How does a site with lower backlinks beat ones with higher backlinks?

[rmolina88]

After building about 60+ backlinks to an article for one of my keywords, I was ranking #1 on google for my keyword with 13 backlinks showing up in my SeoQuake.

Over the weekend, my article dropped down to page 3 with the #1 result being an article that only has 2 backlinks.

Is this the result of the google dance? What's going on here?

[The Dotcom Hippie]

Could be lots of reasons, like BETTER backlinks and the AGE of the sites, for example. Of course, it could also be the Google dance - probably the most likely thing in your case. My point is this, though: It's not just the number of backlinks that count.

[Super Affiliate]

Most likely, it's Google dance. I've had many similar experiences and they usually come back up between a few days and a couple of weeks. If that doesn't happen, you can do some free press releases to add backlinks. That always helps.

[rmolina88]

Thanks you guys, that made a lot of sense. It's frustrating dropping from #1 to page 3

[Super Affiliate]

I know exactly how you feel. I had mine ranking in the 1st page and dropped to the 9th page overnight one day. But it didn't take long to get back up. : )

[yukon]

This is the biggest problem I see all over the web.

Most folks believe all that matters is how many backlinks you have (wrong).

What matters is the quality of the backliink, that's it!

Myself, I never backlink If my keyword isn't in the reffering sites page-title.

I don't care about Google Page-Rank, all I care about is that the keyword has got to be in the page-title.

That's just me...

[connorbringas]

Yeah, these two backlinks could be amazing. 100 backlinks doesnt beat 2 backlinks from pr 7 websites. Now of course the PR isnt the most important thing. Whats important is the type of backlink...is it relevant to the article? Does it include the same keywords or similar content..etc

[clorets01]

I know how it feels, its frustrating and requires CONSTANT work, but keep it up and build those quality backlinks. So as suggested, focus on quality first

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by rmolina88

After building about 60+ backlinks to an article for one of my keywords, I was ranking #1 on google for my keyword with 13 backlinks showing up in my SeoQuake.

Over the weekend, my article dropped down to page 3 with the #1 result being an article that only has 2 backlinks.

Is this the result of the google dance? What's going on here?

If all it took was the number of backlinks, SEO would be easy.

In addition to what others have mentioned, I'm seeing more and more evidence that internal linking is also very important. Sometimes enough to outrank a site with more external links.

How many links does the #1 result's site have overall, and how many of them point to the ranking article?

If a site has 10,000 good backlinks, each of those pass some juice to the page they link to. That's the basic premise for the whole backlink feeding frenzy, right?

Now suppose that the site also has solid, in-context anchor links from 100 internal pages, and pass part of their juice to the ranking page.

That ranking article could indeed only have 2 external back links, but enjoy the juice, indirectly, from thousands of others...

[joe.marsh]

Google dance seems to have gotten worse since their most recent update. Ranking also seems to take longer.

I could get sites ranked in one day. Now it takes 2-3 weeks.

But I still get them ranked, which I guess is all that matters.

[connorbringas]

Also, seeing backlinks is like looking into the past. You can see the backlinks a site HAD a month ago but you cant see what it has at this very moment..or ever for that matter. You will never be able to see a sites full amount of backlinks

[SimonHarrison]

Originally Posted by rmolina88

After building about 60+ backlinks to an article for one of my keywords, I was ranking #1 on google for my keyword with 13 backlinks showing up in my SeoQuake.

Over the weekend, my article dropped down to page 3 with the #1 result being an article that only has 2 backlinks.

Is this the result of the google dance? What's going on here?

1) Link quality bests link quantity by such a huge margin.

2) Just because you're seeing 2 links, doesn't mean he only has 2 links.

3) If you're in a competitive market it's quite possible he's ring fencing
his money site, it's possible the site that links TO his money site has
500 links going to it.

4) That kind of movement you're experiencing is quite typical early on.

[rmolina88]

Dang, so does this mean even if Market Samurai shows that a site/article/etc has only 2-7 backlinks, it really has more?

I know how to do proper keyword research, but if it's not truly accurate, I'm getting worried now.

I've only started backlinking a week ago and got results pretty fast, so maybe that's also it.

[SimonHarrison]

Originally Posted by rmolina88

Dang, so does this mean even if Market Samurai shows that a site/article/etc has only 2-7 backlinks, it really has more?

I know how to do proper keyword research, but if it's not truly accurate, I'm getting worried now.

I've only started backlinking a week ago and got results pretty fast, so maybe that's also it.

Market Samurai, and every other back link tool utilize the Yahoo link checker.

Google simply doesn't give true back link numbers away .

[Teravel]

Theres more to Google than just Backlinks. Domains with keywords in them will rank higher than domains without the keyword. Google likes sites that have great SEO more than they like sites with average SEO. It's not only important to have the keyword in the article, but to have related keywords as well. If you write an article of 500 words, and you use the keyword 25 times, but you don't cover any related information... Google may disapprove.
For example, a website based around Pepsi may rank better if you include information about calories, carbs, fat, protein, sugar, and other Pepsi products such as Mountain Dew, Pepsi One, etc.

If two sites rank the same on all that I have described above, google will then check to see which has more/stronger backlinks.

Advice:
Check your Meta Tags (And your competitions Meta Tags?)
Make sure you have related keywords in the article.
Be sure to include H# tags.
I heard putting keywords in Bold, Italics, or outstanding colors may help as well (so you may want to test this)

If that doesn't help... Start creating backlinks on higher PR websites. A single PR 7-9 backlink may outrank 10-100 PR 0-1 backlinks simply because the higher PR sites are more trusted by Google.

If that doesn't help. Try submitting your RSS feeds to RSS Directories. Create a Video on youtube that links to your site. Or any other promoting you can think of. More ideas on ways to promote your site can be found in the allinone threads if you look through them.

~ Teravel

P.S. None of this is absolute. Find new ways to promote your site, and find what works best for you. Good luck with getting back to #1. If you get back there, let us know what you did so we can all benefit.

[FredJones]

It is probably a Google dance. The on-page is important, but looking at the fact that you had risen to #1 it sounds like you have your on-page well done. Also, your backlinks were probably on the first page of a number of higher-PR sites which had made it come to #1. Once those backlinks go deeper inside the sites linking back to you, the initial power is lost. But once those backlinks are indexed, some but not all of the power of the backlinks come back.

[tcindia123]

Just do on seo with quality back links

[dreamer31]

I think that all counts. Number of links in total and off course number of backlinks from high PR sites. We can just only speculate how really is influence of particular backlink. My humble opinion is that niche related links are most valued from side of "G". It is not advised to put your links to PR0 sites, I heard that 100 times and try to follow this rule.

[jeba1975]

Google Check 1) if your links are coming from quality authortity sites 2) quantity doesn't matter here 3) Quality of your site content and on-page SEO 4) Daily visitors statistics. If you are not done on-page SEO, you have to build more backlinks to fight competition.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Teravel

If that doesn't help... Start creating backlinks on higher PR websites. A single PR 7-9 backlink may outrank 10-100 PR 0-1 backlinks simply because the higher PR sites are more trusted by Google.

I can't find the presentation offhand (probably buried on an old hard drive), but I heard a pretty compelling case that PageRank (named for Larry Page, not for the rank of the page) is displayed on a logarithmic scale.

With billions of pages to rank for trillions of searches, a simple 1-10 scale like the toolbars and such display would be meaningless.

As I understand it, the displayed PR of a site is more closely correlated to the exponent of that rank. In other words,

PR 0 = 1
PR 1 = 10
PR 2 = 100
PR 3 = 1,000
PR 4 = 10,000

and so on...

So the juice from a single PR 4 page could be worth 100 times that from a PR 2 page and 10,000 times that of a PR 0 page.

It's not quite that cut and dried, but it would explain how, if everything else was equal, a site with just a few high-quality links could outrank a site with hundreds of lesser quality links.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

If a site has 10,000 good backlinks, each of those pass some juice to the page they link to. That's the basic premise for the whole backlink feeding frenzy, right?

Now suppose that the site also has solid, in-context anchor links from 100 internal pages, and pass part of their juice to the ranking page.

Yep and thats the reason a brand new article will rank on an article site - because all of the PR juice running through the site from other pages.