Backlinks... Quantity or Quality?

[hirstmusic]

What are your thoughts? What has worked for you?

Update: - Just wanted to thank you all for the brilliant responses. There is definitely a common theme among all your answers :-) I've learned and will put it to good use!

[DavidG]

Quantity = Short Term
Quality = Long Term

I only do mabey 80-100 manual backlinks per day for my longterm clients.

Results are better than when they buy single packages for 1 run. In this reply by better I mean it lasts longer .

regZ

[linksbuilder12]

One of the first things to remember is that the number or quantity of links coming in to you should not be your first consideration. Years ago it was all about the quantity but these days, it is also about the descriptive text in the link that counts along with the authoritative aspect (how busy the site is) as well as getting links from locations that suit your audience. Lot's of times you can benefit with links that are not huge in number, but are from authoritative sites using good descriptive link text in the link.

[edfranklin]

Quantity backlinks work for a short time.. Quality backlinks work for long time..... If you get 2 backlinks from same theme related websites is equals to 10 backlinks from non related websites.

[sunia]

I think Quality as your 2,3 backlinks from high PR sites has more importance in increasing your PR as compared to 200,300 back links from 0 PR sites

[TBInternetMarketing]

Originally Posted by hirstmusic

What are your thoughts? What has worked for you?

You know a while ago I would have immediately said quality, but these days I think as long as your link actually gets found by Google and has your anchor text keyword, you're doing ok.

Obviously quality will always win, but I think where 'quantity' often lose value is because you may get 3,000 'rubbish' links that never get found or indexed. So this probably has an effect on your lack of rankings, whereas the 'quality' links you get are indexed and give you a boost.

Go for quality, but if you're gonna go for quantity, make sure you get them indexed.

[samual james]

Originally Posted by regZ

Quantity = Short Term
Quality = Long Term

I only do mabey 80-100 manual backlinks per day for my longterm clients.

Results are better than when they buy single packages for 1 run. In this reply by better I mean it lasts longer .

regZ

According to me if you want to get long term results then do focus on only quality links.

[JohnnyC123]

I mostly agree with the below post but my suggestion is quality backlinks.. and long long term...

Quantity matters little unless you're aiming for a quick site hit

Originally Posted by regZ

Quantity = Short Term
Quality = Long Term

I only do mabey 80-100 manual backlinks per day for my longterm clients.

Results are better than when they buy single packages for 1 run. In this reply by better I mean it lasts longer .

regZ

[markrob008]

Well, as for me, quality is still the best. Google now is looking after the quality.

[nancywillson]

i prefer only quality backlinks, because quality is more important quantity. if you have quality backlinks then it gives you great results

[xxmarkxx]

I would defiantly put more focus on quality.

[dukerutherford]

Definitely Quality backlinks works for a site..

[Justinpage]

Quality backlinks are good. But if you want a greater outcome, you may combine those two.

[ahang]

Of course quality over quantity. Quality will for sure bring more traffic and quantity...lets not even go there.

[mika45]

not quantity quality matter dear

[dadamson]

As stated above, quality is your main factor these days.

Google among other search engines are seeking out quality and throwing away quantity in link building strategies.

They are basically trying to reduce the use of software-based spam that appears on the internet.

[diyakapoor]

Quality and quantity both are important. Build quality backlinks from different sources(means quantity should also be there).

[debranighosh4]

Quantity and Quality both matters.

but if you are planning for long-term. So first you should make a plan about how much quantity in How many months.

Then decide the avg quality work per day (100 to 150 links)

[pilatospoonfork]

Like others say, quality is better than quantity. But combining those two is also a good idea.

[Mildred Pros]

Of course, quality is far more better than quantity. You can have lots of back links for your site but only a few of it are real and strong back links that will benefit your blog in its long term process.

Backlinks are more like a foundation or back bone of a website in the Internet. And so, creating a strong back bone would definitely strengthen your website in the SERPs.

[micalaston]

Quantity backlinks work for a short time.. Quality backlinks work for long time..... If you get 2 backlinks from same theme related websites is equals to 10 backlinks from non related websites.

[derricks4]

You have to do both to be good. It looks very un-natural if there are all crappy links, or all good ones.

[stephencammeron]

Originally Posted by ahang

Of course quality over quantity.

Quality shouldn't go over quantity nor quantity. You don't have to choose between those two, but rather do both quality and quantity together with relevancy. Those are what really matters.

[quicklinkbuilder]

In terms of backlinks. Quality is #1

A perfect example of this is. Would you rather have 1 edu backlinks, Or 10 regular backlinks? Someone might say "Well... i want the 10 regular backlinks because its more then 1 right?"

Thats where their wrong. You see a edu backlink is more effective and google loves these backlinks more then any other backlinks.

[faceblogger]

Quantity!!

[Nick Walker]

It all depends. If you say
-a million PR1 backlinks and 1 PR10 backlink
it would obviously be a million backlinks.
-ten PR1 backlinks and 1 PR10 backlink
it would obviously be a pr10 backlink.
Get my point?
Its hard to say which is which, but it is true that higher quality backlinks lasts longer

[MikeFriedman]

I prefer a large quantity of quality backlinks.

[alina albert]

I think higher PR quality links and average PR quantity links are good.

[Tylos]

I my suggestion Quality short term

[Helena33]

Quality backlinks is better than quantity backlinks, but a combination of both is best.

[Ru1N]

Quality = Authoritative and Relative A PR10 about bells linking to you when you sell widgets, may raise your PR, but not add Quality traffic. A Pr5 that talks about why to buy a widget is better imho. You don't want traffic that is not going to convert. Sift out the bad traffic, and focus on the quality traffic. Focus on building relationships with relevant niches, and relevant social media groups, build relationships with your traffic. You want to create customer loyalty.

[kimseo]

There is no alternative of quality backlinks

100 low quality backlinks = 5 high quality backlinks

[Steven Miranda]

Quality works best for almost all sites. Of course if your site is in a competitive niche you will have to have quality and quantity.

[RitaSchwarcz]

I agree...it's all about quality. Google is cleaning out all the rubbish and by the end of the day it might even hurt to have too many which are crappy ones and were made just for the quantity.....it's like back in the days when they cracked down on keyword stuffing!
Sticking to quality will not just result in plus points with Google but will also get more quality visitor to our sites :-)

[amiramin]

i think 50 profile links = 1 PR2 blog or forum backlink

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by amiramin

i think 5000 profile links = 1 PR2 blog or forum backlink

I fixed it for you.

[4webmaster]

If we all know that quantity backlinks comes from forum profiles in most case and everyone is saying quality but where do quality backlinks comes from?
Article directories? Blog comments? Socia network? Social bookmarks?

[gtk29]

Quality and quantity are both desirable when it comes to backlinks. But first preference should be the quality.

[Kurt]

Both. Only "high quality" links aren't natural and indicate SEO. Same for low quality links. A mixture is what happens in the "real" world. And I feel this "natural mixture is the most effective when building links.

[Eric Lancheres]

Both is right for natural patterns (you'll always have odd links pointing to you when you're successful.)

But ultimately, it's the QUALITY links that will make you rank above everyone else. I have ranked #1 for extremely competitive keywords (in a competitive market, as if that wasn't redundant enough) with 7-9 quality backlinks.

Meanwhile, my competitors had 60+ backlinks and scratching their head.

[VinceGray]

Perhaps one of the most important factor is the speed at which you build links. It needs to be constant. That's why a "blast of profile links" is pretty much useless if you don't do it on a regular basis.

So focus on quality links and try to build them regularly (like every few days or every week). It doesn't matter that much if they are only a few links as long as you keep doing it regularly. Long periods of inactivity will start to decrease your rankings.

Also it's not so good if you build 5000 links this month and only 100 the next month. The key to success is to keep it constant so focus on quality instead of quantity! Of course if you can build 5000 links every month then more power to you but make sure you can keep it up!

[recessthegreat]

Quality! Google is clearing out sites with low quality and poor links since those are now considered spam.

[rowanman28]

There are a lot of back links from this forum. Do they need to be relevant to the topic, or does it have some benefit just to have one there? Is it much better to have hundreds of back links, even if they have no relevance to the page title? I notice that a lot of experienced warriors have no link in their signature. Why is that?

[roger64]

Quality, theme related links are better as you need fewer links to rank well.

[simonbuzz]

Off-course Quality is better than quantity....

[TracyZ]

Originally Posted by derricks4

You have to do both to be good. It looks very un-natural if there are all crappy links, or all good ones.

How would it look un-natural if there were all good links?

[strategic seo services]

Quality backlinks in high quantity will give the best results.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by TracyZ

How would it look un-natural if there were all good links?

Because you can't control who decides to link to you. In the real world, it is not going to be only "good" sites linking to you. There will probably be some PR 0 and PR n/a sites as well.

Or another way to look at it... The number of PR 0 and PR n/a sites far outweigh the amount of sites on the internet with a good PR. So logically, you are going to see more "crappy" sites linking to a website than "good" ones.

[rotten72]

This topic causes much debate. I will be discussing this very topic on my blog very soon.

Local SEO Renegade

[penpal6]

Originally Posted by regZ

Quantity = Short Term
Quality = Long Term

I only do mabey 80-100 manual backlinks per day for my longterm clients.

Results are better than when they buy single packages for 1 run. In this reply by better I mean it lasts longer .

regZ

True, But it is also dependent upon what value your targeted site has. For example: If you are promoting a e-commerce site on which you are getting a lot of sales per month then you can consider buying high quality expensive backlinks

But if you money site for example is a micro niche site, targeted for adsense the you can consider buying a lot of cheap backlinks and they do work including forum profile backlinks.