The answer to this question is both YES and NO.

“Link popularity” is the one of newest buzzword in the Internet society and is something the search engine optimizers (SEOs) are discussing nonstop. For those uncertain of what it means, link popularity essentially describes how popular your website is, based on the number of links from other sites, that point to yours. It is a bit more complex than that but, for this article that simple definition should suffice.

YES:

The search engines in their quest to create meaningful and creative results for their users are using this particular property of your website to help filter and arrange the massive amount of websites in their databases. One of the finest ways to get links is to give links, through reciprocal exchanges. Using link exchanges does two things. First one, it makes getting links easier. Second one, by adding links to other quality websites, it augment the quality of your own website.

NO:

Getting websites to link to your website is essential, but quality out ranks quantity. This is true for the websites you obtain to link to you and most definitely for your own website’s content.