Are relevant backlinks essential?

khalid · Nov 11, 2008

Many say that backlinks must be relevant to be useful in SEO, do you agree?

My arguement is, if I got a PR4 backlink from a site that wasn't in my niche, it is still a PR4 backlink! Plus a lot of people use article directories to rank and although the article content is relevant, the directory isn't necessarily.

What do you think?

loredan · Nov 14, 2008

Backlinks needs to come from various sources, relevant and less relevant, high PR and low PR, do follow , nofollow.

Everytime you build links your campaign should look as natural as possible

...now straight to your question...between a PR4 not from my niche and a highly relevant PR2 ...I'd go for the second option first (well...I'd go for both actually but let's presume you can take only one)...

Also bear in mind that there are many other things to look after when getting a link (some of them a bit more important than PR).

Hope this helps

Thanks

Arleigh · Nov 14, 2008

Yes, search engines give more importance on the relevancy of the backlinks. This may help increase your page rank as well as your keyword rankings in serp.

sportsguy · Nov 15, 2008

Stick with relevant back links. Ones from non-relevant sites, especially when PR values incvrease, are ignored by the engines.

tifosi · Nov 15, 2008

they are weighted by keyword matches as well afaik so I'd go for relevent lower pr ones then higher non relevent ones... then throw a good odd-un in for luck

S

julian · Nov 27, 2008

no - having total relevant back links is a bad thing.. it can look spammy. G loves a bit of unrelated fodder sometimes

kkkrisss · Feb 10, 2009

loredan said:
Backlinks needs to come from various sources, relevant and less relevant, high PR and low PR, do follow , nofollow.

Everytime you build links your campaign should look as natural as possible

...now straight to your question...between a PR4 not from my niche and a highly relevant PR2 ...I'd go for the second option first (well...I'd go for both actually but let's presume you can take only one)...

Also bear in mind that there are many other things to look after when getting a link (some of them a bit more important than PR).

Hope this helps

Thanks

Well i'd go for the high PR. Try buying a high PR link and see what will happen to your ranking even if the link is not relevant.

ddwebguru · Feb 11, 2009

Backlinks help a website to increase its prominence in virtual world. You need to as much backlinks from relevant website as possible.

Business SEO · Feb 12, 2009

Back links have nothing to do with SEO. SEO is the optimization of your website. However, Google's algo is based on these. So they play a vital role in obtaining high search rankings. You need both.

jj1 · Feb 13, 2009

If you can get a pr4 backlink from a non relevant site - great. I certainly would not turn that down. But - obviously - it's better to have a link from a relevant site.

One of our inner pages - the "about our company" page - got a pr 1 from backlinks from non-relevant sites (each website that I've done links to this page and also to our home page) and also a few forum signatures.

kkkrisss · Feb 16, 2009

jj1 said:
If you can get a pr4 backlink from a non relevant site - great. I certainly would not turn that down. But - obviously - it's better to have a link from a relevant site.

One of our inner pages - the "about our company" page - got a pr 1 from backlinks from non-relevant sites (each website that I've done links to this page and also to our home page) and also a few forum signatures.

That is correct but I think the question here is which one is better?
I personally think that a PR4 from a non-relevant website is better than PR1 from a relevant website.

Arleigh · Feb 16, 2009

kkkrisss said:
That is correct but I think the question here is which one is better?
I personally think that a PR4 from a non-relevant website is better than PR1 from a relevant website.

IMO, I still prefer a PR1 from relevant website compared to PR4 from non-relevant site. Like what I have said before, search engines give more value on the relevancy of the site.

Business SEO · Feb 21, 2009

We prefer to create linkbait that produces thousands of backlinks over time. We know many of these links will have very little value for the SERP's. However, when you only focus on search rankings your link building is missing the reasons why links exist.

A link gathered through linkbait means that someone found our site and liked it enough to take the time to place a link on their website. That link generally is on a blog that says something about our site and that the link is pointed to. That my friends is free advertising.

We started an ethical link building program on 01/01. It has already produce thousands of links and website traffic is up over 300% since 12/2008. It also has helped improve and maintain our rankings.

One last thing there is nothing ethical or smart about leaving 'nice post' comments!

newbie · Feb 26, 2009

khalid said:
Many say that backlinks must be relevant to be useful in SEO, do you agree?

My arguement is, if I got a PR4 backlink from a site that wasn't in my niche, it is still a PR4 backlink! Plus a lot of people use article directories to rank and although the article content is relevant, the directory isn't necessarily.

What do you think?

Backlinks do not need to be relevant. However, relevant backlinks carry more weight with regards to your site ranking.

It would be "unnatural" to have only relevant backlinks.

No incoming links can harm your ranking - at worst, they simply carry no weight.