Links are not a top 3 Google Search ranking factor, says Gary Illyes

[Rlilly]

"Links are not a top 3 Google Search ranking factor, says Gary Illyes"

I think Google is on a parade and charade and not telling you the truth about links and its power. They know links are ripe for abuse. That been said I would rather my website have a couple of power links from top authority websites that than the most perfect written content.

[aristotle]

According to SEO lore, using backlinks as the primary ranking factor is what enabled google to come from obscurity to become the world's top search engine.

But because of abusive link-building, which could be regarded as cheating, Google eventually (in 2012) implemented the notorious Penguin penalty which wiped out a huge number of websites. Ever since then, the role that backlinks play in google's algorithm has become more and more nebulous.

[christianz]

Links are the only indicator of content usefulness and quality even today when 99.999999% are not real (spam, automated, bought etc). Any kind of automated content analysis and (even far worse) offsite EAT are super flawed indicators of any kind of value of any given page.

But Google is pushing those ranking systems anyway. Hence why there are so much low quality / made for SEO / AI generated content ranking.

[Atomic]

Links are the only indicator of content usefulness

Do you seriously believe that? If you take 10 seconds, I bet you can think of metrics that indicate content quality that don't involve links.

[christianz]

I bet you can think of metrics that indicate content quality that don't involve links.

I can't. Sometimes one sentence can be far more useful and more "quality" in context of user needs than the most beautiful, well written article with illustrations and video.

Sometimes anonymous person on obscure website with zero social media presence can provide more "quality" than famous PhD celebrity author.

If real people are (or were) linking to the obscure anonymous site, it is reliable indicator that content there is better. At least that's how it worked 15 years ago when people were backlinking organically a lot.

[tangor]

Backlinks were the bomb back in the day, but the ABUSE possible AND PUT INTO EFFECT by spammers milking "organics" killed the web back then, and would kill it still if allowed to happen.

[christianz]

ABUSE possible AND PUT INTO EFFECT by spammers milking "organics" killed the web back then, and would kill it still if allowed to happen.

The web is more dead now than at any lowest lowpoint back then. AI generated content is the coup de grace.

[EditorialGuy]

Links are the only indicator of content usefulness

Even if that were true, it would be beside the point since most sites do very little outbound linking these days. (We've come a long way from the original vision of a "World Wide Web" with citations in the form of outbound links). It simply wouldn't be practical for Google to rely on PageRank as the heart of its ranking algorithm in 2023.

[superclown2]

As long as I can see sites with little useful content but masses of backlinks at the top of the SERPs I will believe the evidence I see, and not what I am told.

I would be interested to know what Gary thinks the top three really are though?