Stop hunting links like a mad man.....there is more to the ranking

[MaryT]

you must put half of you effort to have
1. original content that matches your market, and entice the reading of your material
2. and make sure that the navigation of your site is smooth and people visiting your site spend 1minute or more on the site
3. the bouncing time + visiting time is more important than the numbers of backlinks.

You can have acquired 10K backlinks with your keywords and be outperformed in the ranking by a site with only 200 backlinks just because people read the articles and spend some time on the site

it's part of the game, the search engines reward the site that provide what people search for.
if 95% of the visitors close your site in less than 5 sec, you will have hard time to rank in a competitive market

bonjour chez vous

[derrickp]

No not really.

[ntnsllc]

Originally Posted by derrickp

No not really.

I agree completely. The reason for quality content isn't so that people will stay on your site longer. It's so that people will give you natural high quality links! The reason a site outranks you with a TON less links is because their content is better which can mean those 200 links are better, higher quality, than yours. Matt Cutts has shown this on multiple occasions during site reviews where a site may have 200 links, but only 3 or 4 are passing the value required to outrank a site with thousands of links.

[Mikedb]

I agree with all your point except number 3.
Quality backlinks combined with onpage SEO is a killer!

Regards,

Mike

[xxxJamesxxx]

Everything factor as it's place but I'd still say backlinks are king

James

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by MaryT

you must put half of you effort to have
1. original content that matches your market, and entice the reading of your material
2. and make sure that the navigation of your site is smooth and people visiting your site spend 1minute or more on the site
3. the bouncing time + visiting time is more important than the numbers of backlinks.

Great advice! If anyone following this formula, you get high conversion even with very few traffic! Think about the exponential effect when your site grows, you need natural links, and the only way to do that is with value - your content will bring in more links!

[epiloser]

Well it depends. I don't care if people read my content, I want them to click my ads.

[lebox1]

i need folks to help with my site sigh... i dont even know what to hunt lol

[Daniel McGonagle]

You still need links to get the content noticed in the first place.

Best place to get more readers reading your stuff?

Page 1

Best way to achieve that?

Backlinks

If you have adsense sites then you WANT a high bounce rate since clicking off the site if the goal there, with that biz model for those types of sites.

There's no real secret here, just effective backlinks to good content and ensure you're on page seo is receptive to these links

[inter123]

How does all this apply if you are targetting Adsense?

[joetheseo]

back links > on page SEO every time

I do think Google is taking bounce rate and CTR into account more so then they used to however.

[NicoleBeckett]

Good point... if you don't have something informative and interesting to offer them once they land on your site, they're not going to take you seriously. If you have killer content, many of the backlinks will evolve on their own.

[joetheseo]

Originally Posted by NicoleBeckett

Good point... if you don't have something informative and interesting to offer them once they land on your site, they're not going to take you seriously. If you have killer content, many of the backlinks will evolve on their own.

I don't know about that, it depends on the market.

I have a test site with random translated text that you can't even read... and people click the hell out of the ads.

[paulgl]

The amount of backlinks is not #1.
Anyone who thinks the number of backlinks is #1,
they are sadly mistaken.

It is about quality across the board. SEO like a visitor.
Listen to google.

You can outrank with 1 backlink.

People think 99% of SEO is backlinks, when 99%
of SEO is not backlinks.

Okay, maybe that was an overstatement. But I will agree
100% to stop worrying about backlinks.

But when I say stop worrying about backlinks, I'm really
talking about getting 10,000 backlinks. Not needed.
Too many people come here with a list of 1,000 blogs,
forums, etc. to spam your link. A complete waste of time.

Example, there's a thread here about as easy way to get
100,000 backlinks! C R A Z Y!

See, people do these things then complain they got
penalized and blame it on doing too much of the right
things, when in reality they have done too much of the
wrong things.

Google states over and over, get your page up to snuff
first and foremost.

Paul

[digidoodles]

I did an experiment, paulgl, which proves your theory wrong.

I have a site with amazingly killer content ONLY. No ads, just chockfull of useful, perfect content. Perfectly on-page SEO'd, an amazingly great niche with "perfect" competition numbers and no backlinks.

Guess what? No visitors. No clicky.

Content may be king, but if you're the ruler of an island that no one can find, it's pretty pointless.

Warmly,

Brandi

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by MaryT

3. the bouncing time + visiting time is more important than the numbers of backlinks.

Google cannot accurately measure bounce rate on sites, period, even with Analytics installed. If Analytics isn't installed, they can't measure it at all. People's surfing habits are too different for this to be an accurate measure of site quality. Also, this kind of stat could be easily gamed if it actually mattered to any degree whatsoever. To say that that bounce rate is more important than links is laughable.

Originally Posted by MaryT

You can have acquired 10K backlinks with your keywords and be outperformed in the ranking by a site with only 200 backlinks just because people read the articles and spend some time on the site

This has nothing to do directly with quality of content or lack thereof but the authority of the incoming links. Of course, good content can get you these authority links.

[Groovystar]

Digidoodles is entirely right. Content means virtually nothing anymore. It used to, years ago, but that was before google started in with all the backlink crap. Now almost the only thing that matters is how other sites treat yours.

[Titans]

Originally Posted by MaryT

you must put half of you effort to have
1. original content that matches your market, and entice the reading of your material
2. and make sure that the navigation of your site is smooth and people visiting your site spend 1minute or more on the site
3. the bouncing time + visiting time is more important than the numbers of backlinks.

You can have acquired 10K backlinks with your keywords and be outperformed in the ranking by a site with only 200 backlinks just because people read the articles and spend some time on the site

it's part of the game, the search engines reward the site that provide what people search for.
if 95% of the visitors close your site in less than 5 sec, you will have hard time to rank in a competitive market

bonjour chez vous

Wrong, because:

1. Original don't mean jack (for the 100000000th time), in the real world, first to mind > first to market, everyone said "Change" for decades, but after Obama said it now he literally owns that word in people's mind. In tech world it's not about first to invent but the first to get the patent, in the law world it's about who has more resource and influence instead of who's has more moral.

I'll bet you any money you don't care who invented the first search engine when you want to search for something online. In Google's world, first to index (being unique) also means nothing, authority trumps everything.



2. Not everyone uses Google analytics, Google have no way to know what the bounce rate of the site is if they don't use it. Unless of course the adsense ads are also calculating ATOS (avg time on site) but so far I've seen no evidence to support this. I haven't used analytics for years and I have no problem staying at top 3 with heavy, light or just plain come-and-go sites using tactics that totally disregard bounce rate and atos.



3. Is there any stats to back that up at all? do you have any a/b test data between 60 sec ATOS vs 120 sec ATOS vs 360 sec ATOS? Let me put it this way, if your site is crap and you are worried about being penalized for short ATOS, why not just remove google analytics?



Stop spreading feel good ghost stories. Believe no one, assume nothing and do everything to learning how the world really works, I recommend reading some Google patents before making more stuff up.

[joetheseo]

Originally Posted by paulgl

The amount of backlinks is not #1.
Anyone who thinks the number of backlinks is #1,
they are sadly mistaken.

It is about quality across the board. SEO like a visitor.
Listen to google.

You can outrank with 1 backlink.

People think 99% of SEO is backlinks, when 99%
of SEO is not backlinks.

Okay, maybe that was an overstatement. But I will agree
100% to stop worrying about backlinks.

But when I say stop worrying about backlinks, I'm really
talking about getting 10,000 backlinks. Not needed.
Too many people come here with a list of 1,000 blogs,
forums, etc. to spam your link. A complete waste of time.

Example, there's a thread here about as easy way to get
100,000 backlinks! C R A Z Y!

See, people do these things then complain they got
penalized and blame it on doing too much of the right
things, when in reality they have done too much of the
wrong things.

Google states over and over, get your page up to snuff
first and foremost.

Paul

Normally my rank 1 sites only have like 500-1,000 backlinks.

Quality links... Mix between PR0-PR4, social media, forums, etc

Also you're wrong about not needing links. Unless you have an exact match domain, you're not moving anywhere with 0 links.

That is unless our hundreds of websites lie, in that case why the hell do we have these employees anyway, FIRED!

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by digidoodles

I did an experiment, paulgl, which proves your theory wrong.

I have a site with amazingly killer content ONLY. No ads, just chockfull of useful, perfect content. Perfectly on-page SEO'd, an amazingly great niche with "perfect" competition numbers and no backlinks.

Guess what? No visitors. No clicky.

Content may be king, but if you're the ruler of an island that no one can find, it's pretty pointless.

Warmly,

Brandi

Stop misquoting me.

I never said not to backlink. I said stop trying for thousands.

Let's go back and see what I said:

You can outrank with 1 backlink.

But when I say stop worrying about backlinks, I'm really
talking about getting 10,000 backlinks. Not needed.
Too many people come here with a list of 1,000 blogs,
forums, etc. to spam your link. A complete waste of time.

Now, where did I say to not backlink?

I have a #1 site with 5 backlinks. Top niche. High PR backlinks.

That's my theory. Quality across the board.

What was yours?

Oh and you can rank #1 without a backlink. The easiest examples to show
here are these WF threads. In 5 minutes, this post will rank #1 for
pigs in purple pants eating blue corn in beds
And not a single backlink.

Paul

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by paulgl

In 5 minutes, this post will rank #1 for
pigs in purple pants eating blue corn in beds

Cha-ching! Now that's a money phrase if I ever saw one!

Now, what about pigs in blue pants eating purple corn in the kitchen?

[webtrix]

Originally Posted by paulgl

...... this post will rank #1 for
pigs in purple pants eating blue corn in beds ....

Hey you're #1 in Google for pigs in purple pants eating blue corn in beds !
Wow.. magic... Congrats!
You're so cool

[jason_simpson]

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

You still need links to get the content noticed in the first place.

Agree with you completely here. The content will only be noticed when someone visits it. Backlinks provide a solution to make your site rank higher on search results. The better you rank the higher will be the traffic, now if you have good content, then you can also target high Revenues.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by digidoodles

I did an experiment, paulgl, which proves your theory wrong.

In defense of Paul. He isn't wrong you just didn't read what he wrote. He was pretty clear what he was referring to. He didn't say you didn't need any backlinks what he was referring to was not needing 10,000 backlinks.


If you are just starting out and you need more than four hundred backlinks (Actually I'd set that lower but I'll leave it there) then you are not doing good keyword reearch. I'm not even going to argue about this. I spend too much time analyzing first pages to be sold otherwise.

Problems with threads like this is that very soon people start dividing content against backlinks like Search engines have to chose between the two. This isn't the 80s. Its more sophisticated than that. Its like asking what do you prefer - Food or water.

they both go into the equation. I get people PM and emailing me claiming they have so many backlinks and can't move etc. 8 out of ten times you go to their website and the keywords they are targeting aren't even where they need to be.

I move sites up pages just correcting content. Fact. its not all about backlinks and its not all about content. This game of pick one and which is King is fine. Only one problem.

The search engines are not playing that game.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by MaryT

3. the bouncing time + visiting time is more important than the numbers of backlinks.

Your basic premise of having good content is correct but the reason why content is important and particularly point number three is not.

search engines probably would have liked to use this metric but the problem is in the real world it is too easily gamed. You could send a bot from hundreds of IP addressses to visit pages and linger on the page. Remember a human being never really visits any page - their computers do. A human "visit" can be simulated by computers.

Content is important because the best backlinks to get are in content , on high PR pages with very few other out bound links. Many people don't want to admit that to themselves because they don't have a clue on how to get that. No human being puts a link to garbage content without getting paid (in one shape or another). The xrummer forum crowd can't point to a single HIGHLY competitive term that ranks number one using forum backlinks.

I see pages with less backlinks beat pages out almost every day. they do it because they get better backlinks not more and many of the times they get those because their site isn't an obvious one page adsense page.

Originally Posted by epiloser

Well it depends. I don't care if people read my content, I want them to click my ads.

Yea I see this mentality all the time. Then the minute Google drops your site in the serps you go back to begging change at the stop light. Ever heard of repeat traffic? People are so hungup on search engine traffic that they forget that people don't do the same search every month. They go directly to sites they remember had more information to read. They also bookmark the sites they like and share it with others. IF a year from now your traffic is tied strictly to searches that month you are on your way to failure.

[writestuph]

Sales on the internet comes down to one formula: Traffic + Conversions. Traffic is easy, you just have to put some effort into advertising. Conversions are also easy if you know what you're doing. If you don't, I highly recommend hiring a reasonably priced SEO outsourcer to do the job for you quickly and efficiently. It's more than worth the investment, so you can focus on your marketing.

[Lee MacRae]

Originally Posted by Internet Income Academy

Good point.

Bounce time is very important!

Not always true. Pamela Anderson had a lot of "bounce time" on Dancing with the Stars and still got kicked off

[MaryT]

Hi i never said that i have the google blackbox formula, but seem that some seo guys think they got it all

I am providing services for small business owners, and so far all my customers are ranking and getting almost the biggest share of the lions in their market

i would love to post stats, but that's just not the point

in fact, what pattern i discovered is that some sites with Zero onpage optimization, ranking above those optimized, and in first i didn't understand why it was like that

but when you visit these sites, they all have one thing in common, they better answered the requested search. And they provided enough content to keep the visitors for more than 10 minutes.

i will not reveal more about my method, as this will be a future product that will give all the details of the process

for me if i focus on quality content build targeting as much as possible the ideal prospect, and we build some quality supporting links in little number we got great results

no theory, just from the field. I am not working on keywords like "credit cards" but more like "plumbers west London", etc... local markets

I'm working right now,
but will hunt a real example and will post it here tomorrow

you go a little overboard in technical stuff, and answering questions that were never asked

the most important aspect is what is your plan, i generate leads for local market and my approach work.

spammy approach = short life cycle. content targeting your market publishing with little seo, get great results. And when i say quality content, i mean content that your market want to read, doesn't mean a great article that your best writer created. you can have a quality article, that just doesn't interest your market.

it's all about market first, seo or not, start with the market

my 2 cents

Originally Posted by Titans

Wrong, because:

1. Original don't mean jack (for the 100000000th time), in the real world, first to mind > first to market, everyone said "Change" for decades, but after Obama said it now he literally owns that word in people's mind. In tech world it's not about first to invent but the first to get the patent, in the law world it's about who has more resource and influence instead of who's has more moral.

I'll bet you any money you don't care who invented the first search engine when you want to search for something online. In Google's world, first to index (being unique) also means nothing, authority trumps everything.



2. Not everyone uses Google analytics, Google have no way to know what the bounce rate of the site is if they don't use it. Unless of course the adsense ads are also calculating ATOS (avg time on site) but so far I've seen no evidence to support this. I haven't used analytics for years and I have no problem staying at top 3 with heavy, light or just plain come-and-go sites using tactics that totally disregard bounce rate and atos.



3. Is there any stats to back that up at all? do you have any a/b test data between 60 sec ATOS vs 120 sec ATOS vs 360 sec ATOS? Let me put it this way, if your site is crap and you are worried about being penalized for short ATOS, why not just remove google analytics?



Stop spreading feel good ghost stories. Believe no one, assume nothing and do everything to learning how the world really works, I recommend reading some Google patents before making more stuff up.

[eSeM]

Content is only "king" because people link to it.

Google doesn't see content and think to itself "oh this is a great site, it should definitely rank higher than others", I believe that's partly what the keyword density trys to do besides seeing that the site is related to the subject but it doesn't matter any more because thats well known and is gamed now.

Alot of people seem to think google has some magical unknown crystal ball, it doesnt.

Every reaction to ranking is traced back to something like backlinks, sure a LEGITIMATE site with 100 deserved backlinks from other sites can outrank some "SEO GURUS" site with 100,000 directory backlinks, thats because the backlinks are high quality.

Sorry for my use of quotes, i have a strong disfavor for most "SEO GURUS" outlook on things. Its like watching Jim Kramer.

When there's evidence that ranking is influenced by something that doesn't DIRECTLY relate to backlinks and outside sites, ill change my attitude.

[Titans]

Originally Posted by MaryT

I am providing services for small business owners, and so far all my customers are ranking and getting almost the biggest share of the lions in their market

i would love to post stats, but that's just not the point

Stats is the only point, it's all about results, nothing else matters.

Originally Posted by MaryT

in fact, what pattern i discovered is that some sites with Zero onpage optimization, ranking above those optimized, and in first i didn't understand why it was like that

but when you visit these sites, they all have one thing in common, they better answered the requested search. And they provided enough content to keep the visitors for more than 10 minutes.

i will not reveal more about my method, as this will be a future product that will give all the details of the process

Look again, the only one thing in common is the ones above have more authority over the ones below them.

When I first replied I thought you were yet another genuinely misinformed member, now I see you are just making stuff up to sell your current and future products.

Originally Posted by MaryT

for me if i focus on quality content build targeting as much as possible the ideal prospect, and we build some quality supporting links in little number we got great results

What the hell is "quality content"? The rocket scientist and the house wife with 4 kids have different concepts of what is "quality content".

That term died years ago when Google got tired of the keyword stuffing BS, used Wikipedia to save the day, then let backlinks to handle the rest.

"quality content" died the exact same way "quality meta keyword" did.

Originally Posted by MaryT

no theory, just from the field. I am not working on keywords like "credit cards" but more like "plumbers west London", etc... local markets

What is in the field is most sites don't install Google Analytics.

Originally Posted by MaryT

you go a little overboard in technical stuff, and answering questions that were never asked

the most important aspect is what is your plan, i generate leads for local market and my approach work.

Google's ranking algo is pure mathmatics running on software and machines that only understand 0 and 1 (technical), at the end of the day there are only numbers involved.

I pointed out one fatal flaw in your theory - Sites without Google Analytics can't have penalties.

For your theory to be true (Google takes time-on-site into account when ranking sites), Google must apply a default time-on-site value on pages without Google Analytics installed, because if Google simply assign "0 seconds" on these pages, then all Google results will be skewled towards sites with Google Analytics. Giving massive penalties to sites without them.

But this is not what we're seeing, there are no evidence to suggest there are penalties to sites without Google Analytics.

So if there are no penalties for sites without Google analytics, and time-on-site really plays a part in the ranking, then the default time-on-site value can't be 0 second, and that leads to my points - if your "experience" tells you your theory is true, then by extension you would also know the ball park value of this default average-time-on-site assigned by Google. Because in your experience you would also know at which time frame rankings would start to change, either they start dropping like flies or rise like rockets.

Since all signs point to you having absolutely no idea what this default time value is even close to, it's obvious this is either a typical case of mistaking correlation = causation, or another shameless attempt on selling feel good products based on bs theories.

Originally Posted by MaryT

it's all about market first, seo or not, start with the market

I find it funny that at first you sounded so sure about this time-on-site effect, but when faced with real question you end up talking about the word "market" and acting like Google has feelings and is running on biological/quantum computers that understands you without using numbers.

From what I know the only real use for average-time-on-site is for calculating personalized results, but that effect is massively trumped by simple click counts, as in how many time visitor X click on search result X.

It has nothing to do with the "market", you're not selling things to Google, all you're trying to do is push a url to the top 10 of a list calculated by Google's ranking algorithm.

Stop spreading myths.

[FrankBowman]

Like everything else in life its a blend, both for content, by content I mean fresh content, not Pulitzer prize winning content, and backlinks.

For backlinks its also a blend of quality and quantity. There's no secret bullet here. Just do what makes sense, this really isn't rocket science.

[karan_ultimate]

Originally Posted by MaryT

you must put half of you effort to have
1. original content that matches your market, and entice the reading of your material

bonjour chez vous

I was in need of this confirmation.
Currently my blog gets near about 500 unique visitors daily and above 2,000 pageviews. average time on website is 2:30 minutes. I think its good enough and bounce rate is 109.80%.


These stats are by Google Analytics.

And i just love the word bonjour

[paulgl]

I was in need of this confirmation.
Currently my blog gets near about 500 unique visitors daily and above 2,000 pageviews. average time on website is 2:30 minutes. I think its good enough and bounce rate is 109.80%.


These stats are by Google Analytics.

And you are smiling? I have no idea where you get a bounce rate of
109.8% If that were true, you have an extraordinary lousy site.
Nothing to smile about.

Obviously, something lost in the translation.

Paul

[eSeM]

Originally Posted by Titans

Google's ranking algo is pure mathmatics running on software and machines that only understand 0 and 1 (technical), at the end of the day there are only numbers involved.

Thank you titans, that is exactly what i was trying to say but... eh.

[Daniel McGonagle]

Uhh, no not in most cases....except for perhaps the rss scrapers grabbing your stuff, but in most cases the REALITY is that you don't get free, 100% pure intentioned editorial like links with DESIRED ANCHOR TEXT merely by writing good content.

For most niches and keywords with a modicum of competition "Build it and write it well and the links will come" is regurgitated horse s**t that keeps getting passed around by people "talking SEO".

Originally Posted by NicoleBeckett

If you have killer content, many of the backlinks will evolve on their own.

[Megafoo]

The OP said herself that she's basing her entire theory off of local keywords..... everyone knows how easy those are to rank for.

[karan_ultimate]

Originally Posted by paulgl

And you are smiling? I have no idea where you get a bounce rate of
109.8% If that were true, you have an extraordinary lousy site.
Nothing to smile about.

Paul

Sorry about the bounce rate its 15.86% not 109.8%. 109.80% is visits, i don't know what is that. But yeah my website is one of the best in its niche. I personally upload all the content and i never compromise with the quality.
The link is in my signature.

Karan

[MaryT]

Originally Posted by Megafoo

The OP said herself that she's basing her entire theory off of local keywords..... everyone knows how easy those are to rank for.

who tell you they are all that easy, try to rank for lawyers related keywords in new york or london

half of my client are in the finance, and even on local market it can take up to 3 months to have a steady ranking with a very god campaign

i always find these posts funny, because it's the same when you go to a seminar and ask a question around this, and you got all these "seo experts" jump to explain everything they know or think they know about it

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by digidoodles

I did an experiment, paulgl, which proves your theory wrong.

I have a site with amazingly killer content ONLY. No ads, just chockfull of useful, perfect content. Perfectly on-page SEO'd, an amazingly great niche with "perfect" competition numbers and no backlinks.

Guess what? No visitors. No clicky.

Content may be king, but if you're the ruler of an island that no one can find, it's pretty pointless.

Warmly,

Brandi

Hey Brandi! You are right! However, quality content is as important as backlinks, and there are ways to get "natural backlinks" with quality content, but don't ever think those "natural backlinks" would work as powerful as well optimized backlink campaign.

When you have good quality content, you can promote them on blog community, forums, or any kind of social media like facebook. However, not all kind of niches can use this method, the market you are targeting must be - broad!

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Google cannot accurately measure bounce rate on sites, period, even with Analytics installed. If Analytics isn't installed, they can't measure it at all. People's surfing habits are too different for this to be an accurate measure of site quality. Also, this kind of stat could be easily gamed if it actually mattered to any degree whatsoever. To say that that bounce rate is more important than links is laughable.

This has nothing to do directly with quality of content or lack thereof but the authority of the incoming links. Of course, good content can get you these authority links.

I don't know how Google measure the bounce rate, most probably when the user hit back button and they record the time. I'm not sure why, but Google seems to ignore long tail keywords about the bounce rate, that's why you see high bounce rate autoblogs still work well.

However, more competitive keyword, try to lower your bounce rate seems to convince Google your content is relevant, and they will weight you more. I'm saying if your site bounce rate high you won't rank for some moderate competition keywords, but a low bounce rate website will sure rank easier.

Just my own experience, Google did know about your site bounce rate, they can just measure the click on the back button! I still prefer good content over crappy one, at least my conversion is better.

Kok Choon

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by kkchoon

I don't know how Google measure the bounce rate, most probably when the user hit back button and they record the time.

This doesn't work due to the way different users interact with browsers.

For example, I always open stuff from a search result page in separate tabs. There's never a back button press to count. Also, if I open 3 pages, the last one would show me on the page for quite a while but the first one I looked at would get closed sooner.

Other people use private browsing options and other things that would disable such tracking. On page factors, such as Flash and Javascript, might also skew results.

Some sites are designed intentionally to encourage a high bounce rate, such as Digg and other social bookmarking sites.

Tracking that much data would also be a daunting task, even for a cutting edge cloud computing organization like Google. That's a lot of data to track and it would get quite expensive both in terms of storage space and processing power required.

[MaryT]

this is how google mesure the time, from a quite good reference when it come to seo and google.
They record a time parameter related to your pages, it's not the "bouncing time" but it's something they use to evaluate how relevant your page is to the query

when you type a search, you visit the page and when you don't find what you need , you come and click another search

note: that i didn't say you "hit the back button", that's not required

but the logic behind, is if you find the answer to your query, you will just have no reason to come back to search another source

google could afford the best guys to program their robots to detect as best as they can a reliable source.

along these last years the results have evolved in quality on the first page, it's not perfect but it is still improving and it's quite efficient

yes you can game google with tricks and tips, but it's never a long term strategy

there is a business model build around a simple philosophy, people make a search and the search engines want to provide the best results. there is more than seo, there is the most powerful advertising business build around this technologies.
and it is much simple i found to play by the rules than to use all the tricks

and also there is the ethic, if you play trick to get some adsense cash, you are a technology thief . yes, someone pay your commission for service not rendered

for the geeks, google hired the best "neural network and human behavior" specialist in the world for a good reason

my 2 cents
Mary