mysql 2 tables and count

[poe]

i have 2 tables


links (3 fields)
- id - | - name - | - url -
1 | msn | www.msn.com
2 | google web page | www.google.com
3 | cnn news | www.cnn.com
4 | yahoo home page | www.yahoo.com
etc...


clicks (2 fields)
- id - | - link_id -
1 | 2
2 | 4
3 | 4
4 | 1
5 | 3
6 | 3
7 | 4
etc...


as someone clicks a link, the link _id is recorded in my clicks table.

i now want to show the results by most popular link to least.

ie.
- rank - | - id - | - count - | - url - | - name -
1 | 4 | 73 | www.yahoo.com |  yahoo home page
2 | 3 | 24 | www.cnn.com | cnn news
3 | 2 | 18 | www.google.com | google web page
.... etc....


$query = " SELECT link_id, COUNT(link_id) AS id_count FROM clicks GROUP BY link_id ORDER BY id_count DESC ";


this will give me ...
- rank - | - id - | - count -
1 | 4 | 73
2 | 3 | 24
3 | 2 | 18
.... etc....


but, how do i get my results to include the data from links table (url, name)



$query = " SELECT clicks.link_id, COUNT(clicks.link_id) AS id_count, links.url, links.name FROM clicks, links GROUP BY link_id ORDER BY id_count DESC ";

if i use this query, my count is way off as if it takes the count multiplied by number of records in the links table

[Barand]

You need to specify the join condition for the tables otherwise, as you have noticed, each record in one table is joined with every record in the other table
[code]
SELECT clicks.link_id, COUNT(clicks.link_id) AS id_count,
    links.url, links.name
FROM clicks INNER JOIN links ON links.id = clicks.link_id
GROUP BY link_id
ORDER BY id_count DESC
[/code]