GoGuides) as a starting point for finding new sites. Getting your site listed in these directories is a great way to get your site listed in the search engines. Additionally, while some spider-based search engines, like Inktomi, have a paid inclusion option, they will still include your web site for free if they find it on their own. By working on building links to your web site, you'll eventually get yourself in front of one of these spiders and will find yourself listed in the most popular search engines without ever paying a dime.