Are Back Links King
-
We have worked as closely as possible to the guidelines and advice on this forum, if we compare our on page Analsis with other companies in the same field as ours we have a far better site as far as SEO is concerned, our DA authority is higher and most of our page authority is higher but we just cannot seem to get up to their level in the search engines, one site that is in competiton with us do not use Facebook and also they do not use Twitter very much, I looked at some of their backlinks and their top one which was a blog had not been updated since 2011, over the years we have amassed far more what I would call worthless links as this was the done thing then, how can I get on the right track, are there any companies who could assess our site for a reasonable cost to point us in the right direction, we are doing our own blog, Facebook, Twitter, Onlywire?
-
Hi John,
well that is exactly the topic most of the SEO's are fighting about: But in all honesty nobody really found the holy grail yet. If it's backlinks, content, likes on Facebook or whatever every so called expert swears in his methods.
So, I just come round and share my experience with you and what works best for me and my clients. That doesn't mean that it'll work for you at all;
On-Page
I think content is king No keyword stuffing, just a text which is full of information for the visitor and easy to read AND understand. Google (as you can measure on Analytics) recognises and records the time a visitor spends on your page. This is an important factor in my eyes as a visitor who is not interested in your information/services etc. won't spend 5+ Minutes on your page, would he?
Furthermore, good quality content shares easy. Interested visitors are sharing good stuff, logical. And visitors turn into buying customers if you convince them from your expertise and quality.
Off-Page
It's no secret that in regard to backlinks the factor quality counts way way more than quantity. When I create backlinks I take care that they are organic and from a blog, directory, website etc. from the same business branch as the website I am optimizing.
A website with an anchor backlink in a blog post of a high PR and High DA blog counts thousandd times better than 10.000 bought backlinks for whatever $ 29.99
Bottom Line
So my opinion is that ranking builds on logical factors. Google measures the quality which comes in (backlinks), how it comes in and what is in it at the end (content). If it's all on a high level it returns into sales/leads or whatever aswell as higher rankings.
Hope I could give you an idea and it helps,
Mickey
-
Back links are just one part of a very big equation. Try to look at it from the standpoint of the quality of your content. Is your content better than your competition? Would people be more inclined to share your content and perhaps link to it than your competitor's page? Would a user clicking on your page actually hang round long enough to view your content instead of clicking on the back browser button?
As Highland rightly says 'build quality content first' and this is good solid advice. Getting hung up on DA and PA isn't where you should be concentrating your attention - instead you should concentrate on good quality unique content and the links should naturally follow.
-
In all honesty, SEOMOZ's DA hasn't been a good indicator since Penguin and based on the hints they're dropping about upcoming changes, i wouldn't surprise me if it went away until they can tweak it back in line with what actual results are. Then again, with Penguin 2.0 due out right around the corner, it might be made correct again.
That having been said, Open Site Explorer is still a superb tool for analyzing your own backlinks. Something that might ding you is a lack of diversity of anchor text. Also, look for sites that are clearly spammy. They aren't going to count towards your ranking but they count towards DA (which is one reason why it's not accurate).
Lastly, have you looked at your on-page optimization? Content is King. Links aren't queen, they're more like the King's court: the more high quality they are, the better it reflects on the King. Don't obsess about links. Build quality content first. make sure people who find your site appreciate your hard work and the links tend to follow.
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
-
Should I add canonical links to pages that are redirected?
Hello! I am a little confused concerning canonical links. I have several URLs that all access my page, but I redirect them all. A lot of places I am told to redirect them or use canonicals. Other places, I read that I should always use canonicals. What is the right way for me? If I should use canonicals as well as redirects, which links should I do this on? I redirect my pages like this: http to https:
On-Page Optimization | | hermanok
http://example.com -> https://example.com www to non-www:
https://www.example.com -> https://example.com Remove trailing slashes
https://example.com/ -> https://example.com Would-be 404-requests to index.php?p=$1
https://example.com/home -> https://example.com/index.php?p=home ( show as https://example.com/home ) Example:
http://www.example.com/home/ -> http://www.example.com/home/ -> https://example.com/home/ -> https://example.com/home -> https://example.com/index.php?p=home ( shows as https://example.com/home ) Thank you!0 -
Not sure if I need to be concerned with duplicate content plus too many links
Someone else supports this site in terms of making changes so I want to make sure that I know what I am talking about before I speak to them about changes. We seem to have a lot of duplicate content and duplicate titles. This is an example http://www.commonwealthcontractors.com/tag/big-data-scientists/ of a duplicate. Do I need to get things changed? The other problem that crops up on reports is too many on page links. I am going to get shot of the block of tags but need to keep the news. Is there much else I can do? Many thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Niamh20 -
Rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?
Very simple, Why would a website (and I have seen tons doing this) link the rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on? Example: somepage.htm has a canonical tag linking to somepage.htm I thought the idea of this tag was to tell google if 2 pages are similar, this page is the original, and it's this page which should be indexed and the page with the tag on should pass all PR to the original. Maybe im wrong and someone can help me out to understand this.
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Too Many On-Page Links error
Hello, I am new to this. The crawl of y website reveals that "Too Many On-Page Links" were found on many pages of the website. However, when I check those pages, not more than 5 links are found- I have not included links outside of the post (sidebar/comments/related posts - are these counted in the crawl report ?). I do use SEO SmartLinks Plugin where in some keywords point to Wordpress Categories but am not sure whether that could be the problem at all. Can someone guide what the issue could be and how to debug ?
On-Page Optimization | | sradhey0 -
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing?
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing? I had "twin" domains so I redirected my .com to www..com and now I have a lot of Rel Canonical Links.
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
My nofollow link is showing as a 302\. Is this OK?
My nofollow link is showing as a 302. Is this OK? Not looking to pass any juice along but don't want to be penalized either. Thanks Buhrly
On-Page Optimization | | Buhrly0 -
Number of links in breadcrumb
Does google take the number of links in breadcrumb as a indicator to the depth of the page in the site structure? That will mean that a page with 5 links in the breadcrumb is a page very far away from the index, therefore a less important page.
On-Page Optimization | | seo.academy0 -
Site wide internal links in footer
What is your take on site wide inernal links in the footer, e.g. for the most competitive keywords? Do you think those links are still useful or are those links of little value from your experience? It is an old school tactic but I still see many sites doing it.
On-Page Optimization | | Florakel0