Understanding Google's Shifting Perspective on Link Importance

Importance of Links for Ranking

Google's Gary Illyes revealed at a recent search marketing conference that Google places less emphasis on the number of links a website has. This adds to the mounting evidence that publishers should prioritize other factors in their SEO strategy. Gary confirmed his statement with a tweet, reinforcing the idea that links are not the sole determining factor for ranking.

In the late 1990s, it was found that links were a valuable signal for search engines to determine the authority of a website. Soon after, Google realized that anchor text could also provide semantic signals about the content of a webpage.

One of the most significant research papers from this time was "Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment" by Jon M. Kleinberg, published around 1998. The main finding of this paper was that with the increasing number of web pages, there was no clear way to filter search results for quality and rank them based on relevance.

The author of the research paper discovered that links could be used as an objective filter for authoritativeness.

Kleinberg wrote:

In order to effectively search under these conditions, it is important to be able to filter out a small group of the most authoritative or definitive pages from a large collection of relevant pages.

This research paper on links is highly influential as it sparked further research on utilizing links not just as a measure of authority, but also as a subjective measure of relevance.

Objective refers to something factual, while subjective is more like an opinion. The founders of Google found a way to use subjective opinions from the Internet as a measure of relevance for search result rankings.

In their research paper titled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" (you can find the link at the end of this article), Larry Page and Sergey Brin revealed that anchor text could be utilized to gauge the subjective opinion of relevance from real people. Essentially, they were tapping into the collective opinions of millions of websites through the link connections between web pages.

Gary Illyes' Thoughts on Links in 2024

During a search conference in Bulgaria, Gary Illyes from Google mentioned that Google no longer places as much emphasis on the quantity of links, indicating that links have become less significant in the search engine's algorithms.

Patrick Stox tweeted about what he heard at the search conference:

” ‘We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.’ @methode #serpconf2024″

Google’s Gary Illyes tweeted a confirmation of that statement:

“I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that”

The Importance of Links

Links used to play a significant role in Google's ranking algorithm. Initially, anchor text was not spammy and served the purpose of directing traffic from one website to another.

By 2004 or 2005, Google started using statistical analysis to identify manipulated links. Around the same time, in 2004, "powered-by" links in website footers no longer passed anchor text value. By 2006, links near the word "advertising" lost their link value, directories' links stopped passing ranking value, and in 2012, Google introduced the Penguin algorithm, which significantly impacted the rankings of many websites, particularly those using guest posting.

The link signal deteriorated over time, leading Google to make the decision in 2019 to selectively use nofollow links for ranking purposes. Gary Illyes from Google confirmed that this change to nofollow links was implemented due to the issues with the link signal.

Google Confirms Links Are Less Important

Google's Gary Illyes revealed at PubCon Austin in 2023 that links were not among the top 3 ranking factors. Following this, in March 2024 during the Core Algorithm Update, Google revised their spam policies to emphasize that links are not as crucial for ranking.

Google March 2024 Core Update: 4 Changes To Link Signal

The documentation previously said:

“Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”

The update to the documentation that mentioned links was updated to remove the word important.

Links are not just listed as just another factor:

Google considers links when assessing the relevance of web pages. In early April, Google's John Mueller suggested that there are more beneficial SEO strategies to focus on besides links.

Mueller pointed out that nowadays, websites should prioritize other aspects over links. He emphasized that spending too much time on acquiring links could be counterproductive and may not necessarily improve the overall quality of your website.

Finally, Gary Illyes explicitly said that Google needs very few links to rank webpages and confirmed it.

I shouldn't have said that… I definitely shouldn't have said that

— Gary 鯨理／경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024

Why Google Doesn’t Need Links

Google's reliance on links has decreased due to the advanced AI and natural language processing in its algorithms. This shows Google's confidence in its algorithm.

When Google introduced the nofollow attribute, many link builders continued to sell comment spam links, claiming they still worked. However, as someone who has been involved in link building since the early days of modern SEO, I can confidently say that links have not been a significant ranking factor for several years now. This is why I stopped focusing on link building about five or six years ago.

Read the research papers

Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment – Jon M. Kleinberg (PDF)

The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

Featured Image by Shutterstock/RYO Alexandre

Editor's P/S:

The article reveals that Google's reliance on links for ranking has diminished significantly in recent years. While links were once a crucial factor, Google's advanced AI algorithms and natural language processing capabilities have enabled it to assess the relevance of web pages more effectively, reducing the need for extensive link building.

This shift highlights Google's growing confidence in its ability to determine the authority and relevance of websites based on factors beyond the quantity of incoming links. It also suggests that publishers should focus on creating high-quality content and optimizing their websites for user experience rather than pursuing aggressive link-building strategies.