Search Engine Optimization Programs | SEO Tutorial Program

Link Importance (Citation Index)

Link importance is a deciding factor in the indexing of a web page in the search engine results page. The number of inbound links is the important external factor for the search engine to index a webpage in the search results. Link importance plays a significant role in calculating the quality of the inbound links and citation index can be the virtual calculation to evaluate the popularity of the link. The actual method for the computation of the link importance differs with the individual search engines, and to maintain their integrity, the rules behind the tabulation remains unclear. However, the search engine optimization experts have formulated an overview about the performance of the search engine algorithms.

Link importance became a parameter to assess the relevancy of a webpage, along with the rise of search engine optimization. As the internet evolved into an  immediate assistant for people, the responsibility of the search engines has also increased, to provide the most appropriate information as results for the queries. Search engines use their own potential algorithms to differentiate the web pages, while it crawls through them. However, with search engine optimization it became difficult to rate a web page solely on its internal factors and considered external factors such as inbound links. However, it is not  wise to judge a site exclusively on its numbers and the measure to assess the link quality such as link importance became prominent in such situations.

Link importance is considered as the determining factor for the authenticity of the referral pages that directs the link. The citation index can be the calculating tool, which is proportional to the number of visits to the page. Most often they are computed on the basis of probability, and as the number of visits increases the site will gain importance. As the citation index is on the basis of probability, for the real calculation is the logarithm of the value to the base 10. As no search engine will reveal the real facts, mostly the approximate values are taken in for the consideration of the link importance. Page ranks, PR 4 to 5 seems to indicate average sites, PR 6 and 7 is for very popular and proficient sites and PR 8, 9, 10 are the sites of the web giants such as Yahoo, Google, and MSN. Obviously, the links from the top ranking sites will considered for the indexing of the webpage in the search results.

Link importance play a major role in search engine optimization since the webmasters has to gather the inbound links, to achieve a better indexing. You have to adopt link popularity measures to gather inbound links. However, the inbound links from the high page rank sites only can attribute the benefits of inbound links. And, link importance and citation index has to be accounted in this context.