Which number is important for backlinks?
-
I'm getting very confused. What is the important number regarding backlinks to my site?
The Moz number vs. Hubspot grader spits out vastly different numbers. For the particular site I'm trying to improve, I don't have Webmaster Tools installed yet (waiting for webmaster to do as it doesn't have asynchronous code on it).
Also apologies for novice question but I remember once being told that offpage SEO and specifically the amount of external backlinks is responsible for 75% of your SERP. Is that still the case?
-
Howdy,
Great question. A couple of metrics that I like to focus on are "# of unique linking root domains" to a site, and also overall Domain Authority and Moz Trust.
It's not really about the pure number of links. Even a spam blog can generate millions of backlinks without moving the rankings. Instead, it's more about the breadth, quality, trust and topical relevance of the sites linking to you.
If there's one metric that most agencies use for benchmarking, it's Domain Authority, but I'd be careful with this as it can fluctuate from month-to-month and should be thought of in broad terms instead of as a precise number that you track from week to week.
I think this blog post by Dr. Pete perfectly answers your question better than I could myself. It's well worth a read.
http://moz.com/blog/whats-better-on-page-seo-or-link-building
Let us know if you have any questions. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
I'm not sure what number you're referring to, but would suggest that you need to be a little cautious in these post-penguin days.
I'll answer the simpler part of your question first. You asked if external backlinks were responsible for 75% of your SERP.
I'd suggest taking a look at the following Whiteboard Friday with Rand on the latest Ranking Factors survey:
http://moz.com/blog/weighting-the-clusters-of-ranking-factors-in-google-analytics-whiteboard-friday
Domain + Page level link features account for just under 40% according to the survey which suggests that while they are still the dominant factors, their influence is diminishing.
You really should resist the temptation to see link building as a numbers game. The days of being able to throw a whole bunch of cheap links at a page and watch it rank have gone - at least where you want a sustainable ranking.
Try to think about quality, over quantity, and think about the context and relevance of the linking site to your own. Try to think of it as building relationships rather than just links for the sake of links.
Keep your target audience in mind when you look for link opportunities and find those links that are likely to provide you with relevant traffic.
Hundreds of links with exact match anchor text from loads of rubbish sites are unlikely to do you any favours.
-
The number of links can be looked at as the total number of links, the number of links from a domain (one domain can have many links to your site) or the number of C Blocks (which suggest whether IP addresses are linked). Make sure you are comparing the same unit of measurement.
Another good backlink resource besides the ones you are using is MajesticSeo (they have a free tool you can try).
Links are very important, but there is no set value (at least that Google will tell). Moz and SearchMetrics have recently released ranking factors; you might be interested in taking a look at those.
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
-
Web 2.0 Backlinks
Hi Normal Web 2.0 websites like Wordpress.com, blogger.com have very High DA and PA. But when we create a subdomain, DA and PA falls to 1 as Google treats subdomain as new websites. Does it make any sense then to get backlinks from web 2.0 websites? will it help in Google rankings?
Link Building | | aliasgarbabat1234567890 -
Backlink redirects and resulting SEO impact
Hi, Please see the target URLs on the links in this article: http://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/tech-insider/2015/07/government-hacked-yet-again-its-time-make-government-cybersecurity-national-issue/118561/ As you can see, there is a redirect in place, presumably for tracking purposes. Do these links carry full SEO value?
Link Building | | mikekeeper0 -
Linked on a mobile app, is it a backlink?
Hey there, My blog was linked on some named Prismatic that is a content aggregation app, and I have views from there. How are those link named? Is there any juice maybe? 😛 Good day,
Link Building | | Kokolo0 -
Adding Quality Backlinks
Without sounding like an idiot, what are the best ways in adding good quality back links. There are websites out there such as Click Submit but from experience they just link from weird URL's and the links are in comments. In an ideal world starting up my own Blogs and building up a good domain authority would work best but the customer would like some back links adding by next week. Using local directories wouldn't really work for their business so if anyone has any idea's I would love to hear them.
Link Building | | chrissmithps0 -
Backlinks to site.com (without www)
I have a website with 301 redirection from site.com to www.site.com. And we have built many backlinks to site.com (without www). Are these backlinks still give us juicy?
Link Building | | bele0 -
Has anyone ever shared a list of all their backlink sources?
I am currently in the research stage of finding more sites that I will be able to do things such as submit infographics, guest post, or get easy backlinks that are legit. I feel out of options, as I have already built links with a lot of sites but feel like I need more. Has anyone ever seen someone actually sharing all of their hard work by providing a list of all the sites that worked for them? Or does there come a point when really your only option left is to guest post or be a HARO source? I have been doing those things all along--I'm not just looking for easy, lazy links! Is there anyone who's gotten a site up to a high PR score who's felt out of options, like they've already done all they know how to do? I'd like your opinions. I know it seems like an outrageous question to ask, but I thought I'd throw it out there. I'd be willing to share sources too; I'm not just trying to mooch off people!
Link Building | | UnderRugSwept1 -
How does the number of obls on a page affect link juice?
If you have acquired a link on a home or other page; just how can you value the contribution of that link. If a home page has a DA=50 and 100 obls (outbound links) should the DA be discounted significantly and is there an equation which can be applied to help quantify eg 50/100 *10 therefore link from this page is same value as link from DA=5 with only one link? Just how diluted does juice become if number of obls is high?
Link Building | | seanmccauley0 -
On-Page Report Rel Canonical and keyword density and backlinks...
Hey guys, 1- In the On-Page Report the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" is not checked and it says <dl> <dt>Canonical URL "http://www.mydomain.com/"</dt> <dt>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank.</dt> <dt>the domain points to the right page... Im not understading why its checked off..??? could it be because the canonical url has the ".com/" instead of just ".com" ???</dt> <dt>2- it also shows that the Total Keyword Usage for this Page = 33 , is this good or bad? too little or too much?</dt> <dt>3- Also when building backlinks should I include the ".com/" or ".com" ??</dt> <dt>Thank you in advance! </dt> </dl>
Link Building | | onyx8080