Link or Content - Which is the boss?

[iamanand]

Hi,

Today, after we had completed a training session with our new link team, one of the senior trainees informed them that we would be having a debate on the topic "Link or Content - Which is the boss?"

As we all know and have been hearing that content is the king and link is the secondary aspect as regards to SEO, what would you guys opine on this subject in the modern SEO era. Would you go only with quality content or would you concentrate mainly on link building.

Lets share our experiences through this platform.

Anand

[nnacho]

with good contents you get links

with good links you do not get contents

[mit]

Content is King in Google, I have seen many websites on top rankings in search engines with having very less amount of back links .

[tamecrow]

Yep, I have to back this up. If you build quality, relevant content for your website then you will gain spontaneous links from webmasters who find your content genuinely useful.

Anyway, what use is ten million inbound links and number-one rankings for five hundred keywords when your content is so bad that any visitors click straight off your site?

[Martinscholes]

If content is a town or city, links are the roads between them.

[seiretto]

Martin,
Nice analogy, as its always the case that new roads are only built if there is good reason.

[mjtaylor]

I would strive for a balance. If Content is King, Links are Queen, and in these days of gender equality, I would say both rule in Google.

Here's the thing. If you have strong content, the anchor text of a relevant, quality link can place a site high in the SERPs even if the same words are not on the page.

Cheers, MJ

[mikeid22]

Originally Posted by iamanand

Hi,

Today, after we had completed a training session with our new link team, one of the senior trainees informed them that we would be having a debate on the topic "Link or Content - Which is the boss?"

As we all know and have been hearing that content is the king and link is the secondary aspect as regards to SEO, what would you guys opine on this subject in the modern SEO era. Would you go only with quality content or would you concentrate mainly on link building.

Lets share our experiences through this platform.

Anand

Hmmm... gotta be a combination of both eh!!!

Get good quality content - people will want to link to you eh!!! - But seriously, I would say decent content, and then building backlinks to aid the natural ones a bit...

[innominds]

Without Quality CONTENT how can one expect a link? So I would give preference to CONTENT.

[erikko]

i guess content first before links because that's what your readers will base your site as well as directories will rank your site as well

[ashukairy]

Make sure your content is relevant, quality, and useful! Slapping unfocused content on your site will not encourage people to link to you. Both are equally important and you need both to succeed. One doesn't work without the other. Good luck!

[incrediblehelp]

Some may not agree, but you cant rank without links for remotely competitive keywords in Google. Sure you need content to get links, but the fact is you find many examples of websites with poor content that rank just fine, because of the links they have. Just look at numerous Flash based game pages that rank. Look at the query for "shoes" in Google and see a YouTube page ranking in the top ten.

[freelancedesigners.com]

They are totaly both important, one or the other will never be successful.

To quote a horrible pop song
"It takes two to make a thing go right"

And with both, the thing that spammers just can't fathom, its quality not quantity - that goes for links and content. Distribute your energy towards both ends and you will build a successful site.

2 cents

[kgun]

Originally Posted by iamanand

Link or Content - Which is the boss?

A site with great content but without IBL's is like a regatta without wind.

[thegypsy]

Link or Content - Which is the boss?

Why can't they just work together???? Seems to be where the ol Google is trying to go to. Relevance AND Popularity....

2c ..passin through....

[1stgirl.com]

I'm new here but I have been building websites since 1995.

One of you wrote "... you cant rank without links for remotely competitive keywords in Google.'

My DigitalProductsCenter.com is 2 months old, without PR and with less than 25 very little non-theme low PR incoming links from my other sites hosted at various locations. If you google "digital products" now you would see it among the top 10 sites, including giants like ClickBank.com, Fujifilm.com and CNET.com.

My CrushBadCredit.com is ranked among the top 50 for "debt free" by Google despite having no PR and few non-theme incoming links from YouTube and other Video sites.

[Clicken]

The question is in regards to SEO, so from a search engine’s point of view the link building can get a low content site to the front. Here’s my experience.


The links from DMOZ held my site (with frames) on page one and position 1 for most of my keyword phrases even though there wasn’t much content on the pages. I was so happy that I printed the results pages and still have them. That was 2004 and 2005.


There were about 250 links to my site. I added more content because WPW taught me about content and the value of it for visitors as well as the search engines. Of course I wasn’t concerned about the SE because I was already in the top however I am so glad that I did consider content for my visitors because DMOZ dropped my site in 2006.

When it was dropped from the DMOZ it also dropped to page 27 in Google but we only lost a little ground in the other search engines. It was 12-01-06 when I started keeping a record of my keywords and how they perform.

After tweaking the content with keyword placement, adding the H1 headings, refining the page titles and using ALT tags for images it has moved up to page 7 in Google for 'math flash cards' even though my inbound links are very few and not even from relevant sites. We do much better in the other search engines.

Currently there are over 2,600,000 results for the phrase ‘math flash cards online’ which happens to be in my signature on the web development forums and we are found on:
page 2 in Yahoo,
Page 1, position #2 in MSN,
page 6 in Google.

Without the content to match the inbound links the links won’t help as much. I would not focus on just one or the other because they work together... without content what is the link pointing to?

I would focus on content first and then the inbound links.

My DigitalProductsCenter.com is 2 months old, without PR and with less than 25 very little non-theme low PR incoming links from my other sites hosted at various locations. If you google "digital products" now you would see it among the top 10 sites, including giants like ClickBank.com, Fujifilm.com and CNET.com.

Is this because of the sanbox, is it still being used?

[Webnauts]

Semantically Structured Quality Content is the Boss.

Otherwise it is just a TXT file with Quality Content.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Some may not agree, but you cant rank without links for remotely competitive keywords in Google. Sure you need content to get links, but the fact is you find many examples of websites with poor content that rank just fine, because of the links they have. Just look at numerous Flash based game pages that rank. Look at the query for "shoes" in Google and see a YouTube page ranking in the top ten.

About that, I feel a wind of change coming. Stay tuned brother.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Clicken

I would focus on content first and then the inbound links.

The best tip ever!

Originally Posted by Clicken

Is this because of the sanbox, is it still being used?

New sites rank high for a short time. That is Googles "honeymoon" effect. So don't get excited so fast, as you can get very disappointed soon. Just a tip.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

About that, I feel a wind of change coming. Stay tuned brother.

So you dont believe in Universal Search?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

So you dont believe in Universal Search?

I do. But do get into there, I must first be found, or?

And about the keywords meta tags, we are talking about Yahoo, or?

[samlauren1]

No doubt Link is the BOSS but content rules it. Both are important LINK to generate the traffic to the site and Content to lure visitors again and again to that site.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by iamanand

Today, after we had completed a training session with our new link team, one of the senior trainees informed them that we would be having a debate on the topic "Link or Content - Which is the boss?"

As we all know and have been hearing that content is the king and link is the secondary aspect as regards to SEO, what would you guys opine on this subject in the modern SEO era. Would you go only with quality content or would you concentrate mainly on link building.

That like asking what makes a company successful - good products or good marketing?

If you make good products but don't market them (equivelant to good content no link building), you may get some get some people buying via word of mouth but you won't reach your potential.

If you make bad products but market the heck out of them (little or bad content, lots of links), you may do OK but you'll always have to put a lot of money and effort into it to keep the hype machine going.

Ultimately you need both to be competitive.

[DoneInStyle]

Content and links work together, as others have said. I feel for ya. I'm in "build links" mode myself.

[stevealmond]

Originally Posted by 1stgirl.com

I'm new here but I have been building websites since 1995.

One of you wrote "... you cant rank without links for remotely competitive keywords in Google.'

My DigitalProductsCenter.com is 2 months old, without PR and with less than 25 very little non-theme low PR incoming links from my other sites hosted at various locations. If you google "digital products" now you would see it among the top 10 sites, including giants like ClickBank.com, Fujifilm.com and CNET.com.

My CrushBadCredit.com is ranked among the top 50 for "debt free" by Google despite having no PR and few non-theme incoming links from YouTube and other Video sites.

Hmmm.... with quotes "digital products" returns digitalproductscenter as 23rd in google without quotes it returns your site as 66th, I haven't checked out "debt free".

I run along with the many anologies given in this thread. Content is the Golden city and links are the road that lead to that Golden city.

Regards

Steve

[Orion]

Content...
Without content you won't get any links, why would anyone link if the content isn't of high quality.
link exchanges end up doing your ranking harm (and will to a greater and greater degree as time goes on)
buying links doesn't do anything

the reason links have any value is that SEs look at it like this: If many people out there on the web consider the content good on this site and link to it then this must be a good site to have high on our SERPs...

now that philosophy that backed the reasoning behind counting links in the ranking algo's was bastardized by black hat SEO creating link exchanges for the purpose of raising your websites' ranking in the SERPs.

the SEs are getting smarter though and as time goes on you'll see less and less emphasis on exchanged links, three way links and paid links, and only those links that are one way and relevant gaining the greatest weight.... the way it should be...

Develop the content, market it well and the links will come.

[Milo]

My experience tells me content over links, but not by too far. Our website ranks well for the term "wedding invitations". I'm currently no 6 for Google.com.au and have more IBL than my competitors beating me (top 5), but they have more content though.
At least there seems a clear path to improve rankings. Now to find the time to write some more content.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by stevealmond

Hmmm.... with quotes "digital products" returns digitalproductscenter as 23rd in google without quotes it returns your site as 66th, I haven't checked out "debt free".

Good point Steve.

[sanver]

Content and Inboundlinks both are important. But once a vistor comes to your site, it the content that will decide how much time he is going to spend on it. It is the stickiness of the site that decides sucess of an website.

Sanjay Verma
Domain Registration in UK
(20) 8133 6894

[stevewaganer]

I thinks link and content both are boss because Links help to enhance the PR. The content provide the valuable thing to the user if content are not satisfactory what the use of the link.

[seo4china]

I think we have to consider also the competitiveness of the industry. For less competitive keywords a site will well optimized content won't rely much on links to get a good ranking. But for more competitive keywords good content only (unless REALLY good thus attracting tons of natural links) will not be sufficient to achieve and KEEP top rankings.

[BrickBlue]

Hi,

Content is the real king of SEO world.Without a proper and relevant content you won't get links.Links can be generated through content but a content never be created from a link.


BrickBlue SEO Team

Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization) UK | Search Engine Marketing UK | SEO Company UK | SEO Services UK

[Ezhel]

You should have a quality content first, which attract more visitors and then links will follow..

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Ezhel

You should have a quality content first, which attract more visitors and then links will follow..

In a perfect world, yes, but there is so much great content out there that links do not necessarily follow for a site in a competitive niche.

But yes, I would concentrate on content first and then links ... they are of equal importance in my book.

Cheers, MJ

[Ezhel]

you may be able to gain more traffic if you should have quality content, IMO.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Ezhel

you may be able to gain more traffic if you should have quality content, IMO.

Absolutely, but it must be hand in hand with quality links.

[mac1234]

Content is king, with 75% weightage to content and rest to links, you cant have god PR without content or should i say with only links. You need content and with content you get links.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by mac1234

Content is king, with 75% weightage to content and rest to links, you cant have god PR without content or should i say with only links. You need content and with content you get links.

May I ask where you get this figure of 75%?