Lately there’s been a lot of speculation in the SEO community as to whether or not Google will continue to use back-links to rank websites and what metrics may soon replace links as a primary ranking factor. In Google’s latest webmaster video (below) Matt Cutts discusses how Google will value links going forward and how much of a role they will play in search engine rankings.
See Leah’s question below:
Google changed the search engine market in the ’90s by evaluating a website’s back-links instead of just the content … Updates like Panda and Penguin show a shift in importance towards content. Will back-links lose their importance? Google changed the search engine market in the ’90s by evaluating a website’s back-links instead of just the content, like others did. Updates like Panda and Penguin show a shift in importance towards content. Will back-links lose their importance?
Matt responded by saying that links “have many years left in them” and implied that Google will continue to use back-links as a core ranking signal, at least for the foreseeable future. But eventually the value of back-links will be dialed down a bit, if not removed from the algorithm altogether. “For the most part people care about the quality of the content on a particular landing page,” shares Cutts.
As semantic and conversational search continue to evolve, Google is starting to get better at understanding actual language. Which means their algorithms can rely less on back-link analysis when vetting pages for search results.
Watch Matt Cutts’ full response below:
