Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there a relation between number of backlink and SERP?
-
I want to calculate that how many backlinks i need, in order to get in higher SERPs? is there a way to calculate? One is obvious that check number of backlinks of websites that are ranking in top 5 positions. But i guess it is not true any more...
So please help
-
Excellent Tom, very useful comments.
-
Oh I completely see your point - it's a frustrating conversation I myself have had a number of times with previous clients.
I mean, you could say that with 20 high authority links, you should expect to see movement in the SERP after 2-3 months. But again, that's so dependent on a number of factors, such as how authoritative your competitors' links are, where you get those links from (associated niches etc.) and so on. It might take more links, it might take less links, it might not be the defining influence at all.
What I'd do is audit your competitors and compare their Moz metrics with your site and see how far apart you may be. Then approach it to your CEO with how much work you can do month on month. So if you say, I will be able to do x number of articles, y infographics, z number of press releases, x number of doc shares and y high quality directory submissions in 1/3/6 months.
It simplifies things massively and doesn't take into account any Google updates that might come our way and slam certain sites - which may require you to do a whole bunch of link cleaning due to the previous SEO's efforts.
The reason why content marketing is so popular is that it allows you to earn links from a number of places, hopefully influencing your SERPs, but if not - at the very least you've developed great contacts and have hopefully introduced great content for relevant users, increasing your brand awareness and maybe even referral traffic via links to your site.
With that in mind, it may be the place to start with your CEO.
-
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your answer and i completely understand your point. The real problem is when you try to educate your CEO about this; they get all confused and start asking some frustrating questions. So i was looking for an answer that, OK, this is how many links i would try to get and then there will be X change in SERP as a result of those links.
I hope you got my point?
-
Hi Andrew
Well, there is some sort of correlation between backlinks and SERPs position. More specifically, there is some correlation between high quality, authority backlinks and SERPs.
However, it should always be remembered that correlation =/= causation.
Don't approach link building in the sense that "If I get x links, I will get y" - it simply does not work that, well, simply, and you'll only end up being frustrated.
Instead, ask yourself the kind of authority sites that people in your industry are getting links from and think "How can I get those links too?" - Maybe it's producing a quality blog post, producing an infographic, some white-label documents. The possibilities are endless.
I'd have a good look at the SEOMoz guide found here, as it can explain how the algorithm works in much more detail, while helping to build your all-round SEO knowledge.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Backlink builder (Professional)
If I wanted to hire a professional person to build high quality backlinks for me, where would I look? I'm asking here because I'd rather go on the recommendation of other businesses owners, than a google search. Does anyone have a person that they can recommend? It's for an insurance agency in Texas. Many thanks
Link Building | Oct 30, 2024, 10:47 AM | laurentjb2 -
How to handle pre-existing backlinks on new site.
Hi - We built a new site on a URL that had previously been used. We are noticing a lot of spammy backlinks pointing to our current site and ending up on a 404 page. Any recommendations on how to handle this?
Link Building | Mar 23, 2024, 7:58 AM | JJKM551 -
Are backlinks from the Episode Description field on Spotify "follow" or "no follow"?
Are backlinks from the Episode Description field on Spotify "follow" or "no follow"?!
Link Building | Apr 7, 2024, 11:39 AM | FLLocal0 -
Where to buy high quality backlinks in 2018?
I am searching for backlink vendors, only english-speaking websites, financial topic. Another option is business, news, technologies, cryptocurrencies related sites. Only high-quality, active and developed websites, real traffic, no spam. If you have some contacts of vendors of such kind (or if you have access to the right website), please share emails - would really appreciate that!
Link Building | Jun 6, 2018, 3:14 PM | g01110 -
Does iframe itself count as a backlink?
Our situation is similar to YouTube. We have an original content on every subpage that is genuinely useful when embedded as a widget on 3r party websites. That is why we offer an embeddable widget that shows slightly simplified version of the content - exactly like a YouTube video embedded on your blog. The embed code is simply an iframe sourcing from our subpage: <iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage"></p> </blockquote> <p>1/ Does the iframe itself pass any link value at all to the subpage?</p> <p>2/ If yes, what would be the equivalent of anchor text in iframe?</p> <p>3/ If not, will any link in the subpage pass link value from the 3rd party website to my domain/subpage?</p> <p>4/ If not, will I be punished/rewarded if I ask users to put a visible, unobfuscated link to the subpage below the iframe?</p> <blockquote style="background: #f7f7f7; padding-top: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-bottom: 5px; white-space: nowrap; overflow-y: auto; font-family: monospace;"> <p><iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage" /><a href="wikibudgets.org/subpage">rich anchor text</a></p> </blockquote></iframe>
Link Building | Aug 22, 2020, 2:41 AM | wikiBudgets0 -
Do links on Reference.com and Ask.com count as backlinks?
Hi there Just had a quick question about links on Reference.com or Ask.com. I have been looking at my competitors link profiles to get ideas of who and where I should/could be linking from. One of my main competitors seems to have links on Reference.com and Ask.com which are being listed in there profile. Reference.com are dofollow. Our site is also appearing on these sites, but the links are being listed under our profile. We have been up and running for more that 3 years now. The obviously have high DR and I think must be a contributing factor to their rank, having looked at other links in their profile. It seems strange because I thought these sites are effectively search engines and therefore wouldn't count towards your backlink profile? Can anyone explain? Would be most grateful if someone can. Many thanks in advance. Clojo
Link Building | Sep 8, 2016, 6:32 AM | Clojobobo3 -
Ways to remove spammy backlinks
Hello everyone, I got hit with an algorithm penalty and need to start removing old backlinks ASAP. Does anyone have any good resources on how best to ask webmasters for removal? Are there any other ways to remove bad back links besides the disavow tool? (An SEO consultant I talked to said that they had a proprietary software that can remove them - is that possible?) Thanks all,
Link Building | Jul 5, 2013, 12:51 AM | CleanEdisonInc1 -
How to remove backlinks?
Hey guys, With all this anti over optimization movement going around with Google, I decided to do a link building profile audit. I see some pages with PR 0 and some pages that expired. My websites are not penalized at this moment, however I do want to avoid this at all costs. What can I do? Could a backlink from an expired domain penalize my site?
Link Building | Apr 12, 2012, 2:38 PM | nrv0