Would you rather invest in better content or stronger backlinks if your budget only allowed one?

[jorge1243]

If you had to choose only one due to a limited budget, where would you invest first? Would you focus on creating higher quality content or building stronger backlinks?

 

[T J Tutor]

Content always. Buying backlinks is not appropriate. It will cause huge issues. The SEs know when they see purchased backlinks. They keep a record. You will be penalized for using them. The "backlink game" is over. Backlinks should come from your, or a team members, efforts of contacting those who have sites in your niche, and those associated with your niche, and building relationships with them by trading content that supports one another. Natural backlinking is what the algorithms looks for and they have become exceptionally good at it.

Content is king and traffic is Queen.

Make sure to build the content and link relationships with sites whose Domain Authority and SE Rankings are the same or better than your own. This is a MUST!

 

[jorge1243]

Content always. Buying backlinks is not appropriate. It will cause huge issues. The SEs know when they see purchased backlinks. They keep a record. You will be penalized for using them. The "backlink game" is over. Backlinks should come from your, or a team members, efforts of contacting those who have sites in your niche, and those associated with your niche, and building relationships with them by trading content that supports one another. Natural backlinking is what the algorithms looks for and they have become exceptionally good at it.

Content is king and traffic is Queen.

Make sure to build the content and link relationships with sites whose Domain Authority and SE Rankings are the same or better than your own. This is a MUST!

i think you are talking about general backlinks strategy, but what if we use niche relevant backlink, would the blog be penalized after that ?

 

[T J Tutor]

i think you are talking about general backlinks strategy, but what if we use niche relevant backlink, would the blog be penalized after that ?

I spoke to that. Yes, the links must be niche relevant, but the issue is the SEs are gathering data daily on the links that providers (commercial providers) are selling or trading. When the SEs see the same link on multiple sites in short periods of time they flag them and then consequently flag the sites. Your sites are not the only place a purchased link will be installed. They are used over and over and can be found on far more sites than the SEs consider natural, or normal, linking.

Buying and selling links has gone the path of buying and selling followers, likes, etc. It simply results in a penalty sooner, sometimes later, but the penalties always come. There is always an accounting when it involves the SEs. These practices are just not worth the money and the detriment they can, and likely, will cause.

 

[jorge1243]

I spoke to that. Yes, the links must be niche relevant, but the issue is the SEs are gathering data daily on the links that providers (commercial providers) are selling or trading. When the SEs see the same link on multiple sites in short periods of time they flag them and then consequently flag the sites. Your sites are not the only place a purchased link will be installed. They are used over and over and can be found on far more sites than the SEs consider natural, or normal, linking.

Buying and selling links has gone the path of buying and selling followers, likes, etc. It simply results in a penalty sooner, sometimes later, but the penalties always come. There is always an accounting when it involves the SEs. These practices are just not worth the money and the detriment they can, and likely, will cause.

That makes sense, especially about the repeated use of the same paid links. Do you think manually earned niche-relevant backlinks through outreach or genuine partnerships still carry strong SEO value or has Google evaluation changed significantly in recent years?

 

[T J Tutor]

Do you think manually earned niche-relevant backlinks through outreach or genuine partnerships still carry strong SEO value

Absolutely! "The proof is in the pudding"! It has certainly been very beneficial to my content sites. It's among the stronger and consistent components for any content site.

or has Google evaluation changed significantly in recent years?

Google has, for decades, evaluated and re-evaluated link strategies used by us in the content business. It goes back to their first few years as an SE. Back then most of us were building "link Wheels", a form of link exchange but with our own sites. They lowered the hammer on that and then instructed their algos to identify those link wheels and punish us with lower rankings and some with de-indexing. The linking game has long been a target by marketers and traditional business sites and most of us did abuse it back in those days. It was effective!

Google has well thought out and very direct definitions and suggestions for staying in a state of grace with them when it comes to linking. They know and accept that linking is a powerful and necessary addition to legitimate sites and they want legitimate sites to do it in a fashion that brings strategic strength to those that incorporate their vision of utility with linking. However, they want everyone to know they hold the hammer ready for those that choose to abuse the strategy and it's implementations.

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HERE IS GOOGLES ANSWER TO "Does Google like backlinks?"

Yes, Google loves backlinks. Backlinks are incoming links from other websites to your page. Google treats them like digital "votes of confidence". When trusted sites link to you, they tell Google your content is helpful.
Think of it like a popularity contest with a twist. It is not just about the number of votes you get. The quality of the voter matters most. One vote from a giant, respected site (like a major news outlet) is worth more than a hundred votes from tiny, unknown blogs.
Google looks for a few key things to decide if a backlink is good:

• • Relevance: Does the other site match your topic? If a shoe store links to your bakery, Google gets confused.
  • Authority: How well-respected is the other site? Government (.gov) or educational (.edu) sites carry a lot of weight.
  • Trust: Is the site safe and well-established?

If you buy backlinks in bulk or use spammy tactics, Google's algorithm will ignore them or penalize your site. It is always better to earn links naturally by writing great content.