tedster - 12:22 pm on May 31, 2012 (gmt 0)

Alex, there's already a whole lot more than backlinks in play today. For several years Google (and other search engines) have been looking at what some call the "Holy Grail" of search ranking, and that can be called "user engagement". Browser-based metrics are a big part of this measure, but far from the whole thing. What is sometimes called "brand strength" is another.