Website SEO - all about back-links?

[DoubleCheese]

I been keeping an eye on a few sites and seeing what Google Alerts pulls in for specific search terms they would be using. All I seem to see in the Google Alerts is loads and loads of really poorly written blogs with links to other poor blogs and then back to the site that is paying for the "SEO".

Is this all there is to it, get a bunch of sites to write a load of nonsense about your product, get the backlinks and get up the Google ranks? Or have I missed something?

 

[DoubleCheese]

This is what I thought at first and I couldn't believe for a second that humans actually read the blog posts. They are so poorly written it almost like a machine feed with occasional keywords thrown in for luck.