Backlinks quality or quantity?

by 61 replies
70
If the purpose of my backlinking campaign is too push a ezine article to the top spot on the first page of google would i be better off with 40-50 high PR backlinks or 200 Backlinks ranging from PR 6 all the way down to PR 1?

Basically does quality backlinks or quantity backlinks determine high ranking when trying to rank a ezine article on page 1 of google
#search engine optimization #backlinks #quality #quantity
  • Banned
    1 PR 6 backlink is better than 7 PR1 so I think it's quality
  • it may be quality but do i need quality and quantity to rank high or just quality?
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    • Banned
      You need both... not all pages that have lower PR has low quality.. it depends on the content too..
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  • DO NOT RELY ON PR
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    • Banned
      PR is very important in backlinking.. what the *** are you trying to advice? I can see all threads here have your posts with such vague or nonsense comments.. please be more specific and more detailed.. this forum is not all about collecting number of posts.. we are here to educate and get educated.
      • [1] reply
  • It's worth remembering that there is a difference in links from pages with the same PR. I.e if there are two pages, both with a PR of 5, one has three outlinks, and one has 100 outlinks, it is clear which is the more powerful.

    What isn't clear in my eyes is the difference between a PR1 page with 3 outlinks, and PR4 with 80 outlinks for example. And I haven't even mentioned relevancy!!!

    It's very hard to determine which links will do the most for you, so I suggest you get as many as you, of the highest quality you can, and then repeat!
  • Hello,

    Both the quality and quantity backlinks would be important for the website ranking in the major search engine SERP.

    Thanks
  • What about Quantity of Quality links?

    If it's a non-relevant link, how does that really help? You're not going to drive any traffic from it, so it's a hardlywin situation.

    Lot of high pr links means lots of actual traffic from those sites as well, not to mention ranking better.

    We seem to talk about quality of content so much in IM, yet when it comes to backlinking we throw it away.
  • You need both - but quality is alot more important, you can have 1 PR3 link that will be better than 60 PR1 links.
  • May I suggest that you simply read this thread and realise that pagerank via the toolbar is commonly called 'The Foolbar' - it's a hoax.

    Please read, study and forget about it.
    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...k-useless.html
  • I wouldn't define the quality of a backlink purely in terms of pagerank (and, boy, how can the from 6 down links be labelled as low-pr? There are not that many opportunities to place a link on a pr 5 page (as opposed to a site with a pr5 homepage)). It seems to me that a quality link is that from a quality related site - and who cares if it has pr 1 or 4.
  • No one really knows, except for Google engineers, so go for all the backlinks
  • I'll go with quality too.

    Too many PR1 sites out there, with poor poor traffic.
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    • I will clearly state NOW that this is MY Opinion ...

      There's a LOT of points being made in this thread as FACT, that are the poster's "opinion's".

      How do we truly KNOW that PR is as significant a factor in a links value?

      How do we truly know that the site relevancy to our own is of significance?

      Then again, how do you know that todays PR1 site might not be next quarters or the quarter after that - a PR4 or PR5 or next years PR6?

      What tests have been done by the posters to prove a sites/page's PR makes a difference? 1 PR6 is better than 60 PR1's? How was this conclusion reached?

      Im not saying its wrong ... Im curious as to HOW WE KNOW.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • I've been running a few tests lately and a handfull of decent PR backlinks have increased two of my websites from 7th spot to no.1 and 14th spot to no.3. This is ALL within about 2 weeks. I'd definately say high PR or even high PR domains. It's working for me.
  • PR is incredibly important. So many "experts" say it isn't, if I had the time I'd love to you show the irrefutable evidence that this is NOT the case. I may someday soon, but any serious link builder will confirm that even non-relevant high PR links will vastly increase rankings in competitive niches.

    Too many people seem to jump on the "what Matt Cutts says is gospel" bandwagon. I'm telling you, irrelevant high PR links will increase your rankings astronomically over time, if combined with other proper link building techniques.
    • [2] replies
    • I agree with you because I've seen this in action myself. I also think the last part there is especially important about combining with other linking methods. Here are couple of problems with exclusively seeking non-relevant high PR links.

      First, of all, this makes these links are easier for competitors to spot and either copy your technique or report them to Google as paid links, depending on the situation.

      Next, not having a diverse link portfolio makes a site more volatile in terms of PR and ranking. For example, one high PR link deletes your link and your PR and perhaps your search rankings drop dramatically.
      • [1] reply
    • So true Steven, i'm seeing big jumps caused by links on non relevant sites. Such as jumping from page 2 to no.1 on Google within a week or so. I like to mix the whole thing up a little though, as in not putting all my eggs in one basket. This will reduce the risk of dropping heavily overnight as a major algo change takes place.
  • My advice: test it out yourself. While PR works some times, it may not at other times. But when testing you will discover one fact; that high PR works a lot.
  • I think in this case... you are actually missing the most important metric to solve the puzzle.... Relevancy.

    So regardless of the PR, the relevancy and link text are more effective for organic rank.

    So aside from a gross of PR0's any links will be excellent for this purpose if the link text is good, from a quality relevant page.

    ~Melanie
  • I think rather than Quantity of links QUALITY of the links are very important. High PR links really help a lot, If the link is from related niche, that would be more helpful...However, If you are in 1st page for an ezine article and wants to move further. if u can do a kind of deep inner pages link building on high pr domain is more than enough....
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    • Huh? Its works sometimes, but I'll find it works alot?

  • combination of both quality and quantity links would give you a much better outcome...
  • Hi Jen, I've seen your avatar at WPW and if you EVER post like that there, then a ban will be immediate.
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    • hello there CTABUK. Yeah i know the consequences.. And if im wrong, then say it to me properly. I can accept it with no further question. At least i did say what i need to say. i dont want to be rude either.Thanks..

      -jen
  • It's getting hot in here...

    Hi Vanquish, let me as you a question, how you define a quality back link? 'coz to me, a backlink ranging from PR 6 all the way down to PR 1 is a quality one. If you get tons of it, you'll surely get high SERP. And when linking to other sites, focus to sites that are related to your niche.

    IMHO, They are both important. But often quality of the links outrank quantities depending on competition.

    And betweem solidsnake and Jenie, LET'S GET IT ON!

    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Both in tandom and your onto a winner, but slowlya nd gradually will see you rise up the SERP's
  • if any one known that how they are calculating the PR, and the Backlinks are quality and quantity.
  • Banned
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  • Quality backlinks make you PR better
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    • Does PR make my wallet better?

      I want my SERP to be better - then I'll worry about PR ...
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  • When do all the backlinks I'm adding start showing up with my sites?
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    • You'll probably never see them all listed by Google, no matter how you try to find them. Yahoo Site Explorer is a pretty good way to see which links are being seen by the SE's, but it's not 100% either. The best proof that you're doing what works = seeing your site rise in the SERPs. If that's happening at all, put your head down, build backlinks steadily, and be happy. Seriously.

      John
  • Always quality! 40-50 high PR (PR 6+) backlinks is great IMHO.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • This has been a great discussion, I learned alot about backlinking, thank you everyone who contributed!
  • Seems that a lot of sites that rank in the top 5- 10 positions usually have a higher page rank than those below - PR is one measure of link popularity (and authority to some extent) so that could be due to the fact that they have more backlinks, from both high and low PR sites. I still say sites with higher PR are more valuable though.
  • [DELETED]
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    • Interesting you should say that, today I bought ArticleBot, a cheap article submission software which signed me up for about 400 article directories. The only catch was that I would have to go and click the email confirmation links myself [about half the sites sent them, the other half didn't]. Anyway, I'm clicking away when I notice that A LOT of the emails seem to have the same little ad at the bottom and led to similar looking thank you pages.

      Turns out there's probably three popular article directory scripts out there and one of them is $49.99 and comes with some sort of script that allows you to start accepting content from 3 of the major mass article marketing services out there including isnare.

      Also, a lot of these sites had high alexa rankings and no PR. I'm guessing the high Alexa rankings come from all the marketers who have the toolbar installed visiting at least once and the low to no PR coming from the fact that no one, not even the owners have a reason to link to or promote these sites.
  • According to a master SEO I know, a real pro, you want a good ratio.

    Too many .edu, .gov or high PR links just smacks of SEO.

    Your links should look like how the web looks. There's many more PR0 pages than PR5 pages. Why does your site have 20 PR5 links, but only 2 PR0 links? Why don't you have any PR1 links? Looks fishey to me, and it isn't hard to detect.

    On the other hand, some good links add credibility to the lower PR links.

    What the master SEOer recommended, and what I try to use, is a ratio of 1 good link to 40-50 "average", low PR links.

    Another thing I think is essential isn't to worry so much about PR, as a PR0 page now may be a PR4 in a few months, but simply whether the page is actually indexed by Google. If it's in Google, it's likely a decent link with some value. At least with PR1 you know it's in Google.

    Truth is, the vast majority of pages are PR1 and PR0. IMO, the vast majority of your links should be too.
    • [2] replies
    • Kurt you articulated it slightly different than I do, but I think we're saying the same thing. Im with you, and am putting significantly more store in PR0-4 sites as valued than I have in the past. I think many folks forget that some lower PR sites just might be PR5 in 6-9 months.

      Im running a test ...

      trying to rank on page one for a search term that "in quotes" - google shows 8,740,000 pages. I consider that relatively competitive. More so than Acia Berry, and mine is a single common word.

      Started on Page 5, on page 3 after 20 days of mediocre time spent backlinking. Now that I know that there really isnt an amount of links I can physically place - limitation.... going to max out my alloted time. meaning ... I ve put as many links in a day as I possibly can with my automation and efforts - and good things happened - not bad ... not sandboxing or some such theories. So Im going for that maximum 3 times a week [ my max time alottment]

      The twist is Im using ONLY PR0 sites, obscure non indexed to put the links. The kicker is driving the bots back to the links - easily and quickly. As you know RSS can do some nifty things in that regard. 2 extra steps - or 10 extra seconds per site after the link is placed may be all it takes to make a difference in success. We'll see.

      More to follow.

    • That's not true. I add high PR backlinks to my sites almost exclusively. The only time I add a backlink on a low PR page is when I think the page will increase in value soon.

      Also, it's been proven time and time again by *real* SEO experts (the StomperNet guys) that adding many backlinks on high PR pages won't hurt you. Think about hot news items, when that guy from the Drudge Report (a no name site at the time) got info that a certain American president was having an affair with an intern he received tons of link juice and it only built his reputation.

      There are several instances when no name websites create a name for themselves by having exclusive information and receiving an "unnatural" amount/type of backlinking activity. The truth is it's normal for hot topics to get linked to a lot. Search engines love that and they don't penalize it, they capitalize on it by *showing* the page that everyone is linking to in a higher position.
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  • quality and qualtity both are the same : but quality is good for your page rank , and quantity is good for your SERP
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    • What good is a HIGH PR Backlink that get deleted 2 weeks after its placed, due to moderator mindset and bias' or bad moods?

      • [1] reply
  • i didnt read every post so someone may have already said this, but you want both quality and quantity. Although, quality trumps quantity everytime. I was talking to leslie rohde a while back and the consensus is that pagerank is on a log scale base 8... so you can see how much more important each pagerank point is...
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    • Actually, the formula for PageRank is fairly well known and those with decent backgrounds in math can do the calculations.

      However, PageRank is only part of the algo, and only part of the linking algo. You also have TrustRank and Hilltop, plus possible unknown factors. Hilltop has likely been more important than PageRank all these years, yet never gets any mention in SEO discussions.

      Over-simplified, Hilltop is Google's name for considering the "affiliation", or relationship, between two documents. If both are owned by the same person/entity, link juice won't be the same.

      I suggest anyone interested in PageRank should google "Hilltop SEO" and do some research.

      In addition, PageRank can be manipulated, so it's likely Google has a method to detect "unnatural" linking patterns, at least to some degree.

      Toss in the fact that the green bar we see in the Google Bar isn't the same as "internal" PageRank, which is what is really used to determine the SERPs, and there's too many variables to make across-the-board conclusions.

      If we're talking about a single link (or just a few), then I'll take the high PR link. However, if we're talking about a major link campaign with 1000's of links, I want a natural looking link pattern that includes a realistic mix of high/low PR links. I also want the links spread over different resources, a few blog comments, bookmarks, directories, static pages (via RSS), video sites, etc.
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  • i think the number of relevant links is important. the more site relevant to your topic u have the better.
  • Kurt,

    I agree. Its not black and white and there are more factors involved than just the little green bar, but the Op asked whether quality or quantity was more important and I was just giving him an indication of how much more work you have to do if you are simply going after low quality links like blog comment spam.
  • I think we need to have a balanced approach ... using all resources *winks* to get a link from a PR7 website when you could have acquired 25 links from sites ranging from PR3 to PR5 is not a good idea for me ... best practice is to keep getting back links from average websites and go for a quality link every now and then ...
  • HI
    Quality Back links is most important then Quantity back link.
    Quality back link important for the website ranking in the major search engine SERP.
  • Getting listed on page 5 or below is fairly easy. Getting to page 3 takes a little more work and getting to page 1 , positions 1 - 3 is a lot more difficult for poplular, competitive search terms - that's where all the big boys are currently ranked. You'll need some extra firepower to get to page 1 in those cases - using different strategies to get some link diversity helps, from what I have seen anyway. I hope someone can prove my wrong - if so, I need to change what I am doing. Great discussuion and insight, thanks to all even though I didn't start the thread.
  • I go for quality over quantity any day. A few high quality (related links regardless of PR) do much more than a bunch of non related links.
  • Banned
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  • Quality relevant links will absolutely always give you better results.
  • backlinks has everything to do with both quality and quantity.. so which ever way I can get a back link I will not loose it..
  • Thanks for this because I am starting to consider backlinks. I feel that it can bring more traffic to my sites, which can produce more profits.
  • A popular thread this: My 2 cents worth.

    It's obvious, both help.

    Quality, relevant links are best. By developing a magical circle of interlinked sites of the same niche, you are helping Google understand the relation between topics and niches. Googles link analysis can see where relations are based and most probably has hot areas surrounding keyphrases. Google does not look only as far as link by link but into what links to what and how deep. So if 50 sites are somehow intertwined Google knows this. So yes, quality and relevance is good. Imagine it this way though, your site in the middle as a circle with 4 outbound lines, each line leads to another circle and each circle has 4 more lines and so on for another few circles, each becoming more distant in importance, unless of course they are all of the same topic. The circles well away from you may not be linked directly but are linked via the pathway of lines, so there is a relation there. Google knows this. However if the hot bed of keyphrases starts to cool down, the importance placed on the pathway lessens as distance grows.

    This is part of why if you post 200 random links to your site they will help because within those 200 there is likely to be several relations. You may not know it but by posting 200 non relevant links, some may actually have been distantly relevant and hotspots of keywords between them improve how Google can rank your website.
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    Backlinks quality or quantity?

    If the purpose of my backlinking campaign is too push a ezine article to the top spot on the first page of google would i be better off with 40-50 high PR backlinks or 200 Backlinks ranging from PR 6 all the way down to PR 1? Basically does quality backlinks or quantity backlinks determine high ranking when trying to rank a ezine article on page 1 of google