I used to think backlinks (particularly high amounts) were so important for SEO, but I have to say now I'm starting to think otherwise. Reason being I am studying my competitors ranking on page #1 of Google to see what they are doing which I'm not. One of my competitors is ranking #6 and he only has 131 backlinks. This is a 3 million + SERP so it's competitive. When I studied my competitors backlink quality, he appeared to have very relevant links form sites pertaining to his business + geographical location. So this leads me to wonder if all the backlinking services are making customers believe that 1,000's of backlinks are compulsory to get ranked on page #1 of Google. Maybe this is just a sales tactic of SEO companies and at this point, a low quantity of relevant links will do wonders for a site's ranking. After all, Google isn't stupid; they know the whole backlinking game inside out. Thoughts?
Backlink quality is very important, which is why links in authority sites and relevant similar niche sites counts for a lot. As to number of backlinks, more is better. But not if links come from non-relevant and spam sites. Google probably accounts for both backlink quality and quantity, with a bias for quality.
.......which means we should backlink our site to/ from those sites only which offer somewhat similar service to ours. Am I getting it?
A 3 million SERP means diddly squat. Are 3 million results returned - nope - only a maximum of 1000 results that Google defines as most relevant. So your competition, if you are in the top 1000, is yep, you guessed it, 1000, not 3 million. Also what is the number of "exact phrase" pages returned? Bet its not 3 million. Do a search for the words: garbage cans love salad. There are 218000 results. Quite competitive then, even through not a single result contains the exact phrase? Now search for it in "quotes". No results found. So is my competition 218,000 results? Of course not -its zero. If I wrote a new content page with the phrase "garbage cans love salad" in it a few times, and pinged it a bit, I reckon it would be sitting there at the top of that SERP with 218,000 alleged results, in less than a week. Choosing the write keywords is vital, understanding what your competition truly is is vital, and building links, not just relevant links, any links to your content is absolutely vital.
WEll relevant quality backlinks beat up anytime quantity that's well known for any guy who knows SEO ...