Do Backlinks Still Matter in SEO?

Google’s Gary Illyes claims the search giant has devalued backlinks.

Yikes! 

But what does that mean exactly? And do you need to update your off-page SEO strategy to adapt to this change?

First, let’s start with a big caveat: 

👉 Google can say they’ve “devalued” links, but the number of SERPs for meaningfully popular queries where links aren’t a significant factor in page-one competitiveness is a fraction of a percent.

That means: Take these kinds of statements with a large grain of salt. 

Backlinks still play an important role in showcasing authority and credibility and remain critical for ranking for competitive keywords.

So what has changed? 

The Evolution of Backlinks

Back in the early days of SEO, links played an outsized role in ranking well. Some people gamed the system by building blog networks for the sole purpose of creating links to their sites and filled up comments sections with spammy links.

Google wisened up and reduced the impacts of those types of backlinks. They now do their best to ignore bad links. Plus, they’ve beefed up their algorithm with dozens if not hundreds of additional ranking factors, which have lessened the relative value of any one ranking factor (like backlinks).

Despite this, backlinks remain one of the best ways to highlight authority and trustworthiness. High-quality backlinks continue to play an impactful role in increasing page visibility and driving more organic traffic. 

💡 And that’s what we need to focus on:

Not someone at Google saying they’re supposedly paying less attention to backlinks but ensuring that your off-page SEO strategy includes building high-quality backlinks.

What Makes Backlinks High-Quality?

High-quality backlinks share three primary characteristics:

• They’re natural.
• They’re reputable.
• They’re relevant.

Let’s dig into the specifics so you can begin ramping up your backlink portfolio and establishing your website’s authority.

🌱 Natural: Ensuring that the link text occurs naturally within the page's context will communicate to Google that your backlink has been earned, not purchased. Ideally, you’ll want your backlink to appear on a page with more than 500 words of content and placed into the body of the article. Avoid getting backlinks from websites that haphazardly administer hundreds of links to other websites, like link farms or spammy directories.

🏆 Reputable: The referring domain — AKA the website in which the backlink appears — should be reputable. While credibility can be hard to measure, we know Google prioritizes sites that are popular for users searching similar topics. This means that if multiple well-known sites link to the same page, it signals that the content is trusted and credible.

🔑 Relevant: The linking source should demonstrate some knowledge or expertise about the topic to accurately vouch for you. It’s important to note that the individual page relevance matters more than the website as a whole. 

Tl;dr: High-quality backlinks come from distinct referring domains that are related to your industry. To acquire them, we recommend creating link-worthy content, submitting valuable content to reputable, industry-relevant sites, and building partnerships with other businesses.

Should You Disavow Toxic Links?

All of this talk about high-quality backlinks begs the question, what should you do if you discover an inbound link from a low-quality, spammy site?

Good news. In many cases, Google automatically ignores toxic backlinks, particularly from spammy domains. However, they don’t catch them 100% of the time, and toxic links can hurt your SEO if they go unchecked.

If you don’t trust Google to do it alone, you can disavow them yourself. Here’s how:

• Know where toxic links come from. Avoid paid link schemes, links that lack relevance, links from low-quality sites, private blog network links, excessive keyword-rich anchor text links, spun content links, and low-quality directory links.

• Use Semrush’s “Toxic Score” to audit a website’s toxicity and the damage it might do to your backlink profile.
• Understand that link-building is not a black-and-white discussion. Yes, some links are high-quality, while others are obviously toxic, but there is generally a lot of gray space in between.

Get tips for creating and maintaining an effective link-building strategy with our free ebook.