Link Popularity is the term given to both the quality and the quantity of links that are directed towards a single website. This measure takes into account not just the number of backlinks that a website possesses, but also the quality of those links. Link quality is accessed by the relative authority of the linking website. A well-visited news website will have a higher authority than a smaller, less-visited blog.
Link popularity itself is a significant factor in the ranking of any given webpage. It’s something that SEO experts attempt to improve when they work with websites to establish more, better backlinks to their webpages.