Is linking as important in Mobile SEO as it is with online SEO?

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Comments

[SEO Ranter]

YES!

[Pelle Boese]

Indeed it is :-)

[Bryson Meunier]

Hi Bena,

My vote was yes, as it's clear that links are a ranking factor for competitive queries in Google and Yahoo! Mobile. I will go so far as to say that mobile links will matter more for mobile than desktop links matter for SEO. I've detailed it in this new post on my blog if you're interested:
http://www.brysonmeunier.com/links-matter-more-on-the-mobile-web

Best,
Bryson

[Bena Roberts]

Bryson - moblitity.mobi is great and I will sign up. I loved your post. But I think that I have a different attitude of linking vs linking.
I agree you must index your site on jumptap, mcn, yahoo, medio, and add it to mobile local directories - m-spatial etc.

But I think that the alternative mobile search engine world does not understand linking. Also - there are so few quality sites out there which means that there is no page rank on mobile to get with the stronger site.

It is just too soon. I would no waste money getting a mobile blog roll going - I would put that money into something that works already for getting visibility on a mobile site - advertising, listings etc.

dotmobi might rank sites with a 1-5 but what do you do if your site is transcoded etc.
I think that linking in mobile is a black hole - the only way to fill this black hole is to up the ad inventory form quality partner sites.
Bena

[Bryson Meunier]

Hi Bena,

It's strange to disagree with you, but I don't think we could disagree more about this.

Not quite sure what you're saying about alternative mobile search engines, but my post refers primarily to the #1 and #2 mobile search engines, Google and Yahoo! respectively. I respect what engines like Taptu and others are doing, but as a marketer it's hard to think of them as a priority when the other engines are getting more traffic. According to comScore, Yahoo! Mobile got 4.4 million visitors in March to Taptu's ~40k (comScore is panel based so numbers are used to illustrate relative traffic). Alternative search engines might not understand mobile linking (although having spoken to some of them about it I think they do), but at this point I'm not sure why that should concern marketers.

Not sure what you're saying here: "Also - there are so few quality sites out there which means that there is no page rank on mobile to get with the stronger site.". The first statement might be true, but it would simply mean that the quality sites would have the most link popularity and would matter more. Google's PageRank algorithm really doesn't enter into it. Even so, I don't agree that PageRank is absent on mobile sites. Many sites even have toolbar PageRank assigned, and many of these have significant link popularity. This is something I detail in my post.

I don't disagree with your mobile advertising message, but building quality links is not really something that can wait. Most search engine algorithms take age of a link into consideration and the sooner a user can start building credibility the better. Take our niche as an example of how this works in Google. If you search mobile seo in the US, MobileSearchMarketing.com shows up, even though it has several thousand fewer authority links than our sites, significantly less content, and hasn't been updated since 2005. The owner is an expert link builder and understands the benefit of starting early. Not sure why someone has to do mobile advertising or mobile SEO. If done right, both can be beneficial.

I respect your opinion, but in this case I think it flies in the face of the evidence of links as mobile search ranking factors for Google and Yahoo. I doubt very much that anyone could rank naturally for competitive terms in Google Mobile or Yahoo! Mobile without paying attention to both desktop and mobile links. I've been wrong before, and I could be here if you can rank naturally simply by validating a mobile site; but I doubt very much that that is possible.

Best,
Bryson

[Bena Roberts]

Bryson - I respect you taking the time for such a great comment. I think the issue is that I come from very much a white label mobile search background and I have never been in the online biz. Only mobile for 15 years.
I have a great relationship with the mobile search engines from BKI Media and being an analyst - that I take their word for it - when they tell me links are not that important as yet.

I also have a lot more of a mobile social media mobile SEO strategy - so I never advertise on google mobile directly (unless asked) only via smaller players - but this works very very well.

I am not stubborn and next campaign I am going to start with links first - at the end of the day I want what is best for my clients! So thanks again, Bena