Backlinks – Authority vs Relevancy – What’s more important?

There was a time when “a link is a link” and any link would help to get a website ranking. But that was a very long time ago and over recent years, Google has become much better at understanding what is a good link and what isn’t…although it doesn’t always get it right.

There is an age-old argument about authority vs relevancy. How much value is passed from a link on a very authoritative website, say in an unrelated context, compared to a link on a low authority website but highly relevant to the niche?

Say you get a link to your website from the BBC, but it’s a general type article and not necessarily related to your industry. Then you get another link from a blog that is 100% related to your niche. Which one will have the most impact on your website in terms of rankings?

Google is able now to not just detect the link, but also the context in which it appears on the page. In our example, Google will give more weighting to the link from the niche blog, just because it’s so much more relevant and helpful. The BBC link will still help, but it won’t have the biggest impact. If you’re on the sidelines about this…you can quite easily test it 🙂

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