The Purpose of this Article:
Because building link popularity is one of the most difficult and time consuming aspects of search engine marketing, we decided to join forces to create a list of legitimate ways you can build link popularity for your site.

What we hoped to do was come up with a list of 101 ideas. Instead, we came up with a list of 131.

Here you'll find a brief excerpt of the article here. Use the link provided at the end of the article to view the entire article online.

Start with the Basics
Here's the simple means to find those good links. Go to the major search engines. Search for your target keywords. Look at the pages that appear in the top results. Now visit those pages and ask the site owners if they will link to you. Not everyone will, especially sites that are extremely competitive with you. However, there will be non-competitive sites that will link to you -- especially if you offer to link back. Why is this system good? By searching for your target keywords, you'll find the pages that the search engines themselves are telling you are good, as evidenced by the fact that they rank well. Hence, links from these pages are more important -- and important for the terms you are interested in -- than links from other pages. (Danny Sullivan with Search Engine Watch) SEARCHDAY NOTE: Search Engine Watch members have access to a long article by Danny explaining both link analysis and appropriate link building in depth.

Who Should You Target?
Go after authoritative sites. Look for vertical engines and directories in your topic areas. Look for popular sites. One or two authoritative sites linking back to you will do you more good than 1,000 irrelevant links. Visit Search Engine Guide and Beaucoup for a listing of vertical engines and directories. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Work on building rapport with other Webmasters. By building up a "working rapport" with other local Webmasters or affiliates, there are lots of ways that you can mutually benefit by trading links with several similarly themed sites, which are non-competing. Once you start working with other Webmasters, it's surprising what synergies may develop. Remember to give your very best to your fellow Webmasters as these relationships are win/win. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO.com and Search Engine Workshops)

Become a Content Provider
The bottom line is the easiest most obvious answer. It's also the toughest to do. Give people a reason to link to you. Think about it. Sites get linked to for a reason: usually if they provide the most information or the best resources on a particular topic. Is there any reason WHY people should link to your site? (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

A very effective strategy to gain quality links as well as traffic is to license content from your site for free in exchange for a link back to you. For example, we encourage anyone to post individual articles or the entire MarketPosition newsletter on their own Web sites so long as they properly credit us for the material and link back to our sites. (Brent Winters with First Place Software)

Be Creative and Visible!
One of our most successful methods for increasing link popularity is to offer "awards" (a gif that links back to our site). We create a strong incentive for the awardee to place the award on their site because the awardee perceives a benefit - he gets to tell the world that another site recognized his site as a quality site. One way we do this at NetMechanic is to offer "Star Performer" awards to Web sites that get 4 or more stars on their site when they run our validator tool over their site.(Chris Churchill of NetMechanic)

Especially for B2B Sites:
A few suggestions to increase external link popularity to B2B sites: Incorporate the requirement to link to your site in all contracts with:

Netscape maintained its Internet dominance until 1997, when, with a wicked one-two punch, Internet Explorer's fourth version wrested both title and market share from Netscape. Netscape--outdated, slow, and unstable--went down for the count.

But after a two-year hiatus (and a disastrous 6.0 release), Netscape released a major 6.1 upgrade (and, more recently, a minor 6.2 update) that's meaner, leaner, and faster than ever. At last, buggy, slow Netscape is nearly as strong, stable, and speedy as IE. But IE 6 still controls more than 70 percent of the browser market. Does Netscape have what it takes to win the browser wars once and for all? We're determined to find out.

So we pitted browser against browser in a battle to the surfing finish. Dan "Tyson" Tynan, frequent CNET contributor and author of our biweekly "Inside @ccess" column, represented the challenger, Netscape. Rex "Holyfield" Baldazo, a CNET software engineer and longtime Web jockey, stood in for the champion, IE. Our combatants duked it out in five rounds of sparring over installation ease, interface quality, speed, security, and standards support.

Finally, CNET convened an impartial jury of seven editors (from our Software, Electronics, Hardware, and Enterprise departments) and one CNET content producer. The jury reviewed each set of arguments and voted on a winner for each round. Did Microsoft dominate the ring, or did Netscape deliver a TKO to IE? Read on.

Round 1: Installation -

Argument for Netscape 6.2
Dan: Installing software should be as easy as falling out of bed, only less painful. And Netscape is possibly the most painless install I've ever encountered. Simply download the 500K installation applet from the Netscape site or from CNET Download.com, then launch it at your leisure. Over DSL, the installer downloaded the whole 25MB enchilada from Netscape, set up the program, and launched the browser in less than six minutes. No muss, no fuss, and no rebooting.

Argument for Internet Explorer 6
Rex: Installation? What installation? You buy a copy of Windows, you get IE installed free! OK, maybe the Justice Department has a problem with that, but let's face it: most folks don't have to worry about installing IE because it comes with Windows (heck, it's even preinstalled on Macs). And even if for some reason you do have to install it (say, you have a version of Windows with IE 4.0 preinstalled and you've never upgraded), it's a breeze. Just download the 500K install program, select the parts you want, and the installer downloads only the components you specified.

Round 2: Interface and features

Argument for Netscape 6.2
Dan: A browser is a browser is a browser, right? Well, not quite. Sure, both Netscape and IE will grab Web pages, play media files, and serve up e-mail. It's the small touches that count and, hands down, Netscape's interface is cleaner and smarter than IE's.

For example: Both browsers feature the standard complement of buttons and toolbars, but only Netscape also makes it a snap to grab a stock quote, go shopping, look for a job, or check e-mail. Just click the down arrow next to the URL location window, select "Get a stock quote" (for example), type the ticker symbol in the window, and hit Enter. Netscape launches its personal finance portal and provides a 20-minute-delayed quote. It's simplicity itself.

Argument for Internet Explorer 6
Rex: Unlike Netscape, which seems to relish changing its user interface (UI) every couple of months, Microsoft hasn't changed IE's basic browser interface significantly since version 4.0. Instead, each version introduces several handy incremental interface tweaks and perhaps some security enhancements or new menus. Anyone who's used any IE 4.x version will feel instantly comfortable with IE 6.

Round 3: Speed and performance

Argument for Netscape 6.2
Dan: When you're surfing the Web, every second counts, and Netscape's Gecko rendering engine is just a wee bit faster than IE's. I conducted my own informal test by using both browsers to access 10 popular Web sites over DSL. Netscape loaded pages in an average of 10.5 seconds, more than a second faster than IE did. Multiply that by the hundreds of pages I view every week, and the difference adds up.

Finally, although Netscape 6 was shakier than a belly dancer in an earthquake--just look at the thing and it would crash--versions 6.1 and 6.2 are a lot more stable. I was able to open 20 separate Netscape windows at once without a hiccup. Just try that with IE.

Argument for Internet Explorer 6
Rex: Internet Explorer has been the speed champ among browsers since version 3.0 first came out. Each edition has consistently started faster and loaded Web pages more quickly than any other full-featured browser on the market. In fact, until Netscape 6.1, IE consistently ate Netscape browsers for lunch in this department, often loading Web pages twice as fast. Sure, Netscape 6.1 and 6.2 have almost caught up speedwise, but it has taken the browser a very, very long time just to reach parity.

Round 4: Security

Argument for Netscape 6.2
Dan: There's no such thing as a perfectly secure browser. Still, experts seem to uncover a new IE flaw every week. (For a sobering look at just how leaky Microsoft's browser is, check out bug hunter Georgi Guninski's list of flaws.) I'll take my chances with Netscape, thank you very much.

For one thing, Netscape makes it far easier to control your privacy and security settings. Let's say you want to change the way Netscape handles cookies. You launch the browser, select Edit > Preferences, click Privacy And Security, and select Cookies in the Category box.

Argument for Internet Explorer 6
Rex: Sure, a lot of hackers have exposed security flaws in IE, but that's because all of the hackers are focusing on IE; I suspect that if the same zeal were used against Netscape, that browser might have just as many security flaws. Besides, in response to these attacks, IE developers have been forced to continually beef up the browser's security, so, in fact, it's probably more secure than any lesser browser. (As the saying goes: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.) Microsoft constantly releases security patches for IE, and installing these patches is as easy as pie: just click the Windows Update button from the Windows Start menu. If Windows Update detects that your browser lacks a key security upgrade, you'll be guided through a simple series of downloads to install the fix. No fuss, no muss.

Round 5: Standards and plug-in support

Argument for Netscape 6.2
Dan: Two words: open source. That's the biggest difference between the new Netscape and the old "we are the world" Microsoft. Netscape's Gecko engine is an ongoing project involving thousands of independent software developers, all adhering to open Web standards--and making it the most compatible browser in history.

Argument for Internet Explorer 6
Rex: No contest here: IE is, and always has been, way ahead of Netscape in implementing Web standards such as XML (Extensible Markup Language). Internet Explorer 6 continues that tradition: it provides full support for key World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web standards such as the DOM (Document Object Model) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). These technologies make it easier for Web developers to build full-featured Web applications with IE.

CNET's decision: It's a tie!
Who'd have thought? After adjudicating five rounds of convincing arguments, we ended up with a hung jury. True, Netscape won the popular vote hands down. But our traditional voting process demands that we call it a tie. (Fortunately, we didn't allow any room for a third-party browser, such as Opera, to snatch votes away from either contestant.)

Although we're surprised that eight opinionated people couldn't manage to pick a victor, in terms of CNET's official reviews of the two browsers, this result makes perfect sense. Both Netscape 6.x and IE 6 scored 7 out of 10 in our official CNET reviews, each earning an equal share of bonuses and demerits. The upshot? You'll have to choose a browser based on what's most important to you. If you want tight security, Java support, and (thanks to version 6.2) support for both Windows XP and Mac OS X, go with Netscape. For a familiar, customizable interface and a simple installation process, go with Internet Explorer.