Note: This post is related to my ongoing experiment to determine which Google prefers more – Fresh Content or Quality Backlinks

Ok just an update -

About 2 days after I tried to get both sites indexed by Google (used StumbleUpon, submitted sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools, posted a couple backlinks on high PR sites)…site “b” was but site “a” still wasn’t.

Now here we are a few weeks later and site “a” is indexed but site “b” isn’t. So it seems as if Google knows that they are similar in structure and content (although I tried my best to rewrite the content using synonyms and what-not so it was unique) and randomly decides to switch which one is indexed? Does anyone else find that frickin’ weird!

My assumption is that this is happening because they’re both subdomains of the same domain, so perhaps my experiment was flawed before I ever started. Maybe I should have purchased two unique domains instead of cheaping out?

Here’s the two queries to see which pages from each site are indexed:

• Site A index query
• Site B index query

Lately I’ve been wondering what Google favors more – fresh, unique content or quality (PR 4 or higher) backlinks.

There’s oceans of people that are on either side of the argument.  Some say it’s best to have lots of one-way backlinks from respected, authority sites.  Others say it’s best to be constantly adding new, unique content.

Personally I think both are useful in their own way.  But the nerd inside of me wants to figure out the “magic formula”.  Should I spend 50% of my time on each, or 80% on content and 20% on backlinks?  It’s quite the quandary.

So I’ve decided to perform a test.  The parameters and execution of the test won’t be perfect, as there’s only one of me and I’m not a robot.  But nevertheless, I’m hoping it can provide some useful insight into this problem.

Here’s what I aim to do:

• Site A (CONTENT)
  
  • Niche topic to be determined
  • A subdomain of an existing generically-named domain that I own (primary keyword subdomain name, with “A” on the end)
  • WordPress template with all SEO-related plugins activated
  • Initial content will be 2 or 3 posts, keyword-rich, appropriately tagged
  • After indexed by Google, I’ll add one new article a day for a month
  • Each article will use the keywords that I’m targeting
• Site B (BACKLINKS)
  • Same subdomain setup as Site A, but with “B” on the end
  • Same WordPress setup
  • Same initial content, but each post rewritten to be unique
  • After indexed by Google, I’ll add one high-PR backlink a day for a month
  • No new posts

Sounds like fun, eh?   Does anyone have a prediction on which site will rank higher with Google at the end of the month?

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