sugarrae - 2:10 am on Feb 17, 2006 (gmt 0)

>>>what if you have a website that has decent content, with 1,000 links from authoritative sources, but has never received a single visitor in its history

That would never happen. A site getting thousands of inbound "authority" links is going to have visitors just like you will wake up tomorrow morning and the sun will be in the sky. That's the whole point. Good sites earning good links get traffic.

>>>that are not designed to be content-sites, that have mediocre content (if any) at best)

Content is what most people here have to differentiate themselves. But, at times, a cute video, a software program or a product offering have enough uniqueness or value to people on their own, without content, to garner quality links. In the age where affiliate marketing and content sites with contextual advertising is a very, very large market - content is how you can set yourself apart in a lot of cases. There is always exceptions to a rule. I can't sit and detail every case for every type of site - my attempt was to give a general guideline to people with time and/or resources to devote to a site and those new to Internet marketing looking for the best way to promote a site that will hopefully last for years and years to come.

>>>That is where I see the SEO pro must earn his bread and "optimize" to see results.

That is where I see the need for a marketing pro to come up with a way to differentiate said site and then go out and make sure the world knows about it.

You're right - not every site is built on the foundation of content - so make your content better, product better, offering better, services better.

The point of the post was to serve as a guideline for a most common type of site - affiliate and content and lead people with other needs to think of ways to adapt the ideas to themselves and their offerings.

I'm not arguing that optimization is involved - but optimization *also* involves marketing now. SEM.

But, as I said, to each his own.