Can You Rank Without Backlinking?

[DerekP]

With all the new emphasis on on-page metrics and social metrics, would it be possible to rank well without putting much emphasis on backlinking if your content is significantly better than the rest of the ranking pages?

Say #1 to #5 are pages of 500 word generic content. We come in with 2,000 word specific, high-quality content.

Can we get by without spending as much time/energy on backlinking? Would the on-page factors make up for it, or has the game not changed that much?

[AaronSchinke]

Ryan is right. However I believe PERFECT on-page can still overcome links to some extent. I see it happen everyday, however the root domains I work with have some authority built up which helps to some degree.

[salmann]

I hope you have already got your answer i.e "No, you can't rank well without backlinks" but let me remind you that if you have an excellent site with some decent pagerank let's say pr 5 or 6, and you are linking to your newly written 2000 words article sitewide, there is a great chance that you will rank for it.

Backlink is usually considered as external link, however site internal linking factor also plays vital role for getting your content indexed and ranked well!

As it's my first ever response, I would appreciate insights from other experts.

[RobertFisher]

Ryan is really on point here. We have a myriad of sites we manage and it is always interesting when we are surprised early on to find that a recently (one or two months) indexed site is moving up quickly in the rankings. Invariably, it is around queries that are much less competitive.

An example would be oil recycling, antifreeze recycling, etc. Sites we put up for a company that collects, processes, and recycles hydrocarbon waste streams practically rocketed to the top in multiple locations. When you looked at the sites they were competing with, the reason was obvious: they had not been touched in a long time and there were few of them.

With attorney sites, try starting a new mesothelioma site and getting to the top fifty on any main engine even with excellent back links....... And, please, take a tranquilizer if you are in the least impatient.

In reality, it mirrors any endeavor: Where there is a lot of competition, at the top there are some smart competitors.

[kdaly100]

Hi Derek

There was a time when I was in the camp that content was enough,  however the statistics tell us that although content is a significant part of the pie chart of factors it is still only one of them.  Like you I held onto the hope that if I build great content and sat back that the people would find me and the rankings would come.  However mostly from this forum and from extensive reading elsewhere I have let go of this grip.

, would it be possible to rank well without putting much emphasis on backlinking if your content is significantly better than the rest of the ranking pages?

The short answer is if the niche is non-competitive then possibly but if there is any element of search traffic then no.

But all is not lost.  First however do not become fascinated with an actual word count for your posts as length does not equal quantity (in fact break it up into a 2-3 part articles if it is good.

But back to the question.  If you have good content and believe it is better than the others than you should work on publicising it and encouraging people to link to it through the many link building methods available.  Even when you say that you have a 2,000 word  article of good content I am immediately interested personally in seeing it.    Have you put it out on Google+ which is now open to everyone?

Do you Tweet it, Facebook it and put it on your Feedburner even? Have you emailed your friends, customers and colleagues telling them about it.  This isn’t link building per sé but it is a small part of the many things that go on.

** or has the game not changed that much?**

Again what I realise more and more is that the game IS changing every single day as new tools approaches come into play.  However saying that I would say pick 5-6 strategies and work these for 3-4 weeks while continuing to build the quality content you mention.  Work these hard (look here on SEOMOZ for some of them).  Track your performance for desired keywords.  Revise strategy, maybe change an approach and start again.

It is hard work and I consider myself a super-novice compared to others but it is about applicaton, assigning your SEO block of time per day then just doing it.  In fact I think SEO is even becoming a depreciated term  as I often think of it as site public relations more than optimisation.  If you publicise your site well the results is good rankings as people line up to link and publicise it for you.

Hope this helps ??? (send the link would like to see the site!)

Some other Useful SEOMOZ Resources to Have a Look At

• The Definitive Beginners Training
• An excellent SEO Powerpoint Deck from Rand which I 'borrow' from a lot
• This Q&A Forum will help but use the search function as well as nearly all the bog posts and articles are well thought out and well written from intro to advanced

Best of luck

Kieran

[RyanKent]

Ranking depends completely on competition. If there is no competition, you can rank with onpage factors alone. If there is competition, then links make a big difference.

Keep in mind competition does not simply mean other companies selling the same product or service. Wikipedia is one example of a site that competes for many search terms.