Do I really need lots of backlinks?

Discussion in 'Link Development' started by Kaabi, Jun 4, 2006.

  1. #1
    I know for SEO purposes I need lots of links, and I'm getting some, but I'm just wondering, if I have a lot of content, will I still rank high? I mean, I've been writing a lot of keyword-rich articles and putting them on my site, I have about 8, making more, and I'm wondering if even I don't have a lot of links, will I still rank well in targeted keywords (even though I'm not targeting any keywords specifically, rank well overall)?
     
    Kaabi, Jun 4, 2006 IP
    tschrock likes this.
  2. rubenmajor

    rubenmajor Well-Known Member

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    #2
    Yes, backlinks are extremely important. It also depends on your keywords. The more competitive, the more backlinks you will need to get your site to rank higher. Don't forget on-page SEO factors as well.
     
    rubenmajor, Jun 4, 2006 IP
  3. tschrock

    tschrock Peon

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    #3
    I am by no means an SEO guru, but one lesson I learned quickly is that for any website to be a success (measured from an earning standpoint) you need a mix of tools. You do need backlinks, and backlinks with keyword rich anchor text are even better. You also need good content, and lots of pages on your site.

    Content is definitely king, so you are on the right path. You might also consider asking people to contribute articles to your site in exchange for backlinks. As long as they contribute, they keep their backlink. Yo need to have a LOT more than 8 articles if you don't plan on an aggressive, quality backlink campaign.

    Just my opinion...
     
    tschrock, Jun 4, 2006 IP
  4. Kaabi

    Kaabi Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Don't worry, I'm still writing more of them!
     
    Kaabi, Jun 4, 2006 IP
  5. diaboly

    diaboly Peon

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    #5
    You need incoming links from great sites that link to your content because of it's great value, for example, members here that published a great blog or they have a great forum, I list both of them in the directories I run that are one way links only, I listed them because I liked the quality of the content because it is of value to my readers.

    This is called organic SEO and that is the best way to get links!

    A bad way to get links is to submit to reciprocal link directories, trading links with unknown partners who may link to link farms and so on....
     
    diaboly, Jun 4, 2006 IP
  6. mcgyver

    mcgyver Peon

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    #6
    you can also setup a blog and then make deals with blog owners to exchange links in blogroll. just make sure your blogs are of similar or complimentary topic.
     
    mcgyver, Jun 4, 2006 IP
  7. diaboly

    diaboly Peon

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    #7
    I was working on a link building strategy to one of my sites and just thought of posting some relevant parts... i did it with specific plan to that particular site so I will only mention some parts on that... - There may be repetition in the tactics - but may help someone.. -

    - SE Submissions
    As a starting point we need to make sure the site get indexed well in all major Search Engines. Then we target on some regional SEs to increase the visibility. We will make sure the cache in all the major players for not only the index page but also the inner ones too.

    - Directory Submissions
    Directory submissions are the base point for Link building on every site. We will find out the relevant directories as per the theme of site, and also regional wise too. Some are manually reviewing and some are not, so we need to make sure the industry specific categories while submitting. This is a time consuming task but will be on-going, while keeping the rate in a moderate pace to make sure no spam flags.

    Some Paid Directories are also there, up-on budget and efficiency we can get some of them. But Yahoo paid directory listing is not seems to be worthy on bringing traffic relevant to the sites. So we can go with some other options, after discussing on the same.

    Consider the following points while dealing with Directory Submissions:-
    -Recent cache
    -Age of site
    -Page Rank as a trust test
    -Other sites listed in the category (are they my competition, quality, etc)
    -Static links
    -Do they sell links or sitewides off their homepage
    -Quality of their backlinks
    -Possibility of traffic
    Avoid Directories at the beginning which requires:

    - Require a reciprocal link
    - Disallow the robots to crawl their pages
    - Redirect and do not link directly to the listed pages
    - Use the rel=”nofollow” attribute
    - Cross- Site Linking:
    If ther are site under the same entity we can cross link them - we can take selected pages from the old one, from where we can drive traffic to the new site and get them converted. This will help us gaining traffic as well as some good Back Links. We need to discuss the possibilities on driving the traffic effectively from the OLD to NEW, which will help it to gain some visibility and reputation.


    - Fetch from Competition:
    Analyze the competitors for their back links and that will be great resources to target. This will make sure the relevancy on theme and value much in the eyes of SEs. We can list out the locations directly by checking the backlinks of the known competitors and by searching the KWs + ‘add url’ | ‘submit url’ | ‘site submission’ etc…

    - Articles:
    Article broadcasting will be a nice tactic to get relevant traffic as well as links. We can write articles on the industry specific theme and broadcast to appropriate online publications. We will make sure the bio or content contains links pointing to the SITE with relevant link texts. Again not meant to just broadcast them blindly, but on selected ones.
    First to put them live in the SITE, publish those with small changes on those selected ones. This will help both in content wise and also in off-site factors…

    - Blogs: If the articles sessions are not making sense within the site, we can have several blogs which talks about our services industries – not the exact pages for the SITE – and link back from them.

    - Press Releases:
    Press releases are also one tactic we can follow and that also in the same mode of spreading like articles. But depend on the niche; the publishers will vary according to the visibility we require.

    - RSS Feeds:
    Create RSS feeds for the articles | press releases on the site and allow visitors to add them in their sites. Feeds for the major players like my.yahoo | my.msn | Boglines | feedster etc… are having good potential for driving some traffic and frequent crawling.
    Also we can have them on our blogs and can spread the feeds trough the RSS directories.

    - Forum Links:
    If anybody inside the SITE participating on any niche (vertical industry) forums which related to our services we can ask them to create a link pointing back to SITE with a relevant link text. Most of them may have ‘nofollow’ but on investing some time it bring some relevant traffic.
     
    diaboly, Jun 5, 2006 IP
  8. webmasterlabor.com

    webmasterlabor.com Peon

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    #8
    One way links are more valuable than two way links. Also correlation in categories between site linking to you and your site must be tight. There's tons of other factors. Regardless, one thing is clear, sheer volume of two way back links is not dispositive.
     
    webmasterlabor.com, Jun 6, 2006 IP
  9. illusion

    illusion Peon

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    #9
    If you have a decent amount of backlinks, then you just optimize your page for a certain keyword. You can get some nice rankings just from the keywords on your page
     
    illusion, Jun 6, 2006 IP
  10. 220volt

    220volt Peon

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    #10
    I have two websites. The one with less links , less traffic and less content gets better google rating then the other one. Go figure.
     
    220volt, Jun 8, 2006 IP
  11. webmasterlabor.com

    webmasterlabor.com Peon

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    #11

    Find out who links to you and what their PR is. That may provide the answer.
     
    webmasterlabor.com, Jun 8, 2006 IP
  12. HideIp

    HideIp Active Member

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    #12
    Good info in this thread. Thanks
     
    HideIp, Jun 8, 2006 IP
  13. seo_expert

    seo_expert Well-Known Member

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    #13
    This is because you are playing by google's rule and Google just loves that...:D

    Stay low profile and Google GOD will answer your prayer.;)
     
    seo_expert, Jun 9, 2006 IP
  14. shivam

    shivam Peon

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    #14
    Can any one suggest how to build link popularity more than 100,000 for below top two directories?

    We had last year 125,000 something but it droped. we like to have it back how can we?

    Ideas please..
     
    shivam, Jun 9, 2006 IP
  15. kelp

    kelp Peon

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    #15
    In my opinion, I would worry about getting relevant backlinks with keywords in anchor text rather than SEO when first starting. Fifty backlinks and a well-optimized site isn't going to help if the top site in Google has 1000 backlinks.
     
    kelp, Jun 9, 2006 IP
  16. coolsitez

    coolsitez Well-Known Member

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    #16
    I have this list with me that I created to see the relation of # of backlinks/PR. Of course, this is only "calculation part" to predict your current or future PR, not including other SEO factors for penalties or extra points such as a link from .edu or .org sites, etc.

    But in the case there is no penalty or extra points, you can expect the followings:

    Say you get a backlink from a PR1 page with 50 links on it;
    you will need 20 backlinks to gain PR1 for your page.
    you will need 99 backlinks to gain PR2 for your page.


    If a backlink from a PR2 page with 50 backlinks;
    you only need 4 backlinks to gain PR1.
    you only need 18 backlinks to gain PR2.


    Another example: :eek:
    A link from PR4 linke page with 50 links on it;
    that one link will make your page PR2.
    4 backlinks will make your page PR3.
     
    coolsitez, Jun 12, 2006 IP
  17. sji2671

    sji2671 Self Made Mind

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    #17
    Depends on what you want to rank for, sometimes just one of two links will do for your business name, for niche keywords 5-10 would do, for something more mainstream 20 backlinks would be plenty if they are the right one's. You don't generally need lots, just some good one's!
     
    sji2671, Jun 12, 2006 IP
  18. klown

    klown Peon

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    #18
    I found this last week thought it could clear up a most above about how page ranks are supposidly formed by google.

    PR Points Table using Base 8

    PR1 = 8 points
    PR2 = 64 points
    PR3 = 512 points
    PR4 = 4096 points
    PR5 = 32768 points
    PR6 = 262144 points
    PR7 = 2097152 points
    PR8 = 16777216 points
    PR9 = 134217728 points
    PR10 = 1073741824 points

    Example PR Calculations
    We have a PR5 page with 49 links from it, you want to setup a link exchange with this page which will take the number of links to 50. We look at the PR points table above and see PR5 equates to 32768 PR points, plugging these values into our simplified PR formula-

    32768 * 0.85 / 50 = 557 PR points

    i have also created a calculator online for this at http://www.oregonpsa.com/dtasia/seo/calculator.php
     
    klown, Jun 12, 2006 IP
  19. letsjoy

    letsjoy Well-Known Member

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    #19
    When u link text shloud be your keyword its most imp i think
     
    letsjoy, Jun 12, 2006 IP
  20. edr

    edr Guest

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    #20
    Re-read Diaboly's post. Bravo.
     
    edr, Jun 12, 2006 IP