How Valuable are Backlinks to a New/Old Site

[edesigner]

Hi, I've been in the market for a little over a year now. I've been doing a lot of things except for building consistent backlinks (I know, what a noob).

Right now, I just want to get a few things clear. Is it more important to build links or to build the website? In other words, if I have a new, 10-page Adsense site, should I spend my time linking or adding more content? I know you're gonna say both, but I just want to know which one is more critical.

How about for an older site? I have a few sites that I neglected for 1+ year. Crappy content, barely any links. If I rebuild the sites and, let's say, buy 500 whitehat backlinks for them over a period of a month, would they improve in ranking, or would they be considered bad practice?

Lastly, how valuable are backlinks to a ecommerce site? Say I have 100 product pages that are similar to competitors who are selling the same things, would buying backlinks help, or would it make no difference since the contents are not all that original.

I guess what I'm trying to say is.... which one dominates in Google algo, content or backlinks?

[dburk]

Originally Posted by edesigner

If I rebuild the sites and, let's say, buy 500 whitehat backlinks for them over a period of a month, would they improve in ranking, or would they be considered bad practice?

Hi edesigner,

When you say "buy 500 whitehat backlinks", what kind of backlinks are those?

The reason I ask is that many folks selling backlinks may claim their backlinks are whitehat, however they rarely are such.

Originally Posted by edesigner

Lastly, how valuable are backlinks to a ecommerce site? Say I have 100 product pages that are similar to competitors who are selling the same things, would buying backlinks help, or would it make no difference since the contents are not all that original.

If your content is very similar to your competitors' you can still try to do a better job of "optimizing" your pages. It's not uncommon to find things your competitors missed. You can focus on improved internal link structures, cross linking related products and user ratings and reviews. Of course backlinks help, and the above mentioned internal links are backlinks as well.

Both the content of your pages as well as the content of the pages that link to yours are used as signals of relevance. You should not ignore either.

Originally Posted by edesigner

I guess what I'm trying to say is.... which one dominates in Google algo, content or backlinks?

Generally speaking neither dominates the other. Instead, it the pages that have both valuable and relevant content, the kind that is link worthy, and relevant backlinks, together that dominates in Google.

[pjman]

I always focus on the content 90% of the time until I get 200 pages up. Then I shift to 40 content - 60 Links. Once I have about 500 pages, I shift to link building more. It's a formula that has worked for me.