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womble
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Content vs. backlinks - 6/29/2006 21:08:04
A contraversial one, this one, I know, but I thought I'd share my experiences...
Tonight, while submitting a site to DMOZ I decided to check out a client site I submitted to DMOZ a couple of months ago and then forgot about it. To my surprise (after stuff I've read about DMOZ recently) it was listed! That prompted me to check out the site's ranking in various serach engines. I've done no serious SEO on it, just designed the site, added the content, put in the meta keywords, published the site and submitted to the major SE's, and that was that. Moved onto the next project.
There's around 50 pages of what I would consider good quality content on there (at least in human terms), but the site has very few backlinks at all. We're talking possibly (being optimistic) just into double figures, from sites that are pretty relevant, but don't have significant PRs. In it's present form the site's been up about 8 months.
With the two keywords I think it's most likely people would use if they were looking for information on the subject in question, I got the following results:
- Google - 36th
- Yahoo - 20th
- MSN - 4th
- Ask.com - 11th
- AltaVista - 9th
Not bad going I don't think.
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Tailslide
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 6/30/2006 2:54:59
Thing is, if you really have unique, quality content (and the site you're talking about does) then you don't have huge competition in the SERPs.
These days though there are very few sites that actually do have good, unique content - it's usually just rehashed pap or directories of directories of directories (ad infinitum). When you don't have decent content or are unable to effectively localise your market then you have no choice but to rely on backlinks.
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Little Blue Plane Web Design | Blood, Sweat & Rust - A Land Rover restoration project
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thatguy
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 6/30/2006 8:48:54
Overall I say backlinks can overcome content, especially in Google it would seem, but not vice versa - and therefore backlinks win.
Googlebombing is the old example of this - type in miserable failure and see what comes up. Hint: many pages without miserable or failure in the entire webpage. Just a lot of links with miserable failure pointing to them. How good and unique your content is will determine how many backlinks you will need to rank.
BTW, I've noticed the same thing with MSN ranking me higher on many things. I think they must have links a lot lower in the algo. Maybe a good measure of where your content is at??? And maybe google is a good measure of where the links are at???
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Reflect
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 6/30/2006 10:11:23
I think it comes down to the genre you are trying to place in as far as content, quantity, and quality of links come into play.
Now a second step you could do is get 1000 back links pointing to that site. Then see what sort of boost you get. I think you will see a rise, which will show you that it is a mixture of content and backlinks.
However on the competitive keywords, read high millions on returns of query, it will always at this point in time, come down to backlinks having a greater weight.
IMHO only.
Take care,
Brian
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Tailslide
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 6/30/2006 10:24:07
It does depend on your market. If you're trying to appeal to a limited locale then backlinks aren't that important. If you're trying to appeal to national or international audiences then they are.
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"My strategy is so simple an idiot could have devised it"
Little Blue Plane Web Design | Blood, Sweat & Rust - A Land Rover restoration project
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Tailslide
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 6/30/2006 11:39:15
It still depends on your target audience and how far and wide they're spread - I've got very few quality backlinks (less than 20) to my site but I get top or second position in Google because I'm targeted for my location.
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womble
Posts: 5461
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From: Living on the edge
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 6/30/2006 13:05:35
Yes, like Tail, the site in question is quite location specific (though it does attract visitors from further afield), and in terms of content I suppose on a scale of uniqueness it's erring towards the unique end of the scale though there are a few national scale sites that cover a similar area.
On backlinks, again, like Tail, the site doesn't have that many quality backlinks. Those it has on the whole are also pretty localised, and then it's listed in a handful of directories.
Yes, maybe more backlinks may increase it's SE ranking, but requests for the site's e-newsletter suggest it's hitting it's target audience, so for eight months old I don't think it's doing too bad.
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Starhugger
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 7/12/2006 14:59:49
quote:
ORIGINAL: thatguy
Googlebombing is the old example of this - type in miserable failure and see what comes up. Hint: many pages without miserable or failure in the entire webpage. Just a lot of links with miserable failure pointing to them.
Pardon my duh, but what is Googlebombing? And how on earth does a phrase like that get pointed at an officialgovernment website?? That's bizarre!
Starhugger
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frypo
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RE: Content vs. backlinks - 8/28/2006 7:38:50
quote:
ORIGINAL: rdouglass
quote:
it is a mixture of content and backlinks
I think Brian is right on here in that if you want to be ranked high, you just *cannot* ignore either. Yes content is important and yes links are important.
…..
It's like most other arguements regarding things like CSS vs. tables and stuff like that; you just cannot go completely either way, you have to work with both to be truly effective and efficient.
quote:
Maybe you're not after the bigger audience and that's OK but I think many sites (at least on most of the sites I work on) don't want to limit to a local area. That's why they get on the web in the first place so they don't have to publish an ad in every local Yellow Pages or other such publication / directory and to reach a *global* or at least regional audience.
Yes, indeed, if you want word about your business to spread all around the world you will need more and more of backlinks. This is also right for situations when you don't have _unique_ content – your new site just one of the hundreds of websites with similar popular services/products. And in that case you really need to spend time on promotion to compete with web resources which already have a good length of service in this field of services.
There are rumors by one of my acquaintance that new project will help webmasters to get high quality incoming links. I obtained link from him to page of that project. You can get free report about it here, http://www. mavericksocializer.com/free-report.html . To my knowledge it will use fair technique, not Googlebombing of some sort ;).
<edit>I broke the link but left in case for anyone. Marketing.</edit>
< Message edited by Reflect -- 8/28/2006 14:50:18 >
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