While some pages on a website will naturally rank well because its focus is on a low competition keyword, that’s not always the case. Especially for competitive terms, links pointing to that page may help to power its ranking to the top. Backlinks to a website are not all equal. Companies need to appreciate this subtle point. Otherwise, they risk derailing early success when they want better long-term results for their site. Here is why high-quality backlinks remain relevant in 2022.
Strong Backlinks Increase Positive Association Benefits
A backlink from one site to another is a little like when a respected person endorses you. Other people trust their opinion and it’s possible to make new friends, enter new relationships, etc. The same is true with the connection between backlinks and a website too. Backlinks from a site that’s already respected by the search engines will have a positive effect on future results. It rubs off on the site it links to through this endorsement. To obtain backlinks, it’s either necessary to build relationships with publishers or obtain high quality backlinks through link building agencies. The former takes far more time than the latter.
Avoids Bad Neighborhoods
Links can be provided from poor sites that aren’t in good stead with Google, Bing, and other search engines. When this happens, it can knock the linked-to site back a step or two. A bad neighborhood online has so many outbound links relative to its inbound links and/or traffic, that it appears to be a link farm or only set up to link elsewhere. Given enough time, this will be noticed and seen as a bad place to get links from.
Good Backlinks Last Longer
A link from a decent site lasts longer, more often than not. Websites with traffic that offer real value to their visitors want to link out to useful resources. After all, if they’re going to send their visitors away, at least it should be for a good reason.
Old, inferior articles will eventually get deindexed and/or removed from the site to save on the Google crawl budget that limits what new content can be indexed. Because of this, low-quality articles with minimal traffic and basic links will disappear quicker; the opposite is true of articles that provide value to the searcher.
Quality over Quantity
Backlinks coming from a domain with a strong Domain Authority (or similar) rating, provide sufficient link juice to move the ranking needle. Just one of these can make a difference, whereas scores of links from low-rent sites will fail to make much of a difference.
Even in situations where a powerful link requires considerable time for relationship building before the link is received, the net result can make it worth the effort. It is also far more time-efficient than pursuing many links, none of which have the power to alter ranking positions in a significant way.
When competing with other sites for ranking superiority, it’s better to have powerful backlinks. Otherwise, it’s the digital equivalent of trying to do battle with both hands tied behind your back.
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