a backlinks question (incoming domain vs. deeplink)

I've learned a lot about SEO in just 1 week by reading and asking questions a lot.. so I know that backlinks are one of the most important factors to beat a competitor in the SERPs, but what do really matter? The x amount of backlinks including deeplinks? or the x amount of incoming domain links?

Example:

competitor x is ranked #1 on a specific keyword phrase in G with his site and has according to Yahoo site explorer 500 backlinks, but in fact there are 230 domains linked to his site, so basically the backlinks are build with a lot of deeplinks and what does really count in SEO, the x amount of total backlinks or the x amount of domains that link to a site?

 

Every link helps at least a little. Focus on related links from "trusted" or "authority" sites and they'll give you the most boost. In the example you gave it could be possible that some of the links are from multiple posts in the same forum, while others might be from site wides. Depending on how targeted the links are will determine the weight of the link.

Long story short, you have to analyze each link by itself to be sure if it helps.

 

An important bit of wisdom is to remember that one high quality relevant link can outweigh tons of low quality ones. Focus on the best, try to make it look natural.....and cross your fingers!

Matt

 

Quality unique content is the number one factor when it comes to search results; also it will help build natural backlinks.

It's not the quantity of the backlinks it's the quality. A site that has 100,000 backlinks can be outranked by a site with only 500 due to the quality of the backlinks.

 

ssandecki is 100% right, and this kind of got me thinking. Let's say you get a link from a site, say www.example.com, that has a PR of 1, 150 outbound links on the page, and maybe 100 inbound links. Then let's say you get another link from www.another-example.com/page/another_page/final.htm, however this site has a PR of 6, 14 outbound links, and a couple thousand inbound links including .gov, .edu, and authority sites. I think it's pretty clear which link is better.

Now if you have a link from a deep page and a link from a domain and all of the factors are relatively equal, I would say the link from the domain would be better.

 

I'm not 100% sure what you are after but,

1) say you had 500 links to one site all from, say 10 sites for example

and

2) 500 link to another site from 500 different sites...

number 2 would be much better ranked.

 

Beeker is wrong, *.edu and *.gov sites carry "no special value" over standard cc-TLDs and TLDs, there is "no such thing" as a authority site. That is a term used by webmasters and was never phrased or used by any Google engineer or employee to my knowledge. Simply put.... a *.info domain link can be of higher quality than a *.gov or *.edu

 

ssandecki, I think it's pretty general knowledge a .biz, .info, whatever can rank better than a .gov or .edu. In my experience with SEO, .gov and .edu sites are usually seen by Google as 'quality' sites. Is it because the site just happens to end in .edu or .gov? Absolutely not.

Taken from http://www.searchenginejournal.com/...ns-registration-links-and-google-juice/6095/:

The registration of .edu domains is governed by Educause, which limits the registration of such domains to post-secondary institutions in the United States that are institutionally accredited. “Institutionally accredited” means that the entire institution and not just a particular program or department is accredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of Education’s list of Nationally Recognized Accrediting Agencies. Those recognized accrediting bodies included “Regional Insitutional Accrediting Agencies”, as well as “National Institutional and Specialized Accrediting Bodies”. In other words, it’s going to be very tough for an individual to register a .edu domain.

So with this in mind, could .edu (.gov share similar restrictions) links be more valuable possibly because they are not owned by individual people who can do whatever they want with a site, but instead by institutions who are trying to make their site the most relevant and informative as possible? I think so.

Also maybe I caused some confusion by saying 'authority'... I don't even know how webmasters as you say define authority sites. I consider an authority site a site ranked highly Google for your terms.

 

BTW that was just an example... I wasn't 'telling' him to go out and aim for .edu or .gov links.

 

ssandecki, your help has been very helpful like always. I understand the thing now about the backlinks, so according to you it's all about the quality and not the quantity. Can you define me the word of "quality backlinks"?