Link popularity, big in search engine ranking of late, may be as difficult to accomplish as the top 30 ranking itself. Using links can't fail. Even if you don't reach the top 30 ranking, linking will bring more traffic.

You sign guestbooks, use classified ads and swap links. Keep a database of those sites linked to you. This will become an important part of link popularity.

You will submit this database to the search engines for a link popularity boost. As the search engine follows the links, the pages found will be added to the search engines database. Your link will more easily be found on the search engines.

If you haven't already started a database, you might think this
is going to be a tough chore, especially if you have thousands
of links on the internet. It might not be as hard as you think.

You need the tools that can find pages linked to yours and put
them in a database. Here are my recommendations:

URL Spider Pro v1.92 http://www.innerprise.net/us4.asp

WebWolf 2.03 http://www.msw.com.au/webwolf/

After you have your database of links, you'll want to convert
them to HTML format. Try:

DataBox v2.1 http://www.simplewebfx.greatxscape.net/

DB to HTML Express 1.5
http://www.xlinesoft.com/db2html/download.htm

DB-HTML Converter PRO v1.4 http://www.primasoft.com/dbhtmlp.htm

A product that gathers the links and puts them directly into
HTML format is:

QueryN MetaSearch v2.1
http://www.freeflowsoftware.com/freeflowsoftware/Products.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,000UBZ,.html

You have your web page with of links, now you need to submit it to the search engines. Of course, the best way of doing this is to go to each search engine site and submit to them individually. If you need to save time, these submission tools work great:

Submitta Standard 1.1 http://www.submitta.co.uk/download/

CybeRat v1.4 http://www.cyberat.com/promotion/download.htm

PageCrafters Submission Services http://pagecrafters.net/url.htm

Here is a good tool for gathering new reciprocal links. Be sure to add those new links to your database.

Link Crafter v1.020
http://linkcrafter.bannermation.com/fc/LinkCrafter

For me, this is the 'piece de la resistance' (what ever that means). It will copy any URL from any clipboard application till you tell it to stop. Put this piece of software in copy mode and copy links till the cows come home.

URL Manager 2000 http://www.dlcwest.com/~sorev/downloads.htm

It's all about making the work easier, more productive. Now you can have more time for relaxing, or maybe for more work. Sheesh!