michaelj72 - 8:25 am on May 6, 2012 (gmt 0)

i wonder about these sometimes occurring discussions about linking "being dead" or "on its way out" how accurate can that possibly be?
as long as there are URLs, there will be links.
that's how we all get around on the internet. it is google's increasingly complex algo that is making it rather diffcult for small timers to figure it out and rank well, no matter what cutts says about writing superlative or great content, I mean that implies that this type of content will draw....links! (or traffic that they can then measure in some way) of course there's a heck of a lot more to their algo than links but that's the basis of it all if you ask me; and all the quality signals can they now draw from their vast warehouses of raw data and interpret over 'quality signals' and social signals and such for whatever it is the 200 or (as tedster has suggested perhaps even 500-1000 different signals etc)

I somewhat like Oimachi2's ideas abouth simplifying and 'tightening things up' a bit with the on page signals (perhaps they can get clearer signals that way...)