Another common element that algorithms analyze is the way that pages link to other pages on the Web. By analyzing how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about (if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page)and whether that page is considered "important" and deserving of a boost in ranking.

An example of this would be: If your friends heard that you were associated with a famous actor or actress your popularity would naturally increase, well in the case of the search engines, the more important a site is that is linking to you determines how popular your website is (i.e. Google’s PageRank ™). This is referred to as link popularity or your inbound links. Just as the technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated to ignore keyword stuffing, it is also becoming savvier to web masters who build artificial links using link farms or exchanges to gain ranking.