How important links are when it comes to ranking nowadays?

When i watch hangouts from google, a lot of times John Mueller points out that we ignore a lot of links pointing to a site. He says, there are lots of factors involved to recognize a link if its genuine or not. But these guys never reveals all those 200+ factors.
As a newbie, sometimes i am totally confused about linkbuilding. If a link is relevant, it can be a paid one, if its not relevant, it can be a spammed. PBN's don't work nowadays. So what should be our strategy when it comes to link building as per today's scenario?

I know a quality content with user experience is a key to onpage seo. But still, what about offpage? Google is not going to come, pick, and rank my site without having proper link signals to my site.

Google don't allow promotional/paid links, it hates PBN's, its smart in detecting spam links, and i see only big sites ranking with almost no links to a page in serp.
Does it mean the seo is only left for big/established websites? Is there no place for a newcomer site?

As a newcomer to seo, am really started feeling that google don't want seo's to rank their sites for free on google.

Are links really matters when it comes to ranking? Or am the only one who is still living with this myth that links get you ranking?

Links are and always be important for rankings

It's like a taking food everyday... Always important when comes to ranking a site!

They're most important, whatever John Muller says lol

I'd argue that Google would have no problem ranking your stuff 1st after a while assuming your content serves the user better than your competitors'. It's pretty simple actually... From my point of view, links are, for the most part, only a temporary solution for churn-and-burn sites.

If the content doesn't hold up, the content starts to lose rankings based on user metrics. The other side of the coin is of course where user metrics bump the content higher in rankings. And, again, if the content was already on a downfall, adding links might improve things temporarily, but it'll start to fall again if nothing was changed, and in worst case get hammered by the next little or big G update for going too far with it. Artificial links skew with useful data like that on how a site is actually faring in terms of SEO or at least makes it a tad bit harder to analyse conclusively.

In conclusion, though this may be a fallacy of mine, ppl seem to just face-first the on-page SEO into the pavement and skip to the secondary band-aid where they try to laugh it off by building backlinks while bleeding out. If you asked me, that's so backwards, but is pretty much the metaphorical definition of churn and burn sites...


However, there's always that fine line where a topic has been covered fully and there's too little room left to improve upon. That's about the only case where links serve their purpose as intended. But, again, that assumes the competition actually competed at the fully covered on-page level of things and not just in their head but in reality also...

And, on another note, there's always the case where one might have figured out a good link building scheme in which they get to keep the rankings without G's update bringing down the curtain. Though for me, this has too many risks involved and isn't passive.


Ultimately then, links do work when done right, but then that means everything else works also when done right... But it always starts with good enough content for the purpose. No link can rank word "porn" for "kids' toys", to put it very bluntly. Though I may be wrong. Just my 2c.

Thanks @Thulf for your detailed point of view. Even churn and burn sites are not working in today's serp fluctuations. However, I have noticed that most of the big sites need no link to rank their pages on google. I think it depends on how much weight your site has in google's eye.
But what about new sites? those would obviously have no such reputation. Also, how would google find each of our new page without a link? We can not rely much on search console as even after submitting sitemaps, there is no guarantee that your page will show off in serp. That means we must need some referring signals that can tell google that hey, here is a great content waiting for getting crawled, index, and rank in serp.

istallian said:

Thanks @Thulf for your detailed point of view. Even churn and burn sites are not working in today's serp fluctuations. However, I have noticed that most of the big sites need no link to rank their pages on google. I think it depends on how much weight your site has in google's eye.
But what about new sites? those would obviously have no such reputation. Also, how would google find each of our new page without a link? We can not rely much on search console as even after submitting sitemaps, there is no guarantee that your page will show off in serp. That means we must need some referring signals that can tell google that hey, here is a great content waiting for getting crawled, index, and rank in serp.

Click to expand...

When I talk about churn and burn sites in 2020, I'm more like referring to evolved churn and burn sites. Just crappy sites, in other words. Something like that.

The referring signal is the previous post(s) the new site has. If the previous posts were crap, Google just assumes every other new post is crap also and might not even prioritize ever indexing it because why waste the resources. There are other measures in place to sift out crap from SERPs like that, but that one seems most obvious to me (if it exists - might be that there's some other reasoning behind it, but the process might be similar and the end result exactly the same, so what's on surface doesn't really matter and there's no point getting stuck in such details as long as the concept itself applies).

With that said, from my point of view, the "sandbox" period still exists (it never existed the way ppl jump at it for no apparent reason though), though it's even less black and white than it was back then. I say this because I have noticed the obvious when starting new sites: sites with good content get indexed faster than sites with crap content. Sites with crap content, after being indexed, don't get ranked anywhere near the competition without backlinks. Once I've had that site with good content long enough, Google just assumes every new post is good also and ranks it instantly after submitting it and even ranks it above some of the competition from the get go. That's to say there's not much randomness in there... And that means it's only really a matter of figuring them (factors) out.


It all seems very simple to me... Common sense cause and effect. I may be wrong as to how a lightning strike came to be in super fine details, but I sure as hell could see it coming based on the obvious signs time and time again. It sounds philosophical, but it's just common sense really. It's as if Google wants to rank good content. What a revelation. Who knew? ^^

You might want to checkout this...

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/youre-doomed-without-links-2019-case-study.1127758/

Links are more important also if you get niche relevant backlinks then it will benefit you in a lot of ways.

MisterXYZ said:

You might want to checkout this...

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/youre-doomed-without-links-2019-case-study.1127758/

Click to expand...

Oof though... It says that the SEO game has changed, but doesn't take into account how it has changed. Thus it paints a picture where no-backlink strategy seems to never work out the same way as one built with backlinks.


(the point of the video doesn't align with this reply, but the "simple niche site" life cycle they show does [starts at 1:35]. And the stuff they show I can confirm because I've seen it myself many times as well whilst building 0 backlinks)

This reply is not saying that backlinks are bad or they don't work! Stop looking for the wolf, some of you, thanks.

If you spend half of your time on google hangouts with John mueller and half your time in the black hat seo sub-forum of blackhatworld then it’s no surprise that you’re confused.

Try building great niche edits and PBN links for a quality site within a niche that isn't too overly competitive and you'll see for yourself

You can definitely rank without links but in certai niches this is completely impossible. The fact is that Google pretty much assumes that a good content with a good organic outreaching following the social media path will be linked by default, which in fact is very rare, and restricted to the ultra 100.000 word hyper-detailed manuals from Ahrefs blog

The reality is that most sites in most niches, regardless of the quality and the lenght of your post will see you pretty much as a huge competence, and except for some pedagogic industries (like development or DYIs), they won't ever link you (specially your site oozes a highly commercial aspect). Obviously, you can bypass this if you create a wiki-like brandless site or you start networking with a group of people where you keep on sharing among (a typical thing between blog developers or any technical mastery).

In a nutshell, keep in mind that inorganic linkbuilding will be your only resource. What Mr. Muller is trying to subliminally say: you need GREAT content in order to get linked and rank, and if you won't be linked regardless of your content, maybe you should try out other less organic techniques.

The art of linking is not throwing a bunch of links without sense: it's looking for opportunities and shooting cautiously with a meaning for each link. When you link, or ask for a link, ask yourself: "why anyone will favourably link to this specific site without paying them?" Are you providing any real value to their site?

Well, Thanks all of you guys for your reply's and suggestions. After reading em all, (pls correct me if am wrong ) i would say building a great content and trying to earn bunch of great links pointing to your content is a simultaneous process for ranking. It is rare to rank just because you have a great content or you have lots of great links pointing towards a crap content. Both the content and links should be high in value, should make sense, and should be relevant.

Always vital.

Google became the #1 search engine many years ago by introducing a novel approach in their algorithm: backlinks.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google)

And so far no one has found anything as efficient as backlinks. They can use all the gimmicks of the world, backlinks are not going to go away.

Hi mate. Linkbuilding is necessary for ranking and brings natural traffic to your website.

Links are one important factor for ranking, focus on authority and quality links this will increase site trust and drives quality traffic.

Disagreeing with the statement of PBN's don't work. It works. It may not be a method that a fresh online marketer should follow. But if you have a website that is a couple of years old, making PBN's will help you to drive traffic and to gain more link juice.

shelly Shelly said:

Disagreeing with the statement of PBN's don't work. It works. It may not be a method that a fresh online marketer should follow. But if you have a website that is a couple of years old, making PBN's will help you to drive traffic and to gain more link juice.

Click to expand...

I agree that PBN's work. Age factor is also a point. But we just need more links nowadays. It is because now it is very hard for us to get those link juices passed from PBN's. G is now ignoring links that contains focused keywords. And using long tales in the links will need lots of such links to indicate G about our niche (i know G is very smart with synonyms now but still). Hence, more and more links. And again you are now dragging your site into the ocean of links..
What say?