On vs. Off Page SEO... Who Wins?

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by airabongco

Writing good content is NOT considered as a part of on-page SEO. What is considered as onpage SEO is writing keyword-rich content thus considering the keyword density aspect.

Though good content can attract backlinks (which is off-page SEO), it is NOT onpage SEO.

Hi airabongco, Thanks for your post and seeing that both are required not in competition with each other

Though I get that that is the general understanding people have good content IS a part of SEO. It obviously does not happen off page and is a part of ON page. Good content gets MANY sites links so in a discussion where the only choices are on page or off page where else can you put content but ON page? It certainly can't be put under off page. The deeper you go with your site and SEO the line between the two just vanish. So the best that we can logically do is say this

SEO is a matter of content,the optimization of that content and off page links. Undeniable proven fact and put that way I am sure you would agree.

However you wish to classify it is really meaningless though. The fact is that adobe gets backlinks like crazy from their content - the software that they provided for free not from backlinking as most people refer to backlinking.

I will continue to refer to content as on page SEO because most new peoples understanding is that ON page is what happens on your site and OFF page is what happens off your site with links. There is no doubt that with natural backlinking the action starts on your site with your page and what you offer.

[Aira Bongco]

Originally Posted by LangeTroels

In my opinion you can write good content that is also keyword rich..

Yes. Of course, it can be done. But it being keyword-rich plays a role in onpage SEO while it being good can attract backlinks and therefore help in off-page optimization. That is what I am trying to point out. I guess my explanation was confusing. Sorry.

[Aira Bongco]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Hi airabongco, Thanks for your post and seeing that both are required not in competition with each other

Though I get that that is the general understanding people have good content IS a part of SEO. It obviously does not happen off page and is a part of ON page. Good content gets MANY sites links so in a discussion where the only choices are on page or off page where else can you put content but ON page? It certainly can't be put under off page. The deeper you go with your site and SEO the line between the two just vanish. So the best that we can logically do is say this

SEO is a matter of content,the optimization of that content and off page links. Undeniable proven fact and put that way I am sure you would agree.

However you wish to classify it is really meaningless though. The fact is that adobe gets backlinks like crazy from their content - the software that they provided for free not from backlinking as most people refer to backlinking.

I will continue to refer to content as on page SEO because most new peoples understanding is that ON page is what happens on your site and OFF page is what happens off your site with links. There is no doubt that with natural backlinking the action starts on your site with your page and what you offer.

Hey Mike,

And I guess I like to add that it is really not a matter of who got more backlinks or who got the most-optimized content. So long as you deliver value ( as adobe is a valuable product), your links will be built naturally through viral marketing or word of mouth and ultimately, you will gt higher search engine rankings.

Aira

[alextuder]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

They are not fighting

To the point. Its like we need oxygen and water both for our living.

sorry to say, but kinda silly question.

[fanatic123]

The most important thing in SEO is backlink creation. However, it is really essential that you research well to dig into SEO tricks.

[mathewhogard]

I think both are inter-related to each other.But I think off-page is more important than on-page.Because whatever you have made should be published.Press release,e-mail marketing,blog commenting,social bookmarking,article submission is one of the best way to publish our site.

[kazlas]

Of course off page, I've optimized my blog 100% for that keyword and after index it was in PAGE 8. After I've started building links it came to page 1, pos 3, yet about ~150 high quality backlinks need to get indexed.

[ayushiinfo]

On-page optimization is more important. if content is fresh and weekly updation is there no need of off-page optimization.

[BishopMartin]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Tom we all know about that one. Everyone who does any SEO learns that probably in the first month of learning. I took him at what he said " here" meaning at Warriors.

I almost posted that same example here to show a point.

and its this

The "click here" example has been used to deceive more people than anything else in SEO. It has no relationship to what anyone here can do. Nada. Adobe got that because of an INSANELY high amount of very high PR backlinks that you can't buy in a million years. I mean that literally. because of the prevalence of PDFs that link can be found on HIGH PR pages in government sites, thousands of Universities, Millions of business sites, even the white house's sites on and on and on.

No one here even with millions of dollars could duplicate that. Its a tremendously deceptive example that has zero relationship to anyone In Internet marketing. In fact it shows how important on page SEO is because you can see what it takes to get ranking for a term without on page SEO.

If you meant to say there are no examples except for the most obvious one that everyone already knows about you should have said that. Then we could have jumped right to these more obscure examples:

Google

The page currently at number 4 does not include either of the words 'Awful' or 'Announcer'.

terrorist sympathizer - Google Search

The page currently at number two does not contain 'terrorist' or 'sympathizer'.


On the Google results page it highlights your search keywords within the title/text if they exist. If what you are saying is true, then there would never be a result that did not include a highlighted word.. Yes, its rare, but it does happen. Sure its going to be harder to rank if you don't include include the terms in your title/copy, but this just illustrates that off-page optimization trumps on page.

and that relevancy means little..
and that building lots of links with the exact same anchor text helps rank..
and that you can rank unreadable jiberish - if you build enough links..

[jacksonlin]

On page optimization is important.

But having said that, if the competition is tiny, you can have 0 on page SEO and still rank well with great off page optimization.

I have ranked terms in different languages using off page SEO just to test the power of anchor text.

It's funny, you type in a Chinese search string, the number 1 site was the one I optimized for, it was 100% in English, and the other listings are all in Chinese.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by BishopMartin

If you meant to say there are no examples except for the most obvious one that everyone already knows about you should have said that. Then we could have jumped right to these more obscure examples:

Google

The page currently at number 4 does not include either of the words 'Awful' or 'Announcer'.

Weak. A nonsense term no one is going for that does not rank number one like Adobe' s click here. it ranks number four for a no traffic term. That actually proves my point

The page currently at number two does not contain 'terrorist' or 'sympathizer'.

Weaker. If you know about Bill Oreilly he routinely has content on his page related to terrorist sympathesizers. The fact that at present the words do not appear really says nothing except that homepages change often on a news related site.

On the Google results page it highlights your search keywords within the title/text if they exist. If what you are saying is true, then there would never be a result that did not include a highlighted word

Plain wrong. I never said it was impossible. In fact on the first page I indicated when it was possible. Please see my post number 45.

if you don't include include the terms in your title/copy, but this just illustrates that off-page optimization trumps on page.

What this? I've just debunked your two examples. One got no higher than a four for a nonsense no traffic term and the other was derived by content that has been on Bill Oreilly's site before which you just don't understand.

and that you can rank unreadable jiberish - if you build enough links..

Be my guest going for all the no to little search terms per month. Like I said the "click here" example has deceived more people than anything in SEO. If your poor examples weren't even so poor all it would have shown is that you can get ranking for terms that no one cares about without using on page/content optimization.

[BishopMartin]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Weaker. If you know about Bill Oreilly he routinely has content on his page related to terrorist sympathesizers. The fact that at present the words do not appear really says nothing except that homepages change often on a news related site.

So you think this site ranks for the term 'terrorist sympathizer' because at some point in the past those words where on the homepage, and Google is still giving the site credit for that - (even though there is no evidence for this at all) -- and not because a bunch of people decided to build a large number of focused back-links to the site with the exact same anchor text:

Daily Kos: Google-Bomb O'Reilly as a "terrorist sympathizer"

Sure there are not many examples with competitive terms, but thats because on-page SEO is fairly easy why would you skip it? All the same I can still find examples of sites that show up with zero on-page optimization.

How many examples can you find of a page that ranks with zero backlinks?

Really the only point I am trying to make is that in the end backlinks trump content and on-page SEO. And if your going to be an SEO and try to rank websites for competitive terms you better learn how to build or attract links. You can't on-page optimize-your way to the top of the SERPs, but you can link build your way to the top.

[BishopMartin]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Though I get that that is the general understanding people have good content IS a part of SEO. It obviously does not happen off page and is a part of ON page. Good content gets MANY sites links so in a discussion where the only choices are on page or off page where else can you put content but ON page? It certainly can't be put under off page.

Yes it can. Your just redefining terms here to suit your own needs. Great content is not what the majority of people think of when the term on-page SEO or on-page optimization is used. In fact if content is really popular or funny it might be called 'link bait' and that would then be a link-building strategy (ie. off-page factor) and not part of what most people think of as on-page SEO.

Lots of link building strategies/techniques/tactics originate on your site, but that does not make them part of on-page optimization -- or not at least what most people traditionally think of when you use that term.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by BishopMartin

So you think this site ranks for the term 'terrorist sympathizer' because at some point in the past those words where on the homepage, and Google is still giving the site credit for that - (even though there is no evidence for this at all) -- and not because a bunch of people decided to build a large number of focused back-links to the site with the exact same anchor text:

Daily Kos: Google-Bomb O'Reilly as a "terrorist sympathizer"

Perfectly logical theory since the content would have led to backlinks that remained and is relevant to what he routinely talks about. I hardly look up every bombing campaign but actually the fact that it was bombed works MUCH better. As a matter of fact even such a bombing campaign IS a direct result of his CONTENT. Controversy is a very popular way of leveraging content to get back links. Once again an extraordinary campaign not a regular example but still based on content. Can the average person or IMer get a massive amount of people to bomb a site? Then there is no point or lesson to be learned from it just as there is no point for anyone to draw from the "click here" example.

Again read my post 45. Never denied that you can't have linkbait that leads to it but again low competition. and still with such an extraordinary set of backlinks no first result. Doesn't that tell you something?

Sure there are not many examples with competitive terms, but thats because on-page SEO is fairly easy why would you skip it? All the same I can still find examples of sites that show up with zero on-page optimization.

And we routinely find that pages on this very forum show up for terms with zero backlinks. Its not one or the other its both. You can argue with the obvious all you wish.

How many examples can you find of a page that ranks with zero backlinks?

without anchor text for that term? TON LOADS. Its inevitable. There are all kinds of phrases that few people search for or link with. Like I have said multiple times I am still looking for an example of someone here ranking for a site without on page. Adobe's massive reach with PDFs and A link bomb campaign of a celebrity because of his content ? Come on. If theres anything practical to be learned from this thread then give a competitive example or even one thats ordinary and can be duplicated by an IMer.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by BishopMartin

Yes it can. Your just redefining terms here to suit your own needs. Great content is not what the majority of people think of when the term on-page SEO or on-page optimization is used.

You make the same point that airabongco made which I answered and it is generally correct in a broad sense but on this board the emphasis on off page is on backlinking not related to content and those that argue for backlinks over on page usually do denigrate CONTENT along with it.

You just did it yourself proving my point.

you can rank unreadable jiberish - if you build enough links..

Whats the take away for a newbie reading that? Simple. Content doesn't matter. You said it point blank. But it DOES matter in getting backlinks and that content is on the page/ in the site. In the click here example it is the content of the software that gets the links and in the Oreilly example its his controversial content that led to the bombing.

This is not me playing with the definition to suit myself its widening the understanding of on page and off page so that people don't take that nonsense about content being so unimportant it can even be gibberish that you yourself stated.

There is only one way that you are going to get strong high PR backlinks. You either buy them or you have something that someone respects you for. The backlink gibberish to the top is just the same old backlinking philosophy which I am all for when you start out but in serps after serps you can see you eventually need HIGH PR links not just the profile backlinks.

[thelastmuse]

Both win although offline marketing requires steady effort over a long period of time, while onpage SEO is usually a one-off thing with some re-optimization based on initial organic results.

[nedox]

There is no winner there. They are both holding the main key to your site ranking well.
Try optimizing only one of them and you will fail. I know this from personal experiments