If your site is deemed as popular by the search engines they think that people will want to see your site and therefore put you further up the list.

Popularity is made up of 2 factors, which and how many websites link to you (link popularity) and the number of clicks through to your site from the search engines (click through popularity). Getting both of these right will help you get up the listings and will also help ensure you stay on the search engines database.

Link Popularity - This is created by the number of websites who link to you and the 'importance' of those websites. A link from bbc.co.uk or yahoo.com would be rated very favourably as they are popular websites that people like to visit. Hundreds of links from smaller websites would still be seen favourably but getting the right links could save you time.

The search engines use the directories out there favourably so getting listed in them is crucial. Yahoo is the most widely used directory. The text around the links on the websites is also important as the search engines will remember this text and will check that the link is relevant to stop spam linking. Thus you should write to sites you want to link to and provide a suggested description of your services and/or site. This will get you more links and provide the right link text.

Click through popularity - This is based on the results of people viewing the search engines and clicking your link or not. If people click your link and then stay on your site for a reasonable amount of time you will rise up the search engine. Thus a good site, which isn't full of junk phrases, has a nice design and provides information people are looking for will rise up the engines.

The engines can tell what links were clicked, which websites had the back button clicked straight away and which sites were repeatedly visited. Thus if you have good content you will rise as people will stay on your site, come back another time and not click back on Google.