Backlinks: Quality or Quantity, What Works Better?
Long ago, the more backlinks you had, the higher your rankings on SERPs. Fortunately, through the form of many Google updates, it’s not about the quantity but the quality of your backlinks. But, does this mean that you ignore the number of backlinks on your pages? In this guide, we’ll find out what works better between quality and quantity of backlinks.
But first,
What is a Backlink?
A backlink is a link from one website to another. Every website owner dreams of acquiring these special links to improve their website performance. Backlinks signal to the search engines like Google about how influential and reliable your website is in the niche.
What Defines a Quality Backlink?
A quality backlink is one that originates from a high authority website that’s trusted by the search engine and users. You can assess the quality of the link by checking its domain authority. The higher the domain authority, the better the quality of its backlink.
Ideally, a website with a DA of 60 and above is termed as excellent whilst a domain score of 30 – 50 is generally good too.
High quality backlinks are intrinsically beneficial for your SEO and rankings. With these types of links, you need not worry about hurting your rankings with spammy links.
Quality backlinks are good for your SEO as an off-page strategy and it guarantees better rankings. Over time, the backlinks will give your pages more passive traffic, more leads, and conversions.
The only downside to acquisition of high quality backlinks is that they are difficult to amass. You see, sites like Forbes or Entrepreneur (in fact any powerful website in your niche) are some of the best if you want to acquire trustworthy links. But, how do many website owners get the privilege of getting such links? I can help you with this.
Backlink’s Quality or Quantity, Which Is Effective?
High-quality backlinks yield better results. Furthermore, the goal of every marketer is to increase passive traffic for their websites and to improve their ranking on search engines.
The main question is, what matters most, backlink quality or quantity?
Quality Backlinks
Advocates of high-quality backlinks claim that reputable websites add value to content which, in turn, enhances ranking. To achieve desirable results, marketers should create backlinks related to their website’s niche and frequently searched on the internet.
The main question is, are they worth your time and hassle? Like other things, quality backlinks have advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of high quality backlinks
As the name suggests, high-quality backlinks improve SEO ranking because of their quality. Additionally, these links are a guarantee that you are linking your website to an authentic domain. Therefore, your viewers are not exposed to spammy websites. With quality websites, you are sure that you can’t go amiss in your link-building strategy. High-end links build reliability, authority, trust, increase traffic and enhance your website in the long run.
The Shortcomings
Besides their advantages, high-quality backlinks can be ineffective for relatively new ventures. Established businesses have higher domain authority than relatively new digital businesses. Therefore, increasing traffic using these links can consume a lot of time that can be channeled to other business aspects.
Quantity Backlinks
As the name implies, quantity backlinks refer to links redirecting views to various websites. However, this doesn’t mean that they generate links from spammy and shady websites. They mean that the links are not from high authority domains, but they are still reliable. They don’t pay much attention to anchor texts and relevance as they aren’t that important. The main aim is to get the link. There is plenty of traffic from such links, but the quality is not that good in most cases.
Advantage of backlink quantity
Although it might sound strange, focusing on quantity rather than quality can be beneficial at times. First, it speeds up the process. Secondly, your website ranking will still improve if the links are reliable. It saves a lot of time and still improves website ranking on Google.
Demerits
Quantity backlinks may be futile and risky sometimes, as they may give rise to backlinks from questionable spammy websites. This is detrimental to websites and may damage SEO in many ways. Also, generating many links while considering quantity rather than quality may not add value.
Do High-Quality Backlinks Guaranteed SEO Success?
The quality of links plays a significant role in SEO success. However, it’s prudent to note that content plays an important role too. It’s better to link to a website with a medium domain authority that has relevant, original, and informative content. While you may not gain much from such a link, redirecting your users to fresh, engaging content has numerous rewards.
That said, it is advisable to avoid low-quality backlinks, as they could potentially harm your SEO ranking. In the past, quantity always won when it came to backlinks until unscrupulous tactics were discovered. With everyone looking to generate traffic, sites are created with the sole purpose of serving as backlink connections rather than providing interesting content.
To curb falsely boosted ranking, search engines began to pay attention to where backlinks were redirecting to. As a result, instead of Google considering the volume of backlinks on your website, it started evaluating the value of the backlinks. That’s when the quality of backlinks became more influential, as the quantity of backlinks became less critical.
Does The Number of Your Backlinks Matter?
Although the quality of links overrides their quantity, the quantity still matters. However, it might not necessarily work the way you think.
Having tens of backlinks won’t necessarily enhance your SEO ranking. Moreover, hundreds of low-quality backlinks will drastically lower your SEO ranking. The quantity of backlinks can only have a positive impact if they redirect to valuable websites.
Final Verdict
The concept of link building has changed over time. Traditionally, having hundreds of backlinks meant generating more traffic to your website. As people started abusing this privilege, search engines started ensuring that your site grows naturally over time by building suitable quality links. Would you like help building high quality backlinks to your website? Get in touch.
