Content vs. Back Links
One of the most heated topics of debate in the internet forums is how to adjust to the latest ranking algorithm shake-ups by Google et al. The main arena of conflict today is: Site content vs. back links.
It's a valuable discussion, and one that's been going on back-burner for quite a long time, but since the Florida update (the sweeping Google overhaul last November) and the more recent Austin update (one which appeared to target a lot of free-hosted sites), the discussions have increased in intensity and urgency. Site owners, webmasters and SEO's are all trying to figure out the best way to capitalize on the current ranking algorithm, to claim those coveted top slots.
The problem I'm seeing now is that the intensity of the discussion has led to some pretty extreme views, with some people evidently claiming that site content is basically dead, and all you care about for SEO is back linking. Although others tempered their views, the reigning opinion is that back links are king of the SEO world.
That way lies madness, in my humble opinion, and I've stated that in previous posts. However, the most current discussion forum prompted me to revisit the subject so that I could state my views clearly and succinctly, and give my professional opinion on why this is a dangerous trend in SEO thinking.
WHY BACK LINKS ARE NOT KING OF THE SEO WORLD:
1. You don't sell products or pass information to search engine spiders. SEO is very important for business success, but it should NEVER be placed before the customer. Most customers ignore the links pages, for the simple reason that they really don't care. Customers do NOT ignore site content. This is your bread and butter. Never forget it.
2. The value of back links has been grossly overstated. Back links are one of many SEO tools to help a site's performance on search engines which factor site popularity, such as Google. However, the ranking algorithms are a lot more sophisticated than some people care to believe. Many things are taken into account, and text content is absolutely still counted in the highest levels of importance. I've seen sites that were rich in relevant back links that still performed poorly, and sites with few or no back links which have performed very well indeed, including weathering the Google updates. If you insist on concentrating on just one SEO aspect, you're missing the big picture.
3. Back links have been grossly misused, rendering them extremely vulnerable in the next algorithm updates. Updates to the Google ranking algorithm have consistently attempted to punish those who performed SEO "exploits". A few years ago, hidden text was a key trick, and that will now get you thrown off the search engines entirely. Spammed meta tags were next to go, and recently it appears that spam content has taken a hard hit. There is a widespread understanding that it is only a matter of time before the link farms are up for review, which makes sense from any angle: They have been exploited by SEO's, and most don't offer a useful (or even used) consumer resource. Expect to see them devalued soon, and devalued hard.
So am I saying that you shouldn't go for good, relevant back links? Not at all. I think that they are a great weapon in the SEO arsenal, as long as you don't deify them. Site content may not be the "hip" thing, and it may seem pretty boring, but you should never, ever underestimate its importance to your website.
I normally would agree w/ this and SEO being my job, I have always preached this same thing on backlinks and text. However, recently w/ all the Google changes I have had 2 sites drop. One dropped from Google totally and the other from #1 to #14. When looking at my competition, I noticed that most where all sites that Google was linking directly to their linkfarm page, which I thought was death to do -OR- it was now over run w/ a directory type site like FindLaw.com. Im actually talking about 2 diferent things here but I dont understand how backlinks have so much importance now, and they must from what Im seeing, because both of the instances above being the link farm site or the directory site were both there because of the 'links' to other sites, according to Google cache. To me this change in Google has made it produce not so relivant results, which is what got it so popular in the first place. Before December one of my sites had about 200 competitors and was #1. Now its gone totally and has over 200,000 competitors w/ the 1st 2 to 3 pages all being directory sites! Now, that is not an improvement to me at all!
Posted by:Brad | February 18, 2004 at 10:07 PM
Brad: The whole backlink issue seems to be pretty confused to me. I'm curious to see what the latest Google update is going to do in that respect, since early reports are that the Brandy update, due to roll out over this weekend, is taking a hard look at links. From what I've read, it seems that links will be given more importance as long as they are valuable links, which hopefully means that they are links from popular and relevant sites.
As I've mentioned before in the blog, we've fared pretty well through the Google changes for the most part, but I can't dispute that some seemingly useful and solid sites have taken a hit somehow.
Posted by:Laura Seeley | February 19, 2004 at 07:04 AM