Link Popularity: The number of sites which link to a particular site. Many search engines use link popularity as a factor in determining the search engine ranking of a website. Link Popularity Building helps your website gain PageRank. A higher PageRank enables your site to rank higher in Search Engines with competitive keywords
what is link popularity, besides just being the current web marketing fad?  Do you really need links?  How do you get them?  Which links are good, which are bad, and why should you care?  The reality is not every site needs links, yet others have to have them or they wont succeed. The key is understanding where your site fits into the Web's linking landscape
In search engine optimization, “off page” factors have become more and more important as they relate to rankings. In particular, solid link popularity can literally make or break a site with the search engines. However, one of the most difficult areas of SEO is building link popularity. Why? Because the engines don’t want “artificially created” (or useless) links, so there are no easy ways to build link popularity. The days of link farms and huge link exchange programs are over.
This is by far the oldest and best-known method of improving link popularity. Basically you e-mail or contact the Webmaster of a site that is complementary but generally not competitive to your own. You ask them to link to your site while outlining the benefits of doing so. You would generally offer to link back to them in exchange for this courtesy. Be sure you have developed genuine content on your Web site of interest to the trading partner. Explain the advantages to them and to their visitors by providing a link to your content. Tell them where the link on your site will be or set the link up in advance with the stipulation that you'll be glad to leave it there if they'll add a link to you in kind.

Link Building
The process of creating inbound links to owns website. This can be done reciprocal links...

Benefits of Building Link Popularity
Building Link Popularity is one of the most important and critical aspects of any effective Search Engine Optimization campaign today...

PageRank or PR of the Linking Page
PR of the linking page is one of the most important factors. PR of the linking page determines how much value of importance is passed on to your page...

Increase link popularity?
Getting quality links to your site from related web resources can be very difficult. It is a time consuming process and requires careful research...