Quite simply, link popularity refers to the total number of in-coming links that a search engine has found for your website. The more high-quality links you have (i.e. from reputable sites) the better. Search engines use link popularity as a contributing factor to deciding how well to rank a web site.

There are several ways to increase your link popularity. One way is to ask webmasters to link their sites to yours. You should offer to link to them in return (known as reciprocal linking). Your best bet is to track down relevant sites by intelligent searching. Once you have found candidate sites, make a few checks e.g. you may wish to reject pornographic sites. You can also look at their page rank according to the Google search engine. To do that, you'll need to install the Google tool bar into your browser.

Other ways to increase your popularity are :
a) Offer sincere testimonials to sites you've appreciated. Give the webmaster permission to post your testimonial with the stipulation that a link back to your own site be posted with your testimonial.
b) Contribute to discussion forums. Some allow you to leave your URL with your post. An example forum is the Alcander Web Promotion Forum
c) Write an article and put it into every article bank you come across that you feel you can contribute to. Include your URL in the sign-off to the article. Here is an example article bank.
d) Submit to FFA Classifieds and directories, AOL classifieds and Yahoo classifieds regularly e.g. once a week.
e) Get listed on search engines and directories, even minor ones (as long as they are reputable). Your listing counts as a link to your site.
f) Use a link popularity service. The web promotion experts at Alcander have build a link popularity service into their overall web promotion service. You can also try linkagexpress.com.