Role Of Backlinks in 2014 SEO

[edgarf76]

This is a very interesting article and video about backlinks. I have been wondering about how much of a role backlinks play in today's algos, Matt Cutts talks about how google has tested dropping backlinks and does plan to do it again, but says that it was worse. This was a good read.

seroundtable.com/google-backlinks-algorithm-worse-18142.html

[-Shay-]

I read that article as well. Actually, truth be told - I watched the video, as I very rarely read about a video without watching it myself to get the first hand context.

I believe that video will be used to help people draw the conclusion they want to continue drawing - which for most is "see, backlinks are important!"... and then they will go about guest blogging & spamming up the web with backlink dropping tactic of choice. SEO companies will use that video soundbyte to justify not closing up shop.

My take - links are of some importance to help catalog content but building a site and spending a "full time job's worth" of time obtaining/placing backlinks is overkill and will come back to haunt you.

[xecutable]

Hmm he says, the results were crappy, but how can they test that for all niches on all keywords? I am sure the results will vary from keyword to keyword.

[universal4]

I agree Shay, all that video will do is fuel link buyers and link selllers....(yep many of them call themselves seo types).

Rick
Universal4

[edgarf76]

That is an interesting way to look at it. The only backlinks I build are on press releases that are no-follow links. I am doing it for direct traffic and branding not to build links and increase my serps. I started to stop thinking about "seo" and started to think about "good marketing plan".

[diggdirectory]

backlink is still No-1 priority for Google to rank a website

[sweetbet]

There's nothing surprising about Matt's answer. In fact it is very logical. Unless the domain is an EMD, it would be very difficult to rank in the serps without backlinks.

[-Shay-]

backlink is still No-1 priority for Google to rank a website

Definitely is not.

[TravG]

Backlinks will always be a huge priority for Google in ranking websites. There is not another metric really do to so. Maybe they are worth less these days but I agree still very important and without them you cant expect to rank well.

[louie.wilson]

Definitely is not.

Hum maybe not Biggest, but one of them for sure.
Main point would be that it's impossible to get a site indexed on Google without at least 1 or a few backlinks.
Experienced that with a few sites i tried to rank with just PURE content (25K words), after 3 months, not a single visit, and 0 page indexed.

Renewed experience with another site where i simply created a few backlinks, nothing crazy, got indexed in less than a week.

[LotusAffiliates]

I think Google always do such experiments. Hopefully they will find a strong way to fight with spam. Obviously backlinks will be an important factor to determine ranking till they find any other way to get relevant results.

[RacingJim]

Hum maybe not Biggest, but one of them for sure.
Main point would be that it's impossible to get a site indexed on Google without at least 1 or a few backlinks.
Experienced that with a few sites i tried to rank with just PURE content (25K words), after 3 months, not a single visit, and 0 page indexed.

Renewed experience with another site where i simply created a few backlinks, nothing crazy, got indexed in less than a week.

Google Webmaster Tools mate. Set the site up in there and submit a sitemap and it will get indexed. You still won't get earth-shattering results but you WILL get hits without having any quality backlinks. Most sites will pick up backlinks from things like Alexa or other SEO-type tools that scan the web.

[Casino Online Rating]

In my opinion backlinks are still important, as long as they are quality backlinks. After Google introduced its Penguin 2.0 Algorithm, we should pay more attention our backlinks, as Google is trying to get rid of unnatural, manipulative inbound link profiles. Google now focuses on links that are coming from poor quality sites, appear on sites that aren't topically relevant to your niche or business, are paid links, are keyword rich and links where the anchor text is overly optimized. So it’s much better to have a few quality links, than hundreds of irrelevant links.

[Frank Benjamin]

Hum maybe not Biggest, but one of them for sure.
Main point would be that it's impossible to get a site indexed on Google without at least 1 or a few backlinks.
Experienced that with a few sites i tried to rank with just PURE content (25K words), after 3 months, not a single visit, and 0 page indexed.

Renewed experience with another site where i simply created a few backlinks, nothing crazy, got indexed in less than a week.

Rubbish!

Obviously you aren't using a sitemap or WMT....the very basic is SEO.


I agree with everyone else that say people will use this to justify link building. But the truth is that it is all about relevance and authority. A link from a low authority but relevant website is usually better than a link from a irrelevant, high authority site. The Holy Grail would be relevant and high authority.

But Google is taking so much more than just links into account. On site SEO is just as important. on-site SEO simply magnifies the on-site SEO, if done correctly. It is not just about links. While they are still a big factor, there is a bigger picture.

[louie.wilson]

The "Rubbish" word was useless mate

You do have a point, and my comment was not 100% correct, you do have traffic with no link, but for sure you won't grow very quickly.
Backlinks are necessary, IMO, to get your site really start to rank. Or let's say bit faster than without any.

[Frank Benjamin]

The "Rubbish" word was useless mate

You do have a point, and my comment was not 100% correct, you do have traffic with no link, but for sure you won't grow very quickly.
Backlinks are necessary, IMO, to get your site really start to rank. Or let's say bit faster than without any.

Your talking about 2 different things.

In your first comment, you said "it's impossible to get a site indexed on Google without at least 1 or a few backlinks." That is completely false and absolutely false. With a sitemap submitted to Google, your site will be indexed.

Ranking is completely different and I will agree that most of the time that you will need links to help for that. Of course it always depends on the KY phrase and competition. While I have ranked high without backlinks, the search terms were not regularly searched and brought in next to nothing traffic wise.

Think the confusion was with the difference between ranking and indexing.

[louie.wilson]

In your first comment, you said "it's impossible to get a site indexed on Google without at least 1 or a few backlinks." That is completely false and absolutely false. With a sitemap submitted to Google, your site will be indexed.

Yes indeed. You're right on that point.
My bad, I actually projected myself bit further, as being indexed is a good start, but for sure is not enough to build a business.
But all good, you have a point

[Glueck]

Whenever Google claims that they will drop backlinks as a ranking factor, it's just basic scaretactics. In this way they force a lot of naive people to build a better web. But certainly I think bouncerate, time on page, whois data, author profile etc. will be a lot more important in the future. But they won't drop backlinks.

[muffincrumbs]

Unless you are running Anaylitics, Google can not measure bounce rate. Instead they measure what is called the "long click". It is easy to determine that someone who clicks on a results page and does not return to that same page to select a different entry, found what they were looking for. The same goes for visitors who click a link on your page, but do not return. To say they could monitor all visits through the web, aka bounce rate, is just not possible with current computing bandwidths. This is why some people do not use anaylitics, but I prefer to let them know my stats if it is ever used.

[Roulette Zeitung]

backlink is still No-1 priority for Google to rank a website

Definitely is not.

And a good thing, too.

In a few years all crappy SEO websites with worthless content are gone.
Google don't read only. Google understand (!) more and more what and in which way it's written.
It makes me so happy.

Leopold