Content is NOT king!

[incrediblehelp]

Links are the King.

Adam your example will always be there even when old link building techniques (paid links, press releases, articles, reciprocal, etc.) don't work anymore or at least have less effect in the overall Google algo. The "miserable failure example" was a grass roots effort conducted by thousands of real websites, sending real one-way links to the Bush website. Google was basically fooled into making the Bush website number one for this keyword. In the whole scope of SEO it is a poor example of why a website ranks higher than another. If you try to get website(s) ranked in the same method as the Bush website was ranked, good luck to ya!

PR, links and content are not King. Besides have all the necessary on-site SEO conducted on your website...showing the search engines that your website is the Authority for the product, service, or niche you are targeting is or at least going to be King.

LOL, everyone needs to start thinking about what works tomorrow and not what works today.

[JKomp]

imho Content is king, just a corrupted one lured from the richeous path by the promise of short term gain.

Remember power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Seriously though, the human urge to personify things can often prove a useful device, however, it has its limits. A king suggests ultimate power over its domain - however it is the humble webmaster that has ultimate control over content.

Anyway, yes content is still very important but no quality content is not enough in itself to achieve high SE rankings and no poor content is not enough to exclude sites from the higher planes of SE ranking - at least not in the short term.

[DrTandem1]

Good content will only help you if people can actually get to it. Who's going to link to your quality content if they don't even know it exists?

Links are the King.

If you search “miserable failure” on Google the #1 site is Biography of President George Bush. If you search the copy on the homepage you’ll find that the term “miserable failure” does not even exist on the page. If content is king how can a site rank #1 for a term that doesn’t even exist on the page? Isn’t this telling us that content really isn’t king and that link popularity is really the reigning power?

That points out that IBLs with specific anchor text are a strong factor in SERP results. So? If someone was actually looking for "miserable failure," it is doubtful that they were looking for the president's bio other than as a joke. Maybe they were looking for French military exploits, who knows?

That reinforces the point that without the expected content, a high position in the SERPs is meaningless. Therefore, "content is king" relates to visitor ratings, not SE popularity.

[Dcrux]

I am a little lost on this example. Let me get this straight...

1. Somebody writes -- as in content -- that it would be a good thing to use link text to associate a term with a specific page.

2. Some two hundred odd people (initially) reading this content, come to the conclusion this is a good idea. And they are persuaded, probably in no small part do to the persuasiveness of the writing, to put the target phrase into the link text on their sites. (Probably writing content to accompany it, and to persuade others to perpetuate the plan).

3. The target page and term then become associated and rise to rank #1.

4. Other bloggers, probably reading about the intial plan, are curious enough to see if it worked. They search, find the page so linked, and then...

They write about it for others to read about, persuading more people to link (a behavior they would not have done without the content). Sure they might have linked some page with a term ...just not this one.

This proves exactly what then? To support the "link is king" side, doesn't this have to happen spontaneously -- without content (the plan to link this page with a specific term) being the catalyzing factor?

Again, to be more productive, it might be better to acknowledge content and linking work together.

[espectations]

I agree on the one hand and on the other hand disagree.

The message is clear especially after Jagger update.

Design web sites for people, not search engines. So, let's look at this. Why would people visit a web site?

Either to buy something or to learn something - and then you have those that just have got nothing better to do than surf the web (LOL)

Whether or not the person wants to buy something, it is information that will keep them on the web site, let them add comments to a blog, bookmark the page etc.

So, without content which the user finds interesting, nothing will happen.

I think another point which is left out of this discussion is the way the content is presented.

Let me explain: I am in the SMS industry

It requires some technical knowledge. The other day, I looked at enquiries and decided that people do not understand http api's. I sat down, cleared my mind and wrote a non-technical explanation. Call it http api for dummies.

Response? "Best explanation of a http api I have ever seen" was one reader's comment.

So, enquiry for product resulted testing is on its way.... potential client, potential sale.

The bottom line here is that I did not write that explanation for the search engines, I wrote it because I saw that my clients had the need to understand it.

So, sales do come into play when we write thing whether we like it or not.

This is just one example - there are many more.

So in conclusion - from a search engine point of view content may not be King.

From a web site visitor point of view, content is King. Otherwise we will not be in business.

[incrediblehelp]

This proves exactly what then? To support the "link is king" side, doesn't this have to happen spontaneously -- without content (the plan to link this page with a specific term) being the catalyzing factor?

Again, to be more productive, it might be better to acknowledge content and linking work together.

Well posted DCrux. This is what I am trying explain you did it much better than me in you step by step post. Linking and content do work together.

Of course one you control and the other you don't. You can control what you website looks like so you create a well optimized and built website. You have the best prices and you have great information available to the end user. You participate on forums, message boards, go to shows, etc. to push you products from your website. You become the "authority" on the products you sell. People start linking to you. They wouldn't link to you unless you had good content on the subjects they were interested in!! One cant exist without the other. Eventually the SE's see this and start rating your website higher and higher on the queries for you products or services.

You see linking and content are both not nearly a "king" in the example. Now their is that example of "miserable failure" in which the content doesn't match the query, which "fools" people to think that linking is king, but these examples are few and far between and as I have stated before is a horrible example to prove that linking is king. This type of result is also exactly what the SE's want to move away from. Totally dependency on link credit is bad. This is why all the SE' s are eager to move to personalization and geo-targeting to avoid results like this.

The problem I have with the SE's and linking are the Trust Rank value placed on certain websites over others. I don't feel that Amazon.com, Walmart.com, etc are any more relevant than a local mom and pop selling the same products. Sure they have more OVERALL IBL's than momandpops.com, but do they have more OVERALL IBL's for that specific product? Sometimes (actually a lot of times, NO!). If they do then they should out-rank momandpops.com, not just because they are trusted more. I know many momandpops.com that are much more relevant than a Amazon.com and have better niched one-way links than Amazon.com yet Amazon.com will out-rank the momandpops.com for a particular keyword. This is where I get upset at SERP's. Google does this more than anyone. Why? Because they need to have trusted results fro their end users. Google needs to be smarter then just defaulting to the most popular or safest SERP.

[DrTandem1]

The point that I think was trying to be made was an illustration of a "Google bomb." If enough sites linked to a target site using the anchor text, "Crappy site," then searching for "crappy site" would result in a SERP for that target site no matter what the content is about.

The example given with "miserable failure" was a Google bomb by those who don't like Bush. As you may have noticed, it is followed by #2 Michael Moore. Obvious retaliation. For a time, if you entered "french military victories" Google responded with "Do you mean french military defeats?"

So, I think that it is clear that links with the appropriate anchor text are very important with regards to the SERPs more than content. Thus, SERPs have may have little relevancy to your intended search as the content is not heavily weighed.

[incrediblehelp]

So, I think that it is clear that links with the appropriate anchor text are very important with regards to the SERPs more than content. Thus, SERPs have may have little relevancy to your intended search as the content is not heavily weighed.

OK this is where everyone is getting confused, Please don't compare Google bombing and a normal rankings. Using this psychology would lead some to believe that if I Google bomb I will get to the top. Show me a website that lives off of Google bombing? Ah yes, one form of it is called comment spamming. Don't think I want to do that, but if I did your right my content could basically be whatever I want. of course I would wake one day to realize that my website has been removed from the index.

My point is links are not king because these Google bombs don't work or even exist in "real world" situations like SEOing for clients and if you do do them you will eventually be banned. If not today or tomorrow, someday...and eventually the algo will be smart enough not to rank purely on anchor text and links.

[Andilinks]

Google bombing works because oddball phrases like "miserable failure" and "crappy site" have absolutely no commercial value and these pranksters have no competition when Google bombing.

So unless you find some client who wants to rank for "miserable failure" this is no proof that Google bombing works for commercially valuable words/phrases.

[a-1cellphones]

So content is mainly for customers not serp's. Is it me or does it seem like, the big web sites like amazon are always on the top of search enginges. Is it because they spend a lot in there PPC advertising? Look at the keyword t-mobile cell phones. Those same sites have been in the top 10 for years. How do you compete with them in ranking? You cant, Google gives them special treatment.