Nobody said that if you have great content you just seat back and relax, you still need links just like the rest of us, but: You need both, without content who is going to stay on your website longer than few sec? You can build useless site without good content and keep linking to it forever but what would be the point? There are plenty of high PR sites who don’t rank and still need back links to rank higher Just look at monster(dot)com and see who is looking for SEO experts: universities, mtv, all top insurance companies. So I say it again: you need both. It is just easer and take less links if your site has great content, but it is still lot's of work. So stop complaining and get to it
If you have a good content, you dont need to ask the other to link to you.... Instead, they will link to you instantly.
That exactly is the point being disputed in this thread! Actual experience says that good content does not automatically get links. Webmasters are too busy with their own businesses to link to all good content. Only exceptional and highly authoritative content can make them go to all the trouble. And most of us are too busy to create such exceptional content, and becoming convincingly "authoritative" is something in the realm of dreams.
I think it all depends on how you look at it. If your creating content in order to see how it fairs, thats one thing. But to create it with the thoughts that its going to be the answer to all your problems, then yes - the realm of dreams analogy is correct
Daredevil topic, but I agree. Say you have a site based on a pet rat breed. Tough to keep producing fresh content for it.
I do believe you need good and unique content on site but I also do not believe that others will just link to it out of the kindness of their hearts. Maybe a few here and there but not much to make a difference. You need to actively promote the content and build links to it also.
Agree. I've had a few competitors who are higher ranking than me contact me about a "link exchange". Of course I never do it because I see them as a competitor and why would I want to "trade"? There is no such thing as it being mutually beneficial when its your competitor. I used to do link exchanging, until I realized what a sham it is.
Content is the great king in web and Google world. If you want to have success, then create good and interesting contents, and then link to it from outside.
I find it funny that they would want to get some sort of link exchange going. Should ask them what they think of traffic robbers
Obviously there are many factors. Good content is a good start. I do blog creation, and selling. The blogs with unique and good content ranks SO much easier than sites with non-unique content. However ofcourse you will still need to do a job promoting.
I agree with you flash to an extent. Good content is still a big piece of the puzzle for ranking high.
I think there is not enough relevance applied to content and way too much relevance applied to backlinks. Think about it from a user perspective rather than an seo perspective. There have been sentiments raised here about the quality (or lack of) in google results. I think we all know the answer to that one. But, why put so much relevance on backlinks? It does not make sense, at least not anymore. When people search, they do not search for the most popular site. They search for a site that is relevant to them based on it's content. A search engine should not be a "popularity contest". By using the backlinks model, it is exactly that. I think google is realizing this, as evidenced by the changes underway, although I do not see branding as a qualitative alternative to good content. Right now, the world of search is simply following the pattern of exploitation that led the engines to move away from heavily weighing meta descriptions and keyword tags. From there the engines were exploited by keyword spamming, most notably a cluster of meaningless text of keywords squished together at the bottom of the page. (How soon before the tag cloud becomes that replacement?). The engines will always try to stay a step ahead in order to be competitive. From eliminating the squished words at the bottom of a page. From alleviating weight of meta tags. To heavily weighting backlinks and soon to be something with "branding". In my opinion, if content was weighted more, there would be no game. It would be a win win for everyone. The person searching gets relevant results, we don't have to chase our tails and the search engines do not have to come up with anti-exploitation measures. For some reason, this is simply not the case right now. I know that in the beginning, it was hard for the engines to realistically parse data based on natural linguistic patterns. That said, there has been a lot of research over the last few years that are on the verge of taking the next step. In fact, I'm sure that data from 2 years ago, applied correctly then, would have prevented the plight we face now. Now imagine if google had invested 20% more of it's resources into this area rather than coming up with backlink algos. I'm just saying. This next phase of branding has the rumblings of being atrocious. Is this yet another way for large commercial sites to impose their will over the internet? Is this going to be the beginning of the final squeeze on the "little guy"? If branding is going to be equated with corporations, it is the diametric opposite of the foundation of web and internet principles. Disgusting! While I don't think content is "crap", I think it is debatable how close it really is to being worthless. Until relevancy of content is weighted more we will have to suffer and endure the agony of uselessly, overly weighted, and the illogically applied google doctrine that is backlinking (soon to be branding).
The problem is it may be beautifully written but it could be total lies, spam, or outright stolen content thats been scrambled to avoid duplicat content filters. No algorithm can detect that. That is why backlinks will always be higher importance because google needs to know that a variety of websites have linked to it giving it "trust".
But it could also be great, perfect content (which probably happens more often) and the site that is the way you describe will almost always have a higher serp because it contains more backlinks. And, the backlinks could be purchased for the sole purpose of serp rather than the purpose of an adertising campaign. I think the engines definition of "trust" is flawed. In that regard I agree with the OP. I don't think there is any doubt that the current system needs to be worked on. Much of the time, it's "whoever has the most/weighted backlinks wins". How is that fair to people that have great sites with a lot of valuable info to offer? The people that do not even know about SEO and pour their hearts into their sites, the true contributors, lose out as well as people seeking their content. Bottom line for me is that I think the backlink system is flawed. Oh, and I do think they can get a pretty good idea of what sites are spammy and what sites are not.
Scrambled content taken from other sources is detectable, and has been worked on since Google purchased Applied Semantics and adopted their algorithm to be based around LSI
I don't care what patent they applied for. Obviously it doesn't work. I scrambled content (and barely did it at that, more like rearranged paragraphs) between a couple of my sites just to avoid duplicate filters. Guess what, rankings and traffic are equal on both sites (both have 20 pages of scrambled content). Plus its not even real content its just affiliate landing pages and still not setting off duplicate filter algorithm.
Think you are all missing the point, as did the op slightly. No two businesses are the same, no two websites are the same. If you are targetting an underexploited niche then content is the way ahead. If you are going head to head with large companies then you've three options: Better product Cheaper product Product in the customers mind Heres an analogy with food being the website: You want to sell lebanese food in New york, Then the food (content) is the key. You want to go head to head with McDonalds, then you better have deep pockets to either advertise (links) ahead of them or sell your product cheaper (sell for no profit or a loss leader). There are other types of internet business eg; news service (currency is the key), Shop (Knowing your cusstomer is the key), Software (Technology is the key) where links don't come into it. You're building a business online.... Its no different from any other type of business: No two are the same!
Thats all good and well, but lets talk honestly here. I personally don't think everyone here is a part of some 20+ member operation. From what I'm seeing, a lot of people are actually just 1-4 people operations. So even if this is completely true, good luck to everyone else looking to take on corporations with the members you have
It's content and/or backlinks. Sometimes, it's just the name of your site. I'm developing two sites in the same niche and haven't touched them in a month. Both have relatively unique content and site names that reflect keyword. Site 1 has 10-15 articles and back links. Site 2 has 5 articles and no backlinks. Site 2 is outperforming site 1 and listing higher in the SERPs. It shouldn't, and I've had both names parked for a while, so it's not the sandbox effect. I have another site where all the articles are at least 1,200 words long, with no backlinks. It's ranking like crazy. Then there's the article I wrote for another site that was maybe 200 words. I increased it to 450 words and watched it go down in the SERPs. I've given up trying to figure out what Google is doing. I work on what I'm interested in at the time - which is the equivalent of throwing poo against the wall and seeing what sticks. As long as my Adsense earnings increase monthly - I've stopped caring. I do know that the big G will kick your *ss for paid links - if they catch you.
Exactly. Most of us are just writing stuff and getting passive income. Were not incorporating and hiring other people and starting our own real business.