Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Are backlinks the most important factor in SEO?
-
I have had an agency state that "Backlinks are the most important factor in SEO". That is how they are justifying their strategy of approaching bloggers. I believe there are a lot more factors than that including Target Market definition, Keyword identification an build content based on these factors. What's everyone's thoughts?
-
No. Goodbacklinks are one of the most important factors, as they are a source of traffic to the site, and a souce for Google to validate your site's content.
if you have a ton of good links, but the rest of the site is garbage, you probably wont get very good results. The algorithm looks at over 200 separate bits of information when determining where to rank a site. Are backlinks high on that list? Absolutely. Does that mean that you can have thin content, bad optimization and design? No.
Stating that "Backlinks are the most important factor in SEO" sounds more like a marketing phrase used by that company to sell their services.
-
We have some good background information about search engines and SEO in general at http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo that can help you with the bigger picture, too.
-
HI,
Just to add my 2 cents. As already mentioned, links are THE most important factor in rankings. You only have to see who and what Google is after with penalties to make that conclusion or run your own tests. Having said that your SEO company is right but it also means that if they dont do it properly or abuse it or focus too much only on building links and doing nothing else, you will probably end up with a bunch of links from their netword (or some rented) and that wont do any good to you.
Hope it helps
-
Hi there,
If we look at what SEO is - its about optimizing your site for search engines and unfortunately search engines still use links as a large factor in determining whats worth ranking but whilst they may be the bigger factor its not the only one. Many people would argue that if you make a site for users. Make it so great that they want to share it and that its the best it can be. Creating thousands of links won't work any more (and if it does its only temporary) so be careful on your SEO strategy. If you're unsure you can always ask to see previous work and you can shop around but your right there is more to SEO than just links. .
Best of luck.
-
Hi Andy,
I would agree that GOOD backlinks are probably the most important factor in ranking your sites in competitive markets but to get there you really need to address all the other elements you mentioned of SEO as well. If they started 'link building' out of the blue there's probably not much idea behind it. Just my 2 cents!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Are "Powered By..." type footer backlinks good or bad for SEO?
Hi guys, We're running a software company which is also selling WP themes amongst other things. We've heard recently that footer backlinks like "Powered by BigBangThemes" might do more harm than good. Some clients usually forget to change them - so we want to make sure we stop including them in case this is true. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andy.bigbangthemes0 -
SEO for multiple languages [Arabic]
Hello all, I am currently managing a Marketplace that comes in two different languages: English & Arabic. The English website is, fortunately, doing quite well in terms of SEO performances but, not the Arabic one. The website has two kinds of content: Static content: controlled by me. It includes menu items, navigation, static pages etc which is properly translated among the two languages User-uploaded content: It includes ads/news posted by the user which may not be translated to Arabic if they chose not to do it. Now if somebody goes to the Arabic website and check a news item that doesn't have an Arabic translation, it will show the English title. I am assuming, serving content in a different language that is specified in the hreflang is a straight no, right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozammilStorat0 -
Bit.ly backlinks
Hi all, what experience do you have with Bit.ly links? Can I use it for backlinking management?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tormar3 -
Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO
Hey I know the importance of both onsite & offsite, primarily with regard to outreach/content/social. One thing I am trying to determine at the moment, is how much do I invest in offsite. My current focus is to improve our onpage content on product pages, which is taking some time as we have a small team. But I also know our backlinks need to improve. I'm just struggling on where to spend my time. Finish the onsite stuff by section first, or try to do a bit of both onsite/offsite at the same time?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.
A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links? Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be? thank yoyu
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen1 -
Are dropdown menus bad for SEO
I have an ecommerce shop here: http://m00.biz/UHuGGC I've added a submenu for each major category and subcategory of items for sale. There are over 60 categories on that submenu. I've heard that loading this (and the number of links) before the content is very bad for SEO. Some will place the menu below the content and use absolute positioning to put the menu where it currently is now. It's a bit ridiculous in doing things backwards and wondering if search engines really don't understand. So the question is twofold: (1) Are the links better in a bottom loading sidemenu where they are now? (2) Given the number of links (about 80 in total with all categories and subcategories), is it bad to have the sidemenu show the subcategories which, in this instance, are somewhat important? Should I just go for the drilldown, e.g. show only categories and then show subcategories after? Truth is that users probably would prefer the dropdown with all the categories and second level subcategories, despite the link number and placement.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney1 -
Is DOCTYPE important for SEO?
Hello fellow Mozzers. I am just having a brief look at a potential clients website before speaking to them tomorrow and whilst looking at the source I noticed that they don't appear to have a clear definition for their Doctype. All the have at the top of each page is I have to admit that Doctypes aren't my strong point but I know that they are normally slightly more descriptive than this. Can this have any effect on rankings? or is this just an issue for W3C validation? Thanks 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis0 -
Link Age as SEO factor?
Hi Guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VividLime
I have a client who ranks well within a competitive sector of the travel industry. They are planning CMS move which will involve changing from .cfm to .aspx We will be doing the standard redirects etc However Matt's statement here on 301 redirects got me thinking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW5UL3lzBOA&t=0m24s He says that basically you loose a bit of page rank when you do a 301 redirect. Now, we will be potentially redirecting 1000s of links and my thinking is 'a lot of a little, adds up to a lot' In other words, 1000s of redirects may have a big enough impact to loose some rankings in a very competitive and aggressive space. So recommended that we contact the sites who has the link highest value and ask them to manually change the links from cfm to aspx. This will then mean that there are no loss value as with a 301 redirect. -But now I have another dilemma which I'm unsure about. So the main question:
Is link age factor in rankings ? If I update any links, this will make said link new to Google, so if link age is a factor, would this also lessen the value passed initially?0