Are backlinks REALLY important???

[CTABUK]

Of course it has everything to do with backlinks, not every post in forums count as true backlinks, but some do, especially if you post at DMOZ forum. RealEstateForum is also good at producing them, it just depends on who joins the thread and in Awall19 you have a good chance of getting picked up. There is a difference in philosophy between Awall19 and I - he believes in advertising I don't, yes if I did I would get more enquiries, but in mortgages and loans the people who respond have mostly tried everywhere else first and tend to be timewasters, so our theory is if people find us by natural search they are more likely to be serious.
Plus the cost of advertising means higher client fees, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

[Dave Hawley]

For a while there has been countless discussions about how backlinks are very important to boost your PageRank in Google. Are they really that important or has the PageRank game changed?

Good quality links from authoritive pages are worth a lot. These are the type you get naturally and rarely even know about. The PageRank algo remains the same, but what is counted/used and what is not always changes.

The main page only has a PR of 3 but all the inner pages has a PR of 5. Is this a fluke that has inherited PR by mistake or has the the value of backlinks gone away?

Stop seeing the toolbar as real PR, it's not and nobody (except a select few in Google) know the true PR of any page.

[CTABUK]

Dave, Hi, I saw 'banned' and wondered where you had got to!
Here are some of the ultimate discussions on backlinking, I promise all of you that reading them will be of benefit to you http://www.cre8asite.net/browseCats.asp?category=48

[mac123]

great information , i liked this thread specially the 55 million story

[bond007]

So we need good inbound links with good anchor text. If there are many of such links it will be better

[qbert_seo]

I have posted this tip here before but I use the Google Tool Bar 'Google Alerts' I put in my keyword which is Right to Buy and everyday I get at least one news story on that subject. I contact the writer or his editor and I add my views, I've been in the Industry for 30 years, so what I say (be it crap or truth) gets picked up on, sometimes you have to be a little contencious, but the minute it is in print, people search either the Company name or it's initials CTAB - we get found.

Thanks for the tip - I am always a little weary of anyone who discloses their revenues so freely, but the tidbit above can prove valuable to veterans and rookies alike.