Are Backlinks Over-Rated?
So I got to thinking about this and wanted to ask your opinion about it, are backlinks over-rated? I mean, really… do you need backlinks in order for your blog to successfully generate money for you? Some people think so. Some people really think that backlinks are the source to all answers when it comes to making money online.
And others feel quite the opposite. Many people will say that trying to score backlinks is a complete waste of time. So really, there lies a division between people and how they generate money on their blog.
Correction: there lies a division between people and how they generate traffic to their blog which then generate money.
Some people focus mainly on getting tons and tons of backlinks to certain pages on their site. Perhaps, a landing page of some kind that promotes a product. These backlinks are used to enable this author to rank HIGH and really HIGH in the search engines for very powerful words, such as Coke or Pepsi, etc…
Other people don’t waste time with this and market the keyword longtail. The keyword longtail is just like it sounds, in other words, it kinda like the leftovers. People who hit up the longtail are folks that recognize that certain keywords like “Coke” or “Pepsi” are near impossible to land. So what these people do is hit up “Diet Coke Factory Clearance Specials” or “Cherry Pepsi 12 Ounce Bottle Recall” and rank #1 for these words instead. While there is obviously much less traffic with the longtail, these people that hit the longtail usually deal in high volume longtail keyword marketing.
With the longtail, backlinks really aren’t needed. So the return on longtail campaigns can be pretty smashing. I myself kinda go both ways on this. A lot of my blogs indeed focus on the longtail but also I kinda slowly build up on some very prime and targeted keywords.
So what do you think? Are backlinks over-rated? Can you drive traffic to your site without the need of scoring tons of backlinks? Or, do you focus a chunk of your time towards scoring links? Drop me a comment and lets talk about it.
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12 comments
I don’t think that you necessarily need a lot of back links to drive traffic. You could have only 1 link on a site and receive more traffic from that link then if you had 10 links somewhere else.
I think it really comes down to how much traffic your link is potentially being viewed by and of course, how relevant the link is to text on the page being viewed.
I would say that 99% of the time a back link is just for a search engine because honestly, do you really care how many links a site has pointing to it? I bet you would still read the site even if you knew it had no links.
Not to say that links don’t help though, the more links you have out there, the more chances you have of somebody seeing it and clicking through to your site. I guess I would sit in the middle as well in that back links are over-rated to a point, but that they can be a great way to drive traffic.
Honestly, before anythings like PageRank is that influential, backlinks are not one of the top priorities for online business owners.
I’ve seen some bloggers with PR0 made over $100 and few bloggers with PR2 and 3 still stuck around $30 a month.
It is definitely overrated.
I like your site and the information you share about back links. Great information. I look forward to more future postings and educational insight. Thanks so much
Ryan
Maine
http://www.thepoweroffreedom.ws/spiderweb
My experiment with backlink is in progress, more backlink=more traffic
Excellent points, Garry. Prior to the beginning of this year, I didn’t focus on anything at all really, other than general backlinks to my main blog. After spending quite a bit of time experimenting with different techniques since then, I’m convinced that there are two ways to go and you pointed them out.
The biggest boost to my traffic started on July 14th when I started targeting the long tail keywords. I still go after the holy grail and main keyword, but it’s a long building process because the competition is extremely tough. My traffic doubled and will continue to grow as I mine the long tail.
I’m also convinced that more than a few quality backlinks to a specific page are a complete waste of time. I would gestimate between 5 and 10 will do the trick, I generally go with 5 targeted backlinks and let evolution as well as the good feed scrapers take care of the rest.
The goal is really to rank on the first page of every search engine for multiple long tail keywords. I think it pays off better in the long run.
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Both are important. Especially as more people target the same long-tail terms. And if you spend sometime on the more targeted terms eventually you will get traffic from those as well. On some sites I’ve noticed that after I began ranking for the general terms, it made it much easier to rank for long-tail.
[...] Are backlinks over-rated? Well, some people think so including Garry Conn. [...]
[...] that targets keywords in the search engines. Just a few days ago I asked everyone if they felt like backlinks were over-rated and I wasn’t too surprised to get a mixture of feedback. I think the point is that backlinks [...]
I think, like anything else…backlinks are part of the solution. They are a tool in any blogger/marketer’s toolbox, but not THE tool. I think you can get great organic traffic without them, but backlinks are more about targeted traffic.
Such as…the traffic I get from the backlinks on this site. They aren’t very keyword targeted, just my name, or alias. But these links bring people to my site, no matter if they are follow or nofollow links, the people that click on them art targeted readers of your site.
On the other hand, I get articles ranked pretty quickly in the search engines lately, and they are more longtail based. I actually don’t really target for any major keywords, mostly longtail phrases.
So, I think both are useful and compliment each other by serving different purposes.
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It is true that traffic is equal to money and in this sense getting Backlinks to your site is good, but there are few other important factors that should be considered for driving targeted traffic.
It is definitely overrated, as you need not just traffic, but it must be targeted traffic.
I think that backlinks play an important roll in getting traffic & ranked but are not necessarily needed to make money online. I have not paid for a single link in my life – and don’t plan on it, yet I seem to get a considerable amount of traffic without them. The way I see it is if I have a backlink, it means that somebody liked my blog and linked to me. I wouldn’t say they were overrated because its always nice to have backlinks
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I think backlinks are important to an extent but tons and tons does no good. They need to be targeted backlinks that are coming from sites in your niche or good paid directories. Page Rank is not a great indicator of how much money a site will generate.
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