Links are very important!

[simleon]

Im working on some sites as I am a Seo of an English company in Uk. I have noticed that a lot of sites are in first results with important keywords without any good text on that page or any good keyword density.

I know that this is because of back links, but how can them make such a diffrent? Site's with bad text, and often with no keywords on the page, is on 2° result on google with keywords that are so important.

Thas anybody know how can this happen?

Simone - Seo & Sem specialyst

[bsaric]

SE don't rank websites by "good content". SE also don't know what is good content. Links are important factor and thats the way things works.

The Keyword Density of Non-Sense

[simleon]

content is keywords ... thats what i mean for content , and thats very important....

Simone

[bsaric]

Ok.

Maybe i did understand wrong, i do have problems with english also .

[simleon]

Ya, when we talk about content in seo, its the content good for search engines, so title, good keyword density, file name ecc..

And that is the main thing on seo, with link building.

But what i was saying is that a lot of sites have incredil good results with no keyword density and very bad seo optimization but only with links.

So my question is, how can a search engine give a keyword toa site only with links??

Simone

[JohnW]

This is a fairly basic thing. Perhaps start reading here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb

[jackson992]

and thus lies the problem with Google for the longest time.

[mcanerin]

Actually, it works more than it doesn't. For example, for a long time most of Disney's sites were flash and invisible to search engines.

However, due to anchor text, the search engines were aware that the site was relevant to Disney and ranked it accordingly.

Think about it this way - the anchor text in incoming links is treated as *virtual* content for your site. Therefore, keywords in the anchor text act as if they were on your page, to a degree. Therefore, you DO have content.

Ian

[simleon]

Does google look the content of the page from where the link comes from? Or its just the anchor text the important thing for ranking?

Simone - Seo

[mcanerin]

It looks at both (to deal with the "Click Here" issue), but puts a far greater emphasis on the actual anchor text.

Ian

[simleon]

Ya thats what i think, its very important,sometimes more important than on site seo.

Simone

[bsaric]

In most cases it is more important then onpage seo.

[mcanerin]

The problem is, that if on-site SEO was overly important, then it would be really, really easy to spam.

With links, it's only moderately easy to spam, and very difficult to spam total nonsense.

Back in 1995 or so, I did a search for my son - "Disney kids games" on altavista, which ruled the search roost at the time. The results were at least 3 pages of p0rn, with no Disney in sight.

When I checked to see why, I found that the owners of the sites had put black on black text for every imaginable keyword, from knitting to dog training, stuffed on page.

That's what happens when you let pure on-page SEO rule. P0rn gets served to kids by scumbags looking for "traffic". The reason many people have faith in on-page SEO is because they are not seeing the crap that is weeded out before it gets to them. We are talking virus loaders, pop-up hell, you name it. Ask is still bad for virus loaders, probably because they don't look at links the same way as the others (though admittedly their system works very well most of the time).

When Google came by later on, that same search resulted in the proper results, and Google quickly became the leading search engine BECAUSE it let links rule.

Don't forget history, lest it repeat itself.

Ian

[jackson992]

Originally Posted by simleon

Ya thats what i think, its very important,sometimes more important than on site seo.

Simone

And that's the part I hate. Things should be mostly based on on the page.

[jackson992]

It is not hard to spot spamming of on page critera

[mcanerin]

It is not hard to spot spamming of on page critera

Really? If that was so then there would be no spam in SERPS, and my AltaVista example (which ONLY looked at on-page) would not exist.

It's easy to see stupid levels of keyword stuffing, but even that isn't spam sometimes - some words are easy to use a lot in some pages naturally. The problem with trying to identify spam using on-page algos is 1) spammers constantly test algos, 2) you can get a lot of false positives, and 3) it only works well for languages the programmers know. There are more languages in the world than English, you know - Google supports about 150 and that still leaves almost 2000 to go.

If you talk to a real spammer (not a script kiddy or wannabe) they will tell you (as they have told me) that what kills them is link analysis, not content detection.

Everyone, let me be real clear about this - link analysis and other off-page criteria measurment is not going away. No matter how much you complain about it.

If you are hoping to convince a search engine that your website is good, you will first need to convince some people. This is measured by links, tags visits and other indicators.

If you can't find anyone who is willing to link to you, then your site is probably in dire need of having it's content looked at, no matter how good it's "SEO" is. SEO isn't the point - useful content is.

There is no shortcut here.

Ian

[jackson992]

The only reason people go after links is for search engine rankings. This should tell you something.

[mcanerin]

The only reason *newbies* go after links is for rankings.

Experienced marketers have been using them to drive traffic since the web started, and long before Google and link analysis appeared. That's what the web is all about. Experienced marketers use PPC links, newsletter links, banner ads and many other links that don't affect rankings in the least.

BTW, for some people, SEO'ing pages, doing keyword research, and many other things are done only for rankings.

If search engines did not exist, then you would still require links to let people know where your site was. The same does NOT apply to on-page SEO. That's search engine only behavior, and that's what should be telling you something.

Ian

[jackson992]

not at all. If it wasn't for the search engines I would never get one link. I would much rather add thousands of more pages than go after links. On page SEO is done for the visitors so they know what the page is about. Unless you're a spammer and just repeat the same word numerous times for no discernable reason.

[mcanerin]

If it wasn't for the search engines I would never get one link.

Then you probably need better content, no?

I would much rather add thousands of more pages than go after links.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. It looks like you are saying that you'd rather generate spam content than get links. I would not recommend that, and it's pretty much a poster-child argument for link analysis.

On page SEO is done for the visitors so they know what the page is about

Huh? The page is about what the page is about.

The only reason to do on-page SEO is to tell the search engine what the page is about. Humans can figure out what a page is saying without an SEO getting involved.

People have been writing (books, scrolls, hieroglyphics, magazines) for a few millennia now and at no point was there any perceived need for SEO until search engines came along.

That's what the term is: "SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION". Not "writing skills", "communication skills" or "usability".

Unless you're a spammer and just repeat the same word numerous times for no discernable reason.

Spammers do a lot of things for reasons other than usability, from getting links they should not even be pursuing to stuffing keywords on pages to hiding things from people/search engines.

The problem I see here is that you don't seem to realize that SEO consists of good content AND good links. It's not either/or. Just focusing on one or the other will only work until someone using both techniques comes along.

Ian