Deepinder in Toronto submitted this week's Ask An SEO question:
"1. I've worked on a variety of projects. I've seen websites with 1,000 backlinks outperform those with 100,000. A content currating/stealing (copy paste content with a backlink to source) website defeated the same 1,000 backlinks site.
So, how essential are backlinks in terms of search engine rankings?
2. Is it considered spam to gain 1,000-3,000 backlinks from a single website? Because I've seen some good businesses do it."
I'd want to begin by responding to the second question.
Is it considered spam to receive thousands of links from a single website?
It depends on the situation whether it will be spam or not.
The major criterion is whether the links are considered natural vs. paid or a purposeful attempt to gain backlinks.
Natural connections include:
Companies that use their footers or main navigation to link to their other brands to transition between stores.
If you're an expert, your sidebar should include a list of resources and extra reading.
When you're making a lot of photo content and the website uses it in multiple postings.
When you do something noteworthy and media outlets, bloggers, and periodicals notice, source, or highlight you as a result of it.
Unnatural:
Providing databases and feeds to other websites that link to yours in order to sell things.
Having bloggers or publishers construct a store without using the terms "sponsored" or "nofollow" in their links.
Because banner ads are paid placements, they run across the entire site, by category, and so on.
With keyword-rich backlinks, create widgets, feeds, and badges.
Widgets, feeds, and badges that are clearly marketing gimmicks rather than genuine.
If the site is part of a PBN (private blog network), regardless of whether the connections were sponsored or earned.
Using gimmicks such as scholarships.
Leaving feedback on blogs, forums, and community websites.
Links to category pages or non-manufactured products that are keyword-rich.
Anything that hasn't been obviously acquired via hard work.
These are only a handful of the possibilities.
So the answer is yes and no.
They are sometimes considered spam, and sometimes they aren't.
It is dependent on the links, your relationship with the website, and whether or not they are natural.
Now for the first of your questions.
What Role Do Backlinks Play in SEO?
Backlinks are, without a doubt, crucial for SEO. It isn't, however, a numbers game.
One of my clients is rating and outranking national brands with few links.
For the governing body's own trademark words, they even rank higher than the regulating body for their industry.
Although the quality of the links they obtained aided them, they began ranking based on site structure, quality content, the way the website renders, and site structure before we received our first links.
They've also received a backlink from that regulatory body as a result of the article we provided. (Wow, that's a big win!)
Backlinks are just one of the signals that a search engine takes into account.
The entire aim of a search engine is to provide the most relevant response, presented in the best way possible, and delivered in the quickest and most accessible manner imaginable.
A paragraph or list of text, a video, graphics, or mixed media could all be used. This is just as vital as, if not more crucial than, backlinks.
Why does a website with fewer backlinks outrank one with more?
To understand why a site with fewer links will outrank one with thousands, or how to get your site with a few links to outrank one with hundreds of thousands, you must first understand what a link is.
Before smartphones, schema, and concepts like E-A-T, search engines needed a way to assess a website's and a specific page within that website's trustworthiness.
Backlinks, specifically PageRank with Google, were one of these trust criteria.
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We have various approaches to help establish the confidence and authority of our website now that PageRank doesn't exist (at least not in the manner we knew it back then).
If your website and, more specifically, this page, meet these trust and authority signals, you may now be able to compete with websites and webpages with more links.
Having licensed and credible people in the niche write or sign off on your material might help you build trust.
Just because someone is your CEO doesn't guarantee they're trustworthy or well-known. That is one of the most difficult pills for a CEO to swallow.
Using links and schema, trace the content back to the creator and relevant sources.
Have a strong internal linking structure in place that explains concepts or resources addressed in your text.
Ascertain that your website is safe.
Provide a clearer description of the subject, devise a simpler purchasing method, or improve the formatting to make it easier to understand.
Additionally, you can:
Make every effort to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (the more people that can access your content, the better the experience for everyone giving search engines a reason to show your page over another).
Have lightning-quick load times so that those with slow connections and mobile devices can access your material.
Use the following to properly arrange your content:
Header tags are tags that appear at the top of the page.
Titles that are clear.
Images with proper names.
Sections are formatted into tables, lists, paragraphs, and other formats.
Add an appropriate schema to the page and each section to describe what is on the page and in each area.
Make sure your site has a good structure and that your most important pages are linked to when it makes sense.
Now that search engines like Google are doubling down on cumulative layout shifts, you should double-check your Core Web Vitals (CLS).
Yes, quality backlinks can help you rank higher than merit alone, but there are things you can do while you're building connections to beat a website or webpage with 10X or 100X the number of links you have.
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