Why Links Are All About Relevancy, and Are Still Important to SEO
Posted August 25, 2016
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Ever since Google rolled out its Penguin update in 2012, some Search Engine Optimization specialists have downplayed how it is to obtain links for high search engine ranking.
According to some, content is not only king, it’s everything. Or Google now only cares about user engagement and social media signals. Or it only cares about RankBrain, its Artificial Intelligence ranking tool.
Links are Still a Top Ranking Factor
However, links are absolutely still one of the two most important ranking factors (content is the other one). Google started out as a thesis on using links to evaluate the relevant importance of websites. They adapt to the Internet as it changes, but not to the point of abandoning the central insight they founded the company on. Earlier this year, Andrey Lipattsev, a Google Search Quality Senior Strategist, confirmed that content and links are the two most important ranking factors.
Google uses Penguin to fight link spam, not to punish or ignore sites with good links. Links are now all about relevancy.
New Study from Stone Temple Consulting
Danny Goodwin makes this clear in a recent article reporting on a new Stone Temple Consulting research report by Eric Enge.
Enge decided to run a study of the ranking importance of links using a different statistical tool than used by previous studies carried out by Moz and Searchmetrics. Those studies found high correlations between the number of external links and high search engine rankings, but not significantly higher correlations than for other major factors. Enge wondered why, if links were the top ranking factor (taking content as a given because it defines what the page is about), why weren’t the correlations even higher?
Those studies used only commercial search terms. And they evaluated each SERP individually, then took the mean of the results.
Enge used a statistical tool called the Quadratic Mean to analyze the final results. Also, he used different types of search terms: commercial, long tail commercial and informational keywords.
His results confirmed that numbers of links are still the most search engine ranking factor.
So why do some SEOs still ignore or deprecate the value of links?
SEOs Spent a Lot of Time and Effort Gaming Links
Some of them still do, as everyone with a blog that accepts comments can attest to. Blackhatters still use software to visit blogs and insert comments with links, no matter how irrelevant and spammy. Akismet and other programs or plugins catch most of that activity, but sometimes blog owners must still manually delete spam.
In the past, SEOs have used site directories, article sites, press release collections and many other ways to obtain links. They’ve searched out ways to post links on edu, mil and gov sites. They’ve become Wikipedia editors. They’ve set up extensive Private Blog Networks or PBNs.
From the Beginning, Google Assumed Web Links were Given to Quality, Relevant Content
Brin and Page got the idea of using links from the practice of scientific articles citing prior articles relevant to their experiment. The more times scientists cite an article, the more important it is. And when biologists write up the results of their latest study for publication, they don’t cite articles in physics journals. They cite only articles relevant to their study.
However, unlike science journals, Google must deal with hordes of marketers actively seeking to manipulate the SERPs for their economic benefit.
Therefore, webmasters and businesses must concentrate on building relevant, and only relevant, links to their site
