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?