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
-
Gallery maintenance and the effect on SEO
Basically we get a lot of users uploading photos as part of their review, but many photos aren't moderated into our pages and therefore are never displayed. Things like selfies rather than photos of the product or just random google images that are completely unrelated to our products or services. Is there any benefit in cleaning up the gallery since some images we don't use are just sat there in admin?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fubra
when a page loads, would it be quicker if we had less content in the gallery? With our SEO hat on.
or does it not matter since it's not loading that content (photos) anyway?0 -
Backlinks from old domain
Hi, We have gone through a change of company brand name including a new domain name.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Agguk
We followed google recommendations at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en and it seems to have worked really well, the new domain has replaced the old in the google search results. My question: Still most of our backlinks, both anchor text and links use the old brand name and domain and it´s a slow process trying to update all references. Although they get redirected fine to the new domain (also following google recommendations), I wonder if the current scenario is doing any harm, SEO wise (other than the missed visual exposure of the new brand name) ? ...since the old brand name is not present at the new site I´m thinking of including "New brand name - previously old brand name" somewhere just to provide some sort of connection to all old backlinks, would that be unnecessary? I should mention that the old brand name actually includes our most important keyword but the new brand name does not. Thanks!0 -
Can you buy backlinks from fiverr?
Hi Mozers, I though a while ago I heard that buying backlinks was a no go, until I seen and read this article: I notice the guy that wrote the article suggested that you can buy backlinks from fiverr, and also just make sure they are do-follow backlinks. Can someone please correct me and perhaps clear my confusion over this. As far as I knew it was best to build backlinks by doing guest posting and engaging in relevant forums? Heres the article: http://socialmediafuze.com/10-backlink-strategies-business/ Thanks guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may2 -
SEO time
I wanto to be in the top of the google search. I am usiing a lot of SEO tools but... I have done it during one month. Do I have to wait more?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarlosZambrana0 -
Do widgets and gadgets affect SEO?
I have added a number of widgets and gadgets to my site that I suspect act like Iframes. If true do these widgets and gadgets and the content that they are linked to help or hurt my site from an SEO perspective? Examples are facebook gadget, wordpress blidget, weather gadget, google maps widget.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | casper4340 -
URL Shorteners. Are they SEO Friendly?
Do URL shortener services like bit.ly act as 301 redirects? I was thinking about utilizing one for longer query based URLs and didn't want to risk losing link juice. Thanks for the insight! Regards - Kyle
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kchandler0 -
Subdomains and SEO - Should we redirect to subfolder?
A new client has mainsite.com and a large numer of city specific sub domains i.e. albany.mainsite.com. I think that these subdomains would actually work better as subfolders i.e mainsite.com/albany rather than albany.mainsite.com. The majority of links on the subdomains link to the main site anyway i.e. mainsite.com/contactus rather than albany.mainsite.com/contactus. Having mostly main domain links on a subdomain doesnt seem like clever link architecture to me and maybe even spammy. Im not overly familiar with redirecting subdomains to subfolders. If we go the route of 301'ing subdomains to subfolders any advice/warnings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0