Michael Martinez, when he was a blogger and regular commenter here at SEOmoz, often chided me for holding the viewpoint that rankings are "all about links." Recently, there's been more conversations along those lines, both here at SEOmoz and elsewhere.
It's a frequent topic for debate, though to me there's no real cause for contention. Everyone who's worked in the SEO space for a long time tends to hold some truths to be... self evident. Specifically, these ones:
- In areas of low competition, well-written, well-optimized content on relatively low-link popularity websites can rank at the top of the engines, even if those pages have no external links pointing to them.
- In areas of heavy competition, you will virtually never see content ranking purely because it's high-quality, well-optimized content. It has to be on a highly-linked-to domain or have many inbound links pointing directly to it.
- Great content has a better ability to attract great links (and more of them) than low quality content.
- Low quality content with lots of great links will outrank high-quality content with few links everytime. We've all seen thousands of examples of this in the SERPs.
Based on this last point, I'm of the opinion that, for the moment, at the three major search engines (although MSN can be all sorts of strange on occassion), links outweigh content in nearly every way. Great content is merely a means to an end, not a ranking strategy by itself. In fact, I have little doubt that much (possibly most) of the very best content on the web today ranks nowhere in Google because it hasn't been well-marketed.
This falls under my "Paris Hilton Law of Visibility," which states that even the least attractive content can be the most visible with the right media attention. Put another way; the salesman who can unload volcano insurance in the Carolinas will make for a far better SEO than the hermit who invents a cure for volcanoes (I'm assuming you just throw it in the lava pit when it starts boiling like a geologic Pepto-Bismol).
The reason content quality has increased in importance over the last few years has almost nothing to do with LSI or LSA or the increased use of on-page text analysis by advanced search engine algorithms. It has to do with the ease of promoting great content through the rise of social media, a more virally-attuned web audience, and portals like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Netscape, etc. On the flipside, it's much harder to buy links, build link farms or auto-spam than it ever was. This combination makes the economics of creating great content more and more appealing.
There's no chicken and egg debate here - SEOs were link-building long before they were linkbaiting, and until such time as Wikipedia pages rank on page four while small-town experts rule the top 10, link building will be the end-goal of search engine optimization.
Your thoughts?
I think that one overlooked factor in this discussion is TRAFFIC.
If you don't have relevant traffic it is hard to get links. A site that has great content and some traffic will accumulate a few links over time. But we must stimulate the right traffic... the best way is to become known amoung the linkerati.
This is why SEOs should encourage their clients to be speakers at the conferences in their fields and become a "known" among their peers. This brings *The Right People* to their websites and if they have great content, relevant tools or other linkables then the right eyes will see it.
I speak at conferences in the field of my websites regularly and that pulls in a nice amount of linkjuice, plus if you have colleagues who want some exposure for their ideas it might bring in some nice volunteer content.
Well here goes; getting links to my clients website has never been my most important optimisation technique. And I seem to be doing pretty well. 80% of my clients are number one on Google SERPs for their most "wanted" keyword (and I'm talking competitive keyowords in BIG markets).
Wasn't one of the SEOmoz suggested taglines: Optmise and they will come? I still believe that content, title tags, h-tags, alt tags, avoiding flash, clean coding is more important. Not saying links are not important, and I totally agree that the social tagging factor will definetly have a big value in the search engine algos in the future. But until then I'm sticking with my fabolusly intresting and keyword rich content along with great design usability =)
Hey how's things without Rebecca? Meeting her in London tomorrow!
Still here, Lisa. I leave tonight at 6:30, so it's a half day in SEOmoz Land for me :)
Absolutely right but link building for non content sites is much more difficult, if you have some high quality content possibly developed with your niche and the competing content in mind you can attract links much easier. One area where I work for a client at the moment is very crowded with heavily optimized sites. Large link networks and so on, the only thing that is really missing is very high quality content. By adding this high quality content it's much easier to attract and build authority links.
First timer here... I'm the "elsewhere" in "Recently, there's been more conversations along those lines, both here at SEOmoz and elsewhere."
I am NOT an SEO guru, but it does seem to me that exclusive focus on any part of the overall equation makes little sense. As a content provider, my focus is on creating great text that serves user needs and organically generates those critical backlinks. I leave the on-page mechanics and other aspects of SEO to folks like you guys.
My semi-educated point is that it makes more sense to focus on what we do know rather than on what may or may not be. We know that good content can do a lot. We know that the algorithmic tweaks are designed to locate good content. They might be flawed techniques and they may be (at least temporarily) exploitable, but it does appear that good material usually passes muster and will continue to do so.
Thus, it would seem like using quality content is a much better notion than chasing after Google's LSI techniques in hopes of discovering some kind of magic "LSI compatible" writing, etc.
Carson
The general formula... if you have quality content on cleanly coded pages that is unique and the title is link bait, getting links will be easier. If you get links from websites which themselves are high rankers and linked well, AND your site has been around for at least six months your content will rank well. The better ranked, better linked site you have linking to you, and the older your site, and the cleaner your page, the better you'll rank. If SEO is your goal, then you can accomplish it with the above.
However, if making MONEY is your goal, if getting SALES is your goal, then the most important things are the quality of your content, and the relevance of the sites that link to you. If you want the right audience, you need your links in the right places. And if you want them to buy something, or click somewhere, you need to have the best copywriting invested into your content.
Maybe people still argue about links vs. content because they are both necessary in different ways. One is the SEO cycle (which is impossible to succeed in without relevant quality links from relevant large websites), the other is the sales cycle (which is impossible to succeed in without sales-oriented quality content).
again I agree with Simmal Tree.. I seem to agree with you on most post actually =)
Thank you Lisa (((: - D
Talk about a simple truth sparking a holy war in the comments section. This isn't really that complicated. Well-optimized code and content can only get you so far because that variable is easy enough to max out on your own, so competitors can do the same to their own pages. Thus, on-page factors can only get you so far, then it goes to other, less controllable factors such as domain age and links.
We all know that any phrase can be link bombed and a site can get the #1 ranking, so why are people still thinking that content is king? No matter how perfect you think your content is, if there is a page with 1,000,000 organic links pointing to it with the phrase that you are trying to rank #1 on, you won't beat it. Using anecdotal evidence of "my client ranks on competitive terms because of great code and content, not because of links" is crap. If that is the case then your area is not that competitive in terms of the number of links required to rank high or your client has more link juice than you realize.
Also, tagging will NOT ever become a big ranking factor because it's too easy to game. Social systems are inherently easier to game because people can be influenced by money or even easier, robots will be created to do all the fake tagging for you. Links were a good starting point because there weren't any terribly easy systems to buy and sell links at the time so they were relatively untainted, but over time that's changed and links are no longer the be-all-end-all to ranking. It's taken much less time and energy to pollute del.icio.us, myspace, facebook, digg, etc... with spam than it did to do the same with links a decade ago.
I think some people who read this blog need to wake up and smell the reality that SEO is not a "pure" art or science at all. It's not as simple or happy as "content is king" or chasing page rank. When you are trying to rank your local flower shop for "flower delivery", don't think for a second that on page optimization, quality content, and a handful of links are going to help bobsflowershop.com rank well anytime soon. No matter how perfect your content is, you'll need quite a few links of fairly high quality to make a dent in those serps.
hmm...well without the content the link juice wouldn't do much good would it?!! As I can pretty much guarantee that if you have none of the keywords you want to be ranked for in your content/title/anchor text or any other copy how on earth would you be able to rank for that keyword?? If it's not there it's not there and you will NOT rank..
Or am I just a confused little blonde..stabbing in the dark..
Oh and by the way Mr Blackbeard, with all your respect, my clients are listed for very competitive keywords. I'm not talking about some small shop in the middle of nowhere or a small business. Take it personally, me? Nah...
So if I was a search engine looking to reduce SEO gaming I would simply lower the value of linkage and increase my algorithms capability to understand and rank for quality...
I completely agree. As a test of this in my own world, we created a 10 page health related website for a keyword with 2500+ searches a day, with pages from CNN in top10. Just the content, and one link to get it indexed from a portfolio site, and the site was #1 in G, #6 in MSN. It's still out there and yes, it works.
The same test is in progress for a different entertainment industry keyword with 2500+ searches a day, but nowhere close to same results. almost same amount of competition in the SERPS, but the top10 sites seem to be stronger with lots of incoming links with the Anchor we are trying to get to.
Randfish wrote: ”Great content is merely a means to an end, not a ranking strategy by itself. In fact, I have little doubt that much (possibly most) of the very best content on the web today ranks nowhere in Google because it hasn't been well-marketed”.
Yes that is indeed a problem. And social networking does not make the situation better.
Barry N wrote: "bang on, LSI is a complex statistical model that very few people let alone SEOs grasp. If the evidence within the SE's started to show that content (in competitive markets) reigns without the support of considerable link attention we could conclude otherwise. But, alas, we cannot."
”Actually, "contextual" indexing and retrieval has been part of the algo at the "theme-based" engines (Google, Alltheweb and Lycos) for a couple years now at least. Some of the components are Latent Symantic Indexing and Term Vectoring. If you've got the patience and time, Study those subjects. My Clients and I have been prospering from knowledge of how this works for almost two years now. And I agree that this area is the most interesting and where many of the coolest innovations of search marketing are and will be appearing”.
Source:
https://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=334486&sid=b7c4a644989e70fa0d66656e3c0882ab
It is not a disadvantage to know how SE’s view, interpret, analyze and index content.
This comment is written 03/07/07.
SEO is, in my view, a moving target with a tail becoming longer and longer. Today focus is more on SERP penetration for 100's or even 1000's of KW's related to you business. That may be more important than being in the top ten for a few KW's. I see (quality) IBL's as part of content. It is like mosaic: The finished picture is more valuable than the sum of the individual parts.
Aaron Pratt wrote:
"So if I was a search engine looking to reduce SEO gaming I would simply lower the value of linkage and increase my algorithms capability to understand and rank for quality... "
LSI may be an important element in such a technology.
As Skitz pointed out Refugee has a good thread going on this and I made a post on my blog last night/this morning (there's a difference?) around quality content. The key is being comprehensive. An article that tells the whole story in one place is much more linkable than stuff spread all over... even if it is on the same site. Well-optimized code and content can only get you so far because that variable is easy enough to max out on your own, so competitors can do the same to their own pages. Thus, on-page factors can only get you so far, then it goes to other, less controllable factors such as domain age and links.I think that's a great point. All things being equal links will definately push you over. But why not get a head start on your competition that almost never delivers quality content? And yes, a strong page that is comprehensive can and does outrank sites with more links all the time (within reason).
Ultimately what I like about quality content is its inclination to pick up links on its own. It's the best of both worlds.
Really! Is that your position? Three times a year most people are ready to birth a kitten because their Google rank starts bouncing off the wall. And you feel that there are concrete truths about how "Search" works?
The only obvious truth is that both the web and search engines are evolving and changing. The most stable quality about the Internet is that it is primarily used as an information resource -- and recently entertainment has become a powerhouse.
I can genuinely say that my favorite sites on the Internet are the ones that I found through word of mouth -- not search.
If you offer good entertainment or information you will attract and retain visitors, with or without first place ranking. In the end anyone who is paying to achieve ranking has a real goal that search serves as a proxy for (e.g. sales, downloads) if they don’t have a strong value proposition first place in Google is of little help.
For competitive keywords I like to think that great optimized content is a prerequisite towards achieving great rankings, while links are what actually get you there.
For highly competitive keywords I don't think truly great rankings will occur without both quality content and quality links. For less competitive keywords having just quality links can sometimes work, but having only quality content will rarely do the trick.
Not, certainly, the absolute least attractive?!
I agree with Brian. Sadly, being from Europe here people play still the link game through so called PageRank services.
Queries with any search engine deliver only highly linked crap but no content at all (not even bad content).
Hope in that respect the "old world" is catching on quickly or better the search algos are adjusted to this some time soon.
I think the point to underline about content is that it doesn't have to be great - just different.
A couple of weeks back I wrote a piece at SEOmoz about how developing a news service for Google can help with organic link development.
Now, the immediate trap is to simply hire on the cheap to rewrite existing news articles. It's content, but it's neither great nor different. Organic development value = little.
Last week, when everybody was rewriting how great the release of Firefox 2 was, I stepped back, waited a day, then wrote a news story reporting the privacy concerns raised at TW.
It wasn't a great piece - but it was different. Within a day the item was frontpage news on at least 1 x PR8 + 2 x PR7 sites.
That's how good content works for organic link development.
I guess you could even say that good content is linkbait - even if that's not the primary motivation for the content.
2c.
Aaron Wall and I had a great discussion in the comments of the following post about using just average content for search engines. https://www.seobook.com/archives/001893.shtml
Greta content is expensive in both time and money. It's hard to make money if the only thing you provide is great content. In fact I don't know of any site on the web that only provides "great" content with zero noise.
I just don't understand for the life of me why these obvious truths are still debated. It's frustrating that people still "blah blah blah" with that self righteous banter; pretending links don't help ranks as much as content or that some perfectly crafted keyword density and page organization will do the trick.
It's obvious that great content and great marketing brings great inbound links... mostly because the web is a social medium and what IS interesting to people IS talked about and IS linked to by many of those people who found it interesting. Without those links, your kick ass content will not rank in any even moderately competitive vertical. Point blank.
BTW- O'Doyle rules.
This all boils down to whether you want to optimize for the search engines or for the masses. Everybody wants to know the latest "secret" to win the ranking war. It's not LSI, LSA or any other acronym. Few people, including myself, reallly understand LSI yet they spout that term at every opportunity. Great content won't do anything on it's own. Marketing your content will. Great content and natural link building will always rule over the so called "secrets". Leave LSI to Google and get to building great content and links to that content.
bang on, LSI is a complex statistical model that very few people let alone SEOs grasp. If the evidence within the SE's started to show that content (in competitive markets) reigns without the support of considerable link attention we could conclude otherwise. But, alas, we cannot.
I didn't realize any of this was up for debate. Some things in life are just the way they are, like everything Rand just posted.
I'm ashamed to say Paris Hilton does it for me..... ;)
Daz
We had a pretty lively debate going over at the Refugee for a while as well (naturally Mr. Martinez was involved). I think the good stuff starts on the second or third page.