How many backlinks does it take to equal...

This is a just a hypothetical question, but...

How many backlinks from unrelated sites would you say it takes to equal one backlink from a related site? Putting aside or course PR, overall quality, etc.

Perhaps 4:1, 3:1, 2:1?

Thanks.

 

That's almost like asking, "How many crappy apples does it take to make one good apple?"

(depending on the quality of the "unrelated links")

 

Ok, then let me ask this...

Would 1 quality backlink from an unrelated site with unrelated anchor text, outweigh a backlink from a lower-quality related site with related anchor text?

 

Probably. ( but again, it depends on the quality of both sites)

 

Getting a link from New York Times no matter what the topic might blow any other link out of the water...but nobody really knows for sure. If that NY Times link brings you a boatload of converting traffic but absolutely no weight, it's still probably worth more than a link from Big John's Amazing Backhoe Shop (even if you are selling backhoes yourself).

There are no finite rules on links. I will simply say that in my experience you don't need a ton of links, or even hundreds of links...just good quality links. You have to be the one to make a judgement call on what a quality link for your site would be.

 

Thanks Dreamshop. Very insightful.

 

i would mostly take the anchor text, as it will improve serps.
unless it was a straight link that was guaranteed to bring traffic..like homepage of BBC,
Google, Yahoo etc

 

Despite all the speculation nobody knows if one link is better than the other or whether or not all links are equal. However we are pretty certain that the anchor text is important. If you look at the McDar thread you will see that there is a high coorelation between allinanchor for a given keyword phrase and the placement of that page in the SERPs.

But nobody can prove that links from related pages are more effective than links from unrelated pages. And certainly a link from any page with unrelated anchor text is probably a wasted link.

 

It is also important to try and obtain links from other sites that are competing for the same keywords in serps. Rumor has it they carry alot of weight.

 

You may be absolutely correct, but think of the logic of your post. You say "it is important" and then you say that the evidence for the practice that you have just stated is "important" is based on rumour.

So if the rumour is true it may be "important". But you only have a rumour to base this assumption on and yet your ready to declare unequivable "it is important".

I don't mean to pick on you Homer, but I see more and more of these absolute assertions being made in this forum, and 99% are without any proof or evidence at all. It doesn't matter to me because I think I know enough to simply ignore this type of assertion, but it will just confuse the hell out of the newbies and start them off chasing every "rumour" that comes down the pike.

 

I never take offence here Compar . But I also never make comments like this without any foundation. I won't call it hardcore evidence, but in my competitive arena I am seeing it happen. What I see as competing websites are trading (reciprical) link and climbing the ranks quicker that most. In this case I will offer an example of this:

www dot cardsmadeeasy dot com
www dot greatfxbusinesscards dot com
If you look you'll see they are linking to each other

They are both trying to rank under keyphrase ' business cards '. They both appear in the top ten! If you look at their alexa ranking the traffic trend is ^ in both cases. Because my site is also in the top ten I watch for 'new kids on the block'...and they have moved up quickly!

I hope that offers enough rebuttal that perhaps it's worth a thought with linking strategy!

 

If you're going to trade links, then doing it with sites that are already in the top ten is the smartest way to go...at least you know you're not linking to a potentially troublesome 'neighborhood'.

 

speaking of rumours, what does "probably" mean?

i would suggest that most natural links don't have the best anchor text, or anchor text that's targeted the way we want, for that matter, because as the targeted url, we have no control over it... yet there is little argument that natural links are very desirable.

however, by your logic, natural links are wasted links... i think that any link from a reputable site has some inherent value, even if it doesn't specifically help your site with the target search terms you would like.

 

just curious but what is a "reputable site"

i think links with untargeted anchor text are very weak in google, at least comparatively

In world were there are no SEOs, very rarely would someone link with perfect anchor text, and becasue of that, when it happend they gave it a large amount of credit.

I don't think google can tell what a related site is, accurately on a massive scale, the human language is filled with so much slang, and there is so many relationships between things, that it would be next to impossible to figure out what goes with what.

Its possible that related links are worth more, but you can look at many top ranking sites backlinks and see that, many of them seem to be ranking on unrelated links.

 

I definately wouldn't go as far as saying it's a wasted link. Even if you dont have your desired anchor text, your still boosting your site's link popularity which is important.

 

It's not the way it works dcristo. Link popularity is not a magic wand. The search engines don't find anything in such links that can testify to the theme, hence ranking of the concerned page. A link with irrelevant text is a wasted link indeed.

 

I see what your saying webmistress. No doubt, it's of great benefit to try and get your target keyword phrase in the anchor text. But to go as far as saying it's a wasted link I tend to disagree with. What your saying is basically link popularity (not taking into account the relevance of the anchor text) has zero importance in search engine rankings. To me it would seem only logical SEs take into account link popularity when determining the SERPs.

 

You all bring up very interesting points.

A few of you feel that a backlink with unrelated anchor text is perhaps a wasted link?

What about a search engine that places less weight on related anchor text accompanied with related site content, and places more weight on the number of backlinks?

For example, it seems as if Yahoo and MSN both place more weight on the number of backlinks a page has?

 

Of course they do! Who said they do not here. I just see link popularity as lots of "optimized links" with good anchor texts

 

Well ok, that's where the confusion lies. I usually refer to link popularity as the total no. of backlinks to a site.