Links Vs. Content for SEO – response to SEOmoz.org post

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

There was recently a really good post on SEOmoz.org on the topic of links vs. Content for search engine rankings. They had several high level SEO people (not me, whats up with that?) give their opinion on if good content produces rankings alone, the answers were all pretty similar. The consensus was that content alone won’t produce rankings, which is 100% accurate, for now at least.

If you purchased a domain today, and wrote a 400 page paper on how to cure cancer, it would not rank in Google unless other sites with authority linked to it. No SEO in his right mind can contest this fact. Ranking in Google still largely depends on link votes (page rank) as the main factor. However, without content on the other side of a strong link campaign, you will be hard pressed to get the rankings you are after. In my mind, content is a necessary ingredient for links to get you ranking. It is like the garlic in a spaghetti sauce, without it, it is just tomatoes.

There are a couple of reasons to still worry about content.

1. I do believe the content/link weight ratio will change with further development of the semantic engine behind Google. Links are too easily manipulated, good content is not. To better their search engine, they must have a better content/link weight ratio. So building good content now will hedge you against a major filter in the future.

2. traffic without good content is a complete and utter waste of time. Why would you drive someone to a page on your site that is gibberish? What purpose is that going to serve you?

3. Bounce rate is going to get more important with future algorithm roll outs. Bad content will make people leave your site very quickly. Remember, they can test bounce rate without you even having analytics installed. Its simple. User clicks on your listing in Google, how quickly they come back to Google to find another result can be a measurement Google uses to test bounce rate. Have good content and once again you don’t need to worry about future algorithm changes.

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