TIL from a conference in Austin that link relevancy matters more than quantity

Back in 2018 I went to a local SEO meetup in Austin and a guy from a medium sized agency showed us his client data. He had a site with 50 high quality backlinks from relevant blogs ranking way better than another site with 500 spammy links from random directories. It hit me that I had been wasting months chasing numbers instead of actual value. Has anyone else seen a big shift after cleaning up their backlink profile?

2 comments

2 Comments

vera3081mo ago

Yeah I've been through that exact same process. Cleaning up my backlink profile was like a weight lifted off my shoulders, the rankings actually improved within a few months. It's really counterintuitive but less really is more when it comes to quality links.

grantschmidt1mo ago

Wait, so getting rid of links actually helped your rankings? That's wild... I always thought more backlinks meant better authority, no matter what. Guess I've been chasing the wrong thing this whole time.