Not only the most popular search engine Google, but also other search engines, such as MSN, Inktomi, AltaVista, HotBot, Northern Light, and Excite, also use link popularity in their Search Ranking algorithms.
The factors determining link popularity are the quality of inbound links (measured by Google PR), the relevance of those sites to your site , the anchor text. Pagerank is the technology of google to measure the importance of a page based on the links pointing to that page –
More here (http://www.google.com/technology/)
Informative & Themed Website Development. provides quality informational outgoing links on your site, such as links to search engines, portals etc.
The two way link building with high rankings site will result in Link Popularity of your site. It generates highly targeted visitors and tremendous increase in web traffic when the visitor clicks on your link.
Google and other important search engines palce high value to the outbound links from Directories. The importang ones are Open Directory Project Dmoz, About, Skaffe, Joeant etc..
Write Articles
Write articles in your area of expertise, post
them on your site, and submit them to appropriate
publications across the Web.
Research linking opportunities within discussion lists, newsgroup, etc which relate to client's site.