Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website's search engine ranking, popularity and importance.[9] Google's description of its PageRank system (January 1998), for instance, noted that "Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B."[10] Knowledge of this form of search engine rankings has fueled a portion of the SEO industry commonly termed linkspam, where a company…