: SEO, content, backlinks, and the chicken and egg problem I do not think this is a duplicate question. I already read [1 , 2 and 3] and I still can't find a satisfying answer. I know it's

@Reiling115

Posted in: #Backlinks #Seo

I do not think this is a duplicate question. I already read [1 , 2 and 3] and I still can't find a satisfying answer. I know it's a difficult one, so I am OK with just a rough description of a good strategy.

Here's the problem. People say the best way to get backlinks to your website is to have useful content that gives answers to common problems (see accepted answer in 3). However, some websites are there only to sell stuff. E-commerce websites should have good ranking if prices are decent, they deliver what they promise, and they have decent customer service. Content here shouldn't matter. If you are buying an airline ticket, for example, you really don't care about the content, but about prices, schedules, etc.

However, content does matter. Take a look at the Los Angeles Dodgers page at stubhub dot com (I refuse to create a backlink to it), and you'll see at the bottom of the page some content that is uninteresting and basically total BS. It's clearly only there for SEO purposes.

So the accepted answer to 3, just doesn't do it for me.

Now, StubHub does solve a common problem: the problem of getting tickets to a game or concert when ticketmaster ran out of them. This is in fact the reason why StubHub has backlinks from blogs, yahoo answers, etc. But for any startup trying to compete with StubHub, getting backlinks like those is very hard. In other words, StubHub has some organic backlinks because people know about it. But before that, StubHub ranked high only due to backlinks to BS content that they probably planted themselves or bought from spamblogs. In fact, most of their SEO-juice probably still comes from those backlinks, not the organic ones that actually regard StubHub as a good solution to a problem.

Recently, Google became a bit more intelligent and now buying o planting backlinks can actually hurt your SEO (see this). A bit too late IMHO.

So the problem is still how to get better rankings than StubHub without spending huge amounts of money. Apparently, by Google standards, having better prices and an excellent customer service will get you nowhere.

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