Floki asked what signals Google might use to determine if content is helpful…
Ok, determining if content is helpful…
Not really my field. Don’t want to write about something I’m not confident with.
All I can say, I’m over 20 years into SEO and no matter what it was, it always came down to links.
I’ve never seen a site during those 20+ years that had beaten another site with content, where the other site had more links.
When I say ‘more links’, I mean more in the sum of their power, not just the amount.
To make this clear, this assumes that both sites have proper on-page SEO.
This observation goes through all niches, through all the years.
My advise: Work on links.
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As a little follow up to the post from earlier…
Note: We are talking here about queries with competition, where you could actually make money. We are assuming you did proper on-page SEO. Basics.
Look at any result, the SERPs are almost sorted by the amount of links. Not by exact amount, but you need lots of links. Nobody ranks there with ‘great content’ and a few links from bookmarking sites.
Why are sites getting hacked, especially .edu? Because they are linked well. They are receiving lots of links from other .edu domains and other government and education sites.
Why do people are so after expireds? Why are there drop catching services? Why marketplaces for expireds? Why do people spend ridiculous amounts on expireds?
The content on those expireds is long gone. It’s the links that point to them that last.
Links is what makes you rank.
Links.
No idea what else people are talking about since 10 years.
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And as a last follow-up, a comment I made to those two posts:
Like to add again: If you did proper on-page SEO. This Google bombing kind of ‘miserable failure’ thing isn’t working anymore. The page you want to rank needs to be ‘relevant’.
If you don’t do proper on-page SEO you are just making your life hard. You’ll rank much easier if your on-page is properly optimized. Doesn’t need to be crazy, just proper title, headlines and some words.
I think that’s pretty basic, just wanted to mention it so there’s no misunderstanding when someone is reading the above.
We will talk more about links in the future. A lot more.