This morning I did an interesting and funny discovery when searching for Google on Yahoo.com.

Yahoo is telling people to "please stay with us - pretty please - we can do better - don't go!". When searching for Google or MSN this comes up. Have a look for yourself below. Not very Christmassy of Yahoo.

The "You could go to Google or..." message only come up when using Yahoo US and both Google and MSN are targeted.



Merry Christmas everyone!!

I am not going to patronise anyone in this post by saying it is obvious that you need both quality content and links in order to survive the search engines....... The debate here at Base One is between me and a co-worker over what is MORE important as we realise the significance of both for ranking purposes.


The Background

The co-worker  is a link building machine - he could be considered an Arnold Schwarzenegger of the link building world, except his phrase is not "I will be back", it is more like "I am not going anywhere"....

Me?  Well my strengths lie more in on- page optimisation. This major difference is perhaps where this year- long debate has stemmed from...........




 The Arguments

For Content: Whilst acknowledging the co-worker's argument, and the importance of links towards any search marketing effort, I remain in favour of quality, keyword rich content as the more significant element. I am debating for the user whilst the co worker is debating for the search engines. In my opinion, the ultimate objective for any website is to gain user intrigue, navigate throughout the site and hopefully get them to convert.

A website can have a million quality links but, if it has poor or limited content, that is not relevant to the search, it is likely that any user will instantly bounce off the website. What will gain conversions, links or content? And if this is, after all, the objective, should there not then be more importance placed on quality content rather than links? Without great content, link building can prove difficult.....particularly when approaching high authority websites. People are more likely to link to strong, well optimised content with relevance to their own website. Be it a product or a service, quality and interesting content more often than not will have people blogging about it or linking their own websites naturally to yours.

For Links: Without links there is little or no chance of ranking on the first page for any competitive terms. They are vital to off-page optimisation in allowing a website to be found and potentially gain a high volume of traffic. If using logos as links on relevant websites then this also increases online brand awareness, as users will start to recognise the brand. Referring traffic or even direct traffic can increase with this type of link building.

Closing Statement

I put this question to you......User or search engine? Good content MORE important than links? I ask you this: can you, the user, live in a world where websites are revolved around the number of links they have and the importance that Google has placed on these sites, or do you want to create a society where the content is interesting and relevant to your search?

"Let us not despair...

And so, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream, that one day content will reign over the link weight in the Google algorithm, that content will be able to walk the worldwide web with heads held high.... "

VOTE CONTENT!!!!!