1st page ranking with no backlinks

Hi all,

I want to share my "white hat experience" on a niche blog I started a year ago.

The blog is in Greek language, it is competing in google . gr , and the niche is "air conditioning" (in Greek of course). I have used wordpress with a clean, nice looking free theme, and I have installed yoast seo (free version) along with a couple other non seo plugins.

The blog has currently 10 articles, all of them pointing to a seperate 2 word keyword and some long tails different for every page. I have built 5 links from medium authority blogspot blogs and that's it. No strong authority links, no comment blasts, no forum profiles, no nothing.

When I built the blog I had in mind some juicy relevant links for my ecommerse website (also in the air conditioning niche), but I was amazed from the fact that all posts I wrote were ranking on 1st page, some of them 1st result.

I have to say is that I am considered to be an expert on the air conditioning field, and all articles are very well researched, very well written and very extensive,
but I am still amazed by the fact that a brand new, zero authority website is ranking on 1st page results for keywords like "portable airconditioners", and "floor standing airconditioners" and some other very highly competitive keywords for the Greek internet, and outranks DA55 PA59 websites with very strong backlink profiles, thousands of links, and good content, and I feel confident that when the article count reaches 20+ articles, it will rank 1st page for the keyword "air conditioners" (which has a nightmare competition from huge international retailers like Media Markt and the similar)

I know that black hat still works, but in my experience the last few years it doesn't work as quickly and powerfully as it used to, and this makes me think that maybe google's AI algorithms have grown so smart in understanding natural language that they now allow google to devalue the impact of backlinks compering to the content quality (as ranking factors) in order to turn the old quote "content is king" a dream come true.

Any similar experience?

I'd have to agree. They're really cutting out the bullshit. Google is a billionaire genius conglomerate working 24/7 to improve their search engine results. They won't ever fully eliminate BH SEO but they've definitely thrown a wrench into things in the last few years. But there will always be loopholes when humans are involved...

Shaugn said:

I'd have to agree. They're really cutting out the bullshit. Google is a billionaire genius conglomerate working 24/7 to improve their search engine results. They won't ever fully eliminate BH SEO but they've definitely thrown a wrench into things in the last few years. But there will always be loopholes when humans are involved...

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OMG... MY EYES -_____-


@OP : This is what happens when u are facing weak competition. Nothing new and it has nothing to do with the color of the hat. U just found a weak competition keyword. You haven't ranked because of the great masterpiece u wrote, but cuz ur competition are shitty who can't write nor build links

Why don't u try with a medium difficulty keyword and show us how far will u go with content alone !

Btw, I have ranked most of my websites without backlinks, and I prefer it this way, but this doesn't mean bl's doesn't matter or google is getting smarter (sure they do), but they still depend on bl's heavily and it's still the most important ranking factor

KHer0 said:

OMG... MY EYES -_____-


@OP : This is what happens when u are facing weak competition. Nothing new and it has nothing to do with the color of the hat. U just found a weak competition keyword. You haven't ranked because of the great masterpiece u wrote, but cuz ur competition are shitty who can't write nor build links

Why don't u try with a medium difficulty keyword and show us how far will u go with content alone !

Btw, I have ranked most of my websites without backlinks, and I prefer it this way, but this doesn't mean bl's doesn't matter or google is getting smarter (sure they do), but they still depend on bl's heavily and it's still the most important ranking factor

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Nobody said that backlinks do not matter. The question was if the "backlink" factor weight is declining comparing to the "content quality" factor as google gets "smarter" in evaluating content quality.

The keywords i mentioned cannot be considered as "weak competition" keywords. All the electronics stores are fighting for them as they reffer to very profitable products, the big electronics store chains hire the best seo companies to build backlinks to them, and their websites have huge backlink profiles.

I guess that before your judge that these competitors are "shitty who can't build backlinks", and this kind of keywords are "low competition keywords" you did your keyword and competition research.

If this is the case, then don't lose time. PM me and we can both get very rich, very soon.

The question was if the "backlink" factor weight is declining comparing to the "content quality" factor as google gets "smarter" in evaluating content quality?

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No, it's not. It's stronger than ever and google isn't getting smarter at all when it comes to content quality

And how can you tell this so solid sure? (I am not trying to be sarkastic, if you have any proof on your statement I would be very interested).

I have been forum owner and webmaster since 1999 and I have seen huge progress in google's understanding of natural language since then.
The continuous progress in automatic google translation is a proof of something behind.
Why should someone believe that this progress has stopped? Even programmers behind small software companies like the ones producing spinning software have done great job with AI algorythms. Why should someone believe that an economic giant like google isn't a step ahaid?

bullshit I used to make my website On-page very perfect and nice content.6 months I do only on page SEO and make well-written content.Guest what I dont rank any shit!!!!! .On-page SEO/good content without link building is suck.

Please don't spread any bullshit story around here without proof.

blissbliss said:

Please don't spread any bullshit story around here without proof.

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His website experience is sort of proof.

jiungsong said:

His website experience is sort of proof.

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Well anyone can make some story?Do you trust anyone that tells you they have experience in something?

I know that you can rank for huge sites without links - ones with 100+ pages but for smaller it is more difficult.

How many visits do you get for the keyword?

blissbliss said:

Please don't spread any bullshit story around here without proof.

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agreed

Interesting story!

moonlighsunligh said:

How many visits do you get for the keyword?

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This is an interesting question, can you tell us @OP?

blissbliss said:

Please don't spread any bullshit story around here without proof.

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I am not here to spread bullshit stories. I only wanted to share an experience that seemed strange to me also. If you cannot read anything opposed to your own beliefs, you can always go read a super link building tool post.

About the search volume question, i remind that the keyword is in air conditioning niche (portable air conditioners) so its volume is seasonal.

During summer months I get something from 1500 to 2000 daily unique visitors from this keyword only.

The rest of the year I get something around 100.

KHer0 said:

OMG... MY EYES -_____-


@OP : This is what happens when u are facing weak competition. Nothing new and it has nothing to do with the color of the hat. U just found a weak competition keyword. You haven't ranked because of the great masterpiece u wrote, but cuz ur competition are shitty who can't write nor build links

Why don't u try with a medium difficulty keyword and show us how far will u go with content alone !

Btw, I have ranked most of my websites without backlinks, and I prefer it this way, but this doesn't mean bl's doesn't matter or google is getting smarter (sure they do), but they still depend on bl's heavily and it's still the most important ranking factor

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I've ranked my clients sites for high difficulty 'buying' keywords with only content. Dont be so douchey in your responses next time..

blissbliss said:

bullshit I used to make my website On-page very perfect and nice content.6 months I do only on page SEO and make well-written content.Guest what I dont rank any shit!!!!! .On-page SEO/good content without link building is suck.

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Or maybe your "well written content" sucks? Maybe it does not answer the visitors questions? maybe it does not tell something new? maybe it does not add any value to the internet? Have you thought of that?

dam..
so boing 500$ expired domains and 300$ blogposts is useless?
I just have to create good content in an widely unused language, with no competion to rank #1 ? cool dude.

I should create the #1 air condition page in suaheli.. bet I can rank with just some indexer sites

The Curator said:

I've ranked my clients sites for high difficulty 'buying' keywords with only content. Dont be so douchey in your responses next time..

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Lol, u can check my threads to find a case study of what I do with content alone bringing thousands of traffic and dominating first page! But I never brag about how content alone is so powerful, it's a proof of the power of keyword research.

I Dare you in front of the whole forum to do an experiments on a keyword we know and agree it's even medium difficulty, where it has any sort of decent backlinks, and outrank it with content alone ---> Deal ?

Or if you don't want us to waste ur time, we can get a Mod and show him the hard difficulty keyword u ranked in without any backlinks ---> Deal ?

Backlinking is the biggest factor in ranking and according to ahrefs study on over 2M keywords first page results, backlinks factor accounts for .6 while on-page optimization accounts for .4

The only way to outrank someone in first page with content alone, is if he was ranking using content alone