Spot on! Eric has the truth. So before you throw tons of cash at the SEO's banging on about "natural" linkbuilding, consider that they make a living from the FEAR generated about Google. Eric speaks the truth and even Cutts agrees with it. 20% is relevancy. Remember that next time some SEO professional tells you Google will ban you for using a legitimate link exchange!
I also agree this should be a sticky - it is very useful to counter the disinformation spread by the SEO industry and the obsession some people have with page rank.
Is it really content that is the key? Since some people say that Google doesn't know if it's good content or not and that Google only sees like keyword densitiy and backlinks. Another guy on this forum said that content is only good to keep visitors coming to your site after you have been ranked 1 in google. What do you think?
Why people should visit your website? Because the backlinks you have? No, because the content. If you have good content other webmaster may backlink to you, and they will do it because your site might be a good resource for their website. that is why content is the king!
but they add value? And that's what search engines are looking for - the best editorial content to please their searchers. Copycats and average content isn't going to please a searcher. Links build credibility because they're a human action. Someone has had to seed a link, in doing so effectively giving it there approval. As good as computer robots get, they're not able to match the degree of judgement humans have (yet..!) and so link building will still stay core to search engine optimization until search engines can determin credibility via another means. In the meantime, Google and others will simply look for better quality of links. Going back to the 'seal of approval' idea - that's why a links exchange with a related website is such a powerful thing because you've got two "experts" in their own niche recognizing each others content and function on their websites - and doing so, leveraging off each others existing and future credibility at the search engines. If you get my drift - related, quality link exchanges really do add value. If chasing shear numbers of backlinks is your thing, then there's nothing stopping you. But if I were Google, numbers wouldn't mean so much since they can effectively be purchased (with time, money or other resources) - personally I reckon that Google has only a select group of 'link authorities' which it'll actually sit up and take notice of if you get linked from them - a Yahoo Directory listing for example.
I am analyzing a SEO company: submitedge.com. Three years ago, I bought a submission service from them, I was still a newbie and my job did not leave any time to do anything else. Today I Googled the keyword "SEO" and these guys are on top 20. Researching their Backlinks I found a huge amount of links, where most of them are Paid. I am citing this company because as many companies are buying a position in the search engine which is not good for the little ones. I believe submitedge is fake, the submission service bought 3 years ago was worthless. I made through the Search results by my own credits.
Hi, I think the best link exchange strategy will be the 3way link exchange for the concern website. if any one interested to link exchange, please mail me. I have shopping, seo/web design, Electronics, Education, Entertainment, casino & lens sites. Pl contact
All the points explained by u are all relevant and upto the point.It all gives the inference -"Content is King"-but that content should be relevant.
i sent some of my blogs on Digg stumbleupon and some other bookkmarking sites when i have not good content i saw very rare traffic from these book marks and i submitted some of my blogs having good content and i see a good traffic from these bookmarks and also some back link on relevant content so i think good content is every thing other then building back links on high PR sites
thanks for the tip... i been doin several things but unorganised for my blog www.watchfreemovieslive.com i will start commenting on blog posts.
Yah as long as the backlinks are relevant / niche related to your site, otherwise they are useless to your site.