I think all SEO contests out there allow people to buy text links. Doesn't this mean whoever spends the most win then? I don't see any "skill" part involved. Can a person who spends $1 beat someone who spends $1,000? But then I guess there is no on-page only SEO contest. If SEO is so rely on backlinks both quality and quantity, I don't know why those folks call themselves that they got "SEO skills"? It chuckles me
I think it would be pretty tough to beat someone who spends $1000 on text links alone. There are so many sites out there now that google indexes it'd be tough not to find some really great Pagerank deals, and especially with $1000. Doing it the free way would be a nice little contest to run, but tough to check since not all links are reported in google index. Let me know if you run a contest like this, I'd be interested.
haha I would like to join such SEO contest myself. But the problem is there is no way to control. Anyone can buy backlinks to get ranked high in SERPs. I just wanted to point out SEO is unfortunately a matter of backlinks after all.
There are so many ways to build links that you don't need money so you shouldn't worry how much they spend.
Yes, money is an integral part of an SEO contest. Infact it is, in most spheres of life But you have gotta remember that if you use money to win ( which you have to, in some amount, atleast), your profits on winning the contest will go down too. Both offpage and onpage are used, although the former is little easier to do when you have $$.
Not all SEO can be won by buying text links.... There is much more involved, it makes SEO fun though!
And? If they don't win, they have lost all the money they invested. There are ways to build backlinks (link baits) which require little money
It depends on the ability of the person to attract links with their choice of content. Money is a huge bonus and is of great benefit. SEO contests work by having a competition to either rank in Google, Yahoo, Msn or all 3 for a particular phrase or phrases. People enter, and at the finish date, whichever entry ranks highest wins the contest and associated money
It really is all about backlinks even though Google is changing the algo soon. But for a little while, quality and quantity of backlinks = core SEO. Link bait methods may work, but money works better. If one can get a backlink from authoritive site of PR9, you won't have a chance. Money probably overpowers "SEO skills" however you define the term.
Yes, there is skill involved with SEO. It is both intellectual work, and a lot of grunt work. Remember that the key to SEO is having an awesome site - this is what makes people link to you! Seeing the huge number of Websites out there that so miserably suck, do you understand now why skill is involved?
Who determines a website awesome? A website is awesome if it receives lots of backlinks? Or regardless of number of backlinks, it could be an awesome website? I would rather want to say "knowledge" rather than skills. But then backlinks bought with $ simply can beat any SEO knowledge often, too. Encouraging people to link to you may require good ideas, free offers, etc. But I don't think link bait is a part of SEO because it doesn't involve anything about getting ranked high at SERPs. It's totally different thing even though such things could be useful in your later SEO campaign.
More backlinks = Higher SERP. Link bait is an SEO tactic Of course there are factors such as PR and relevancy, but that's the general formula
Yes it does. A couple of factors which affect the "quality" of a backlink include PageRank, relevancy of theme to your site and total number of OBL's on the page. Another important factor is the anchor text used Pagerank is part of the algorithm which determines SERP's
I think PR has "something" to do with SERP given that two sites has a link from similar sites and similar anchor text. Or put it in this way, the more link you have, the high chance you will get a quality link "by accident". Of course it will be more efficient to focus on quality link itself.