Link Building is not effective as people think

Everywhere I go, people are so adamant that links are everything. Sorry, but I'm not quite convinced. I'm hoping some of you guys can prove me wrong.

I don't know of a single experiment where links vs quality content was tested parallel to one another. I.e make a site with mediocre content and load it with links vs quality content with no back links.

So, I decided to experiment with two of my own websites. This is a MINI-experiment and should be taken with a grain of salt. This by NO MEANS expansive and comprehensive.

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Website 1: Azon product reviews. I have about 25k words worth of articles that I wrote. Note that I never purchase the products so the content is pretty flimsy. I don't provide additional value but that's not necessarily bad since my competitors clearly don't either.

I bought several link packages on BHW and even have a couple whitehat links -- which was a lot of work. For white hat practice, I would email manufacturers and build a relationship with their marketing director.

Also I have a guy from Silicon Valley who is pointing his relevant expired domains to my site.

Total Backlinks: ~150

Clicks from Google (Based on GSC): 11

Impressions: 992

Total Time: 9 months
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Website 2: Info Product Reviews. I actually asked for review copies or opted in for a free trial before writing every review. If I couldn't get the product, I didn't review it. I skyped product owners to build relationships.

Words: 20k

Articles: 10

Total Backlinks: 0

Clicks from Google (Based on GSC): 60

Impressions: 3820

Total Time: 4 months

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Has anyone experienced something similar or do links sky rocket your rankings?

Interesting. You tested this on websites you have previously worked on?

I could be totally wrong but it could be due to the niche too?

Some niches are massive so even keywords not popular get tonnes of traffic.

Sure buddy please rank for the term "porn" or "real state" with only content.... I will wait.

I think your Mini experiment is not accurate and doesn't say anything. If you want to have a great experiment, you should keep all others factors affect to the experiment stay the same and you only change the factors you want to do an experiment.
If you want to do experiemnt about link vs post quality you should do like this
1. Both new domain
2. Both website based on a sets of keywords, products.
3. The number of articles and the words per article should be the same.
3. Same on-page seo, hosting, etc.
The only different is first website got mediocre content + links building and the second website got quality content.

This is what is accurate experimental look likes. Your experimental have too many different factors so you can't tell is this really quality content matters or something else.

Depends on your keywords too..

If you'd do link building, your avatar wouldn't be $0.00 but instead it would be a lambo.

It looks like the websites indexing process need to imprive by updating the sitemap and also update the targeted keywords because when we are getting hugh impression with lower clikc it means our uses keywords are not our final keywords.

Completely irrelevant experiment. There are sooo many things which help to rank and link building is fuel for them, without fuel, you can just push your car further 10m per minute, but with fuel, you can drive 100km/h and if you put more gas in it you can go 200km/h to get to the target.

yeah too many variables lol. i just read this exact post on reddit.

in my experience, links are king. even in todays day, as long your content is within reason, links are still pretty much everything.

Content is King and Backlink is his throne
Sometimes you need throne to beat your competitors
There is no place for ineffective king

I completely agree. I have a site with ...

• great quality, informative articles of 2-3K words
• Aged domain with high PA/DA
• On-Page SEO done
• Social shared done

The keywords were in Top 100 but those could never been in Top 10 till I started building links. These all are connected... ranking based on only 1-2 factors not possible these days.

lifehero said:

yeah too many variables lol. i just read this exact post on reddit.

in my experience, links are king. even in todays day, as long your content is within reason, links are still pretty much everything.

Click to expand...

Way too many variables here. There’s two different niches for starters. Maybe one is just more competitive than the other.

It's not accurate.
Because it doesn't work for you don't mean it doesn't work for everyone.
You need to ask yourself why the first one is like that and fix it.

Maybe this is not accurate as u think. There are many parameters to consider in running an xperiment

kunte said:

Articles: 10

Total Backlinks: 0

Click to expand...

Do you mean you didn't build any links? Did this quality content however attract any backlinks on it's own?

Here's a more expansive and comprehensive experiment https://www.authorityhacker.com/million-serps-analyzed/

kunte said:

people are so adamant that links are everything. Sorry, but I'm not quite convinced.

Click to expand...

Who ranks top in your niche, any sites with no/few backlinks at the top for significant time?

do links sky rocket your rankings?

Click to expand...

Yes

Depends on how competitive your niche is.

affbull said:

I could be totally wrong but it could be due to the niche too?

Some niches are massive so even keywords not popular get tonnes of traffic.

Click to expand...

Yeah the experiment is flawed but it's a step toward trying to figure out what works best in ranking a site. I'm not so quick to jump on the link propaganda.

Geasy said:

If you'd do link building, your avatar wouldn't be $0.00 but instead it would be a lambo.

Click to expand...

You think so? I would love a lambo. I would love earn 1 cent to start . If you any suggestions about link building, I would love to hear them.

Philip Kim said:

Depends on your keywords too..

Click to expand...

Keyword selection matters. This experiment is a bit flawed, I'll admit. Take it with a grain of salt. If you have any good suggestions on keyword selection, holler . Both sites are in an industry where I saw not a lot of links on the first page of keywords I wanted to target.

Jeepy said:

Completely irrelevant experiment. There are sooo many things which help to rank and link building is fuel for them, without fuel, you can just push your car further 10m per minute, but with fuel, you can drive 100km/h and if you put more gas in it you can go 200km/h to get to the target.

Click to expand...

Sweet, I love to believe that backlinks are everything. It sounds like you sell a press release service. Maybe you could help me out with some data of before and after the press releases (I've actually heard good things about that for local SEO).

hadnerd said:

It's not accurate.
Because it doesn't work for you don't mean it doesn't work for everyone.
You need to ask yourself why the first one is like that and fix it.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's not accurate. The experiment is flawed, I agree. Could you refer to a resource / case study / experiment that could shed light on importance of back links?

kunte said:

Yeah the experiment is flawed but it's a step toward trying to figure out what works best in ranking a site. I'm not so quick to jump on the link propaganda.



You think so? I would love a lambo. I would love earn 1 cent to start . If you any suggestions about link building, I would love to hear them.



Keyword selection matters. This experiment is a bit flawed, I'll admit. Take it with a grain of salt. If you have any good suggestions on keyword selection, holler . Both sites are in an industry where I saw not a lot of links on the first page of keywords I wanted to target.



Sweet, I love to believe that backlinks are everything. It sounds like you sell a press release service. Maybe you could help me out with some data of before and after the press releases (I've actually heard good things about that for local SEO).



Yeah, it's not accurate. The experiment is flawed, I agree. Could you refer to a resource / case study / experiment that could shed light on importance of back links?

Click to expand...

Naah, i don't sell them, I rent signatures

This one?
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/a...zon-affiliate-site-in-6-months.1116499/page-2