Search engine Google reconfirmed through social media that “content is the primary factor” for search rankings than higher blog posts or higher backlinks. High-value information with in-depth coverage will always overpower.
Google doesn’t count your blog posts. I’d focus on quality rather than quantity. Make something truely awesome, unique, compelling, & insightful. If that’s a single page, it’s a single page. More pages, or more words on a page, don’t make something better.
– John Mueller from Google.
SEO and Backlinks
Backlinks create a vote of confidence from one site to another if they are from high value sites. SEO through link building doesn’t work if the websites follow disapproved practices.
In 2012 itself, Google started filtering bad or “Black Hat SEO” practices through its Penguin update. Now websites will be Ignored or Penalized if anybody practices against the search engine’s terms of service.
The following are considered as Top SEO Ranking Factors ever:
- Valuable information
- Covering only a specific topic/service/product on a page
- Speed of the page with optimized images
- Mobile-friendliness
- Proper navigation structure
- SSL certification
- Backlinks from reliable, high-authority sites
Search engine optimization can not be done instantly like paid advertisements. We have to have patience and follow the ethical guidelines suggested by search engines. It may take minimum 5-6 months to get crawled by search engines. It also depends on keywords and content of the website, competition, demand for the product/service, etc.
If links are the reason why a site is ranking higher, then if you remove them the site will rank lower. Links aren’t the only reason sites rank, obviously, so I wouldn’t blindly focus on them.
-John Mueller from Google.