{"id":65279,"date":"2025-02-03T02:05:15","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T02:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/marketing\/backlink-insights-analyzing-googles-top-10-websites\/"},"modified":"2025-02-03T02:05:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T02:05:15","slug":"backlink-insights-analyzing-googles-top-10-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=65279","title":{"rendered":"Backlink Insights: Analyzing Google\u2019s Top 10 Websites"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

How Many Backlinks Do the Top 10 Sites Have?\u200b<\/h2>\n

If you want to be on the first page of Google for commercial phrases, should you care about backlinks? Should you be trying to get them, or just ignore backlinks altogether?<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, I heard from both Google and a couple of SEOs who are also writers that \u201clinks aren\u2019t as important as they once were, and you don\u2019t even need links to rank these days.\u201d I never seen anyone write about a website that only had a few backlinks that was ranking well for commericial phrases, so I decided to find some of these near-mythical sites that don\u2019t have many backlinks but still rank on the first page of Google for phrases where people might be making money.<\/p>\n

In my\u00a0previous study last month<\/a>, I chose 200 random commercial phrases with the help of AI. For each of these phrases, I gathered the top 10 organic URLs on Google. After analyzing them, I found 1,113 unique websites. My programmer, Matt, added several API calls from sources like\u00a0Moz<\/a>,\u00a0Majestic<\/a>,\u00a0Ahrefs<\/a>, and\u00a0SEMrush<\/a>\u00a0to better analyze this data.<\/p>\n

The biggest finding from\u00a0my previous analysis<\/a>\u00a0was that 96% of the websites had more than 1,000 unique domain backlinks. However, I only found 3 sites out of 1,113 that had fewer than 100 backlinks.<\/p>\n

I had hoped to find more than just 3 such sites, so this time I decided to expand that analysis tenfold. This time we gathered data on 2,000 commercial phrases which in turn identified 9,337 unique domains that ranked in the top 10 of Google for these phrases.<\/p>\n

The primary goal of this data gathering was to answer these three questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. How many backlinks do the websites that rank in the top 10 for commercial intent phrases have?<\/li>\n
  2. What is the average number of backlinks that sites in the top 10 have for each phrase, and which phrases might require fewer or more links to rank?<\/li>\n
  3. For sites with fewer than 100 backlinks that still rank on the first page for a commercial\/transactional phrase, is it the links, or could other signals be pushing them to the first page?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    After digging into this analysis, I stumbled upon a couple of other areas of interest, which I\u2019ll publish after the first three items:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Sites that Google loves and why? It it because they have so many backlinks?<\/li>\n
    2. Major sites using domain authority to rank high with affiliate pages. Is it parasite SEO if you\u2019re doing it yourself?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In the coming months, I plan to release regular studies similar to this one. The next study will explore \u201cHow Many Links Might It Take to Rank for Informational Phrases,\u201d followed by \u201cHow Many Links Does It Take in 10 Locations for 10 Local Phrases.\u201d Then, I\u2019ll revisit this commercial phrase study to see what has changed\u2014identifying which sites have left or entered the top 10, how many links the new and old sites have, and the dominant sites in the top 10 three months from now. There\u2019s much more to come, but first, let\u2019s address the first question today.<\/p>\n

      Process to Find the Number of Backlinks the Top 10 Sites in Google Have<\/h5>\n

      To ideally identify a small handful of sites with \u201cfew\u201d backlinks, I analyzed ten times the number of sites from my previous study. This time, I used 2,000 randomly AI-generated commercial\/transactional phrases, all with non-local intent and a minimum search volume of over 100 searches per month according to SEMrush.<\/p>\n

      Looking at the search volume (SEMrush\u2019s estimates of monthly searches in Google) of those 2,000 phrases, we found a nicely spread distribution between low search volume (at least 100 searches per month) to high search volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
      Semrush Search Volume<\/th>\n# Phrases<\/th>\nPercent<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
      100-1K<\/td>\n406<\/td>\n20.3%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      1K-5K<\/td>\n580<\/td>\n29%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      5K-10K<\/td>\n399<\/td>\n20%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      10K-50K<\/td>\n505<\/td>\n25.3%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      50K+<\/td>\n110<\/td>\n5.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
      Data on the 2,000 phrases and on the 9,337 domains that ranked in the top 10.<\/h5>\n

      You can see the\u00a0raw list of keywords here<\/a>, or\u00a0see the list of 2000 phrases with other data points<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      With these 2,000 keyword phrases, we then gathered the top 10 sites that organically ranked in Google for each phrase. This now gave us 9,337 unique domains which we can analyze.<\/p>\n

      Then, using backlink data from\u00a0Moz<\/a>,\u00a0Majestic<\/a>,\u00a0Ahrefs<\/a>, &\u00a0Semrush<\/a>, I looked at the number of backlinks to each of those 9,337 websites.<\/p>\n

      You can see the full data that we gathered on the 9,337 domains here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

      How Many Unique Domain Backlinks Do the Websites in the Top 10 of Google Have for Commercial Phrases?<\/h5>\n

      Here\u2019s what the new analysis revealed about the backlink distribution among these top-ranking sites:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
      Domain Backlinks<\/th>\n# of Sites<\/th>\nPercent<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
      0-50<\/td>\n42<\/td>\n0.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      50-100<\/td>\n50<\/td>\n0.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      100-500<\/td>\n468<\/td>\n5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      500-1K<\/td>\n538<\/td>\n5.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      1K-10K<\/td>\n4078<\/td>\n43.7%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      10K-100K<\/td>\n3090<\/td>\n33.1%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      100K-1M<\/td>\n887<\/td>\n9.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      1M+<\/td>\n184<\/td>\n2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

      Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
        \n
      • Over 99% of sites in the top 10 have over 100 unique domains linking to them.<\/li>\n
      • 94% of the top 10 sites have at least 500 unique domains linking to them.<\/li>\n
      • Nearly half (43%) of the sites have between 1,000 and 10,000 unique domains linking to them.<\/li>\n
      • One third (33%) of the sites that rank in the top 10 have 10,000 to 100,000 unique domains linking to them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        It is possible to rank in the top 10 of Google with fewer than 100 unique domain backlinks, but it\u2019s less than a 1% chance according to this study of the 9,337 websites we analyzed that ranked in the top 10 for commercial phrases.<\/p>\n

        Like four-leaf clovers or blue lobsters, sites with few backlinks are pretty rare, making up less than 1% of those sites in the wild. So, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d want to bet on the \u201cbacklinks don\u2019t matter\u201d camp if your goal is to rank on the first page of Google for commercial phrases. Even the Google leaked data was drenched in backlink analysis.<\/p>\n

        In my next analysis, Part 2, I\u2019ll be exploring deeper into these 2,000 phrases and then making live additional data that I\u2019ve been analyzing so I can share with you the surprising things that I discovered. We\u2019ll also be looking at which phrases you \u201cmight\u201d have a chance to rank on the first page for\u2026 if you have less than 50,000 backlinks\u2026 and which phrases, if you\u2019re a small site, you don\u2019t seem to have a chance, and which phrases might be \u201ceasier\u201d to rank for, and why. You won\u2019t believe what I found ;)!<\/p>\n

        Then, Part 3 will dive into the 9,337 URLs, with a focus on the 92 sites with fewer than 100 backlinks that rank for at least one commercial phrase and will see what these small sites have that might be putting them on Page 1 of Google.<\/p>\n

        Stay Tuned!<\/p>\n

        I\u2019m Feeling Lucky Today!<\/p>\n

        \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

          \n
        • * When I say \u201cBacklinks,\u201d I mean \u201cUnique Domain Backlinks,\u201d which is, for example, if you have 5 links from bob.com and 2 links from sue.com, we would only count 1 link for each site, so 2 links total, one from bob.com and one from sue.com.<\/i><\/li>\n
        • * When I say \u201cCommercial Phrases,\u201d I also mean what people might call \u201ctransactional phrases\u201d or \u201cmoney phrases.\u201d For example, phrases like \u201cantique clocks,\u201d \u201cauto insurance comparison,\u201d or \u201cbeard oil for sensitive skin.\u201d<\/i><\/li>\n
        • * When I say \u201cTop Ten,\u201d I mean the first 10 organic results in Google for that search, as we recorded it in early July 2024.<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          How Many Backlinks Do the Top 10 Sites Have?\u200b If you want to be on the first page of Google for commercial phrases, should you care about backlinks? Should you be trying to get them, or just ignore backlinks altogether? Earlier this year, I heard from both Google and a couple of SEOs who are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[11545,35263,13754,10844,213,13835],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-65279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","tag-analyzing","tag-backlink","tag-googles","tag-insights","tag-top","tag-websites"],"yoast_head":"\nBacklink Insights: Analyzing Google\u2019s Top 10 Websites - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=65279\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Backlink Insights: Analyzing Google\u2019s Top 10 Websites - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How Many Backlinks Do the Top 10 Sites Have?\u200b If you want to be on the first page of Google for commercial phrases, should you care about backlinks? 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