PR vs Number of backlinks

you need to understand that back links alone do not determine your rank. Several other people at this forum in the last few days have not considered this. Just because you get a lot of back links does not mean you're going to outrank your competition.

The main reason people missed this is because they are not considering the NetVote factor. The NetVote is produced when Google monitors how long people spend on the site. How many times they click on it. How often they return to it. This tells Google how much people like a site. many seo consultants don't talk about this because they typically don't have control over it.

Here's how it works for the majority. You build a site and you get a lot of back links. The back links get you on the page 1-3 maybe 4. At that point Google enters you into flux ( Matt Cutts talked about this about five years ago when Google went from a 28 day cycle then to a 14 day cycle and finally what Matt Cutts termed as "EverFlux " ). each time your site enters into flux it is elevated on some data centers ( not all Google is just testing your site to see what people think of it). if you do well while you are boosted influx you will slowly ascend past people you outrank in the NetVote.

A basic example of this is a site that has maybe two sentences on it and the rest of it is blank. People want to spend much time at that site, there's nothing to do there except read the two sentences. The bounce rate will obscenely high. Return visits will be low. Time spent on site will be low ( all these factors that compose the NetVote will be a thumbs down for that site ).

now take a site that has many pictures and paragraphs, a forum, a blog, some type of community and all the content and interaction rich factors that seo people are aware of.

The site that gets repeatedly visited, repeatedly click done, people spend long hours on, and returned to is quite obviously a better site than a site with two sentences on it.

You do need back links - but ultimately your site needs to perform for the user. The people have to like it - Google only measures how much they like it.

Hey Mike, it all depends on the keyword phrase (KWP) being targeted. Here's a simple test: Do 2 searches. The first one is for your KWP in google. Just a straight search. Then, do another (make them side by side so you can see, by opening 2 browsers), where you also search in google like so:

inanchor:"KWP"

Example: inanchor:"canon pixma ip5000"

If the two searches don't match (meaning a lot of the pages on one aren't on the other), then you have a good chance at ranking. This is a preliminary test.

This tests how aggressive/effective other sites are at backlinking using your KWP.

Other factors will be how many backlinks are pointing to the domain (not just the individual page) as well as the age of the domain.

Finally, remember that content is king. Make your entire site about your KWP and related phrases and you'll make it "easy" for Google and the other SEs to know what your site is about.

The more content, the better.

Then, backlink your pages like mad!