SEO link-building is less important! Check what Google said recently…
Is Link Building still relevant for SEO? Is it still in the top 5 ranking factors? What did Google recently say about Link Building? Have you checked Google’s updated spam policy?
In April 2024, John Muller said links are not listed as an important search ranking factor. Ok. Allow me to show you what he explained —
Why Google Doesn’t Need Links? In this article, we will learn about that.
Links were discovered in the late 1990s. SEO professionals used to create hyperlinks that were primarily used to send traffic from one website to another website. It was considered a good signal for search engines to use for validating how authoritative a website is. Google used the link’s domain authority and page authority to gauge authoritativeness.
But in 2004 -2005 Google used statistical analysis to detect manipulated links. Many websites used “powered-by” links in website footers, even lots of websites used the text close to the word ‘advertising’. Since 2006, Google decided to stop passing anchor text value, links from directories stopped passing ranking value and by 2012 Google deployed a massive link algorithm called Penguin that destroyed the rankings of likely millions of websites, many of which were using guest posting.
Buying link insertions on random websites unrelated to your business solely for the “link juice” is not.
The link signal eventually became bad. Then in 2019 Google decided to selectively use no-follow links for ranking purposes. The change to no-follow was made because of the link signal. It was confirmed by Google’s Gary Illyes. Ok.
In 2023 Google’s Gary Illyes shared at a conference in Austin that links were not even in the top 3 of ranking factors. Then in March 2024, Google updated its spam policies documentation to downplay the importance of links for ranking purposes.
Now the question is what is the reason why Google doesn’t need many links? This is likely because of the extent of AI and natural language understanding that Google uses in its algorithms.
In this circumstance, we don’t know which links helped improve rankings (because the correlations are chaotic. Then what is the future of link building? Link building has changed a lot. Agreed? Links are no longer *just* direct signals.
We need to build a natural and non-spammy strategy for backlinks. It may not come easy, but you need to choose trusted and relevant links by co-creating great content, utilizing partner relationships, thought leadership, digital PR, and employee advocacy campaigns, these are still very much important for SEO.
