Matt Cutts - Ranking Without Links?

One of the things that made me got curious almost 4 years ago about SEO is that "how does these website ranks?". I used to be an internet researcher before working for an Australian based company, and since we're using search engines in trying to find each of our clients from around the world I've noticed that there are official websites that are not ranking well. I really wondered why the official websites are not ranking, and these websites with reviews about the company or has to say something about our client's company are ranking better.

Not all website owners are into hiring SEO specialist like me to help them rank their website on search engines like Google and this may mean that they don't have links going to their site. But how come that sites like the bloggers and even some official websites rank?

Matt Cutts of Google brings us today a video discussing about ranking without links where Ashish from India asked:

"How does Google determine quality content if there aren't a lot of links to a post?"

Check out what Matt Cutts have to say through his video uploaded on Google Webmaster Tools YouTube channel:

Is it possible to rank without links?

I think this is one of the proof that we only not need quality links but also a quality content, and that is a content that is relevant to the keyword you're trying to rank. So yes, it's totally possible that your website can rank even without trying to make it rank but that is not enough if you're serious about ranking your site.

My older sister do blog (privately) and she has no idea about SEO (though she's my sister), and she said she's ranking on Google even though she doesn't want anyone to read her blog and she just write and publish it. But do take note, she do have quality content on her site, she have photos, details about her trip (it's a travel website) and it's under Wordpress free blogging site. So it has this long URL and I can't put it up here because she doesn't want me to.

So yes, this method is totally possible for bloggers, bloggers blog about their experience, their thoughts, they often have a lot photos so pretty much they do have something to offer to the readers. And most of the bloggers these days are very active in social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and that is one way to boost your traffic and have more people keep coming back on your site.

But then again, going back to our topic, this just concludes that you still need links especially if you're in a competitive market and really serious about getting there (on the top ranking). You may rank to low competition keywords (I'm saying "may" here, so it's not guaranteed that you'll even get to the second page of the result page) but if you want to rank to high competitive ones, then invest on getting a SEO service.

To summarize.. 

So to summarize, yes it is possible but only if you have that quality content, used the keyword (not overused it to avoid keyword stuffing), good domain and there can also be a matching phrase here. But if you're trying to get serious in ranking your site on quality keywords, then you'll totally need quality links.