Goodbye Backlinks, Hello Social Interaction

[Justin Lewis]

Note: If you don't understand some of the terms in this, please "Google" it

I can't wait to see the death of the "backlink".

I understand a lot of marketers enjoy it, but personally I think it's the wrong approach to search engine optimization.

There are daily algorithmic changes everyday (averaged at 17 hours in 2010 I believe) and personally I feel it would be a joy to watch the search engines move away from the "backlink" and more towards social presence.

I know they are already doing that, especially with Google +1 feature in Google search results, Facebook likes in Bing results, and tons of other things that they are taking more into consideration.

But when the "backlink" dies, I will be ready. If anything, I wish it would happen sooner.

These are just my personal thoughts on backlinks.

P.S. Backlinks are VERY easy to create, which sucks, and they are very easy to leave without footprints. But social networks are more closed, they relate more to actual humans and they aren't as easy to automate, and even if they are they are much easier to detect when they are fake. Seeing as Google+ now forces you to use a real name, that's another huge factor and I am stoked about it.

P.P.S. What do you think about the deterioration of backlinks and integration of social interactions relating to search engine rankings?

[ainmohd]

Backlinks are votes as far as the SEs are concerned but who are making those votes? Many sites with large resources are buying (creating) those votes (backlinks).

I'm not sure about social interactions because I don't see many pages of social sites getting good serp. Possibly because those pages are behind passwords (inaccessible to search bots).

[yukon]

Your dreaming If you think backlinks will die.

[ainmohd]

Many seo gurus and pretenders are talking that backlinks will become irrelevant (SEs will die) and social sites will decide.

Their main arguments are that many backlinks are self-created and there are more trusts in posts/comments on social sites.

I love to get your views.

[4morereferrals]

What the hell???

Thats like 4 or 5 new threads all today on the death of backlinks and the advent of social media "fans and votes" [ no the bla-ck hat-ters havent already figured out how to manipulate that and the stupid unprotected social media sites - LOLz ]

Is this some exercise in Social Media Marketers master class ?

"Ok my little minions go forth and proclaim the gospel in Warrior Forum. I will review your threads and grade you tomorrow for your creativity!"

???????????????

[yukon]

No doubt, what's with all this +1 bologna today?

I smell a new WSO...

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by yukon

Your dreaming If you think backlinks will die.

Nah, I'm not saying they will die to an absolute death. I'm saying that I feel they will become way less important versus social interaction and seeing how social media is dominating the markets, it's going in my favor so far.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

What the hell???

Thats like 4 or 5 new threads all today on the death of backlinks and the advent of social media "fans and votes" [ no the bla-ck hat-ters havent already figured out how to manipulate that and the stupid unprotected social media sites - LOLz ]

Is this some exercise in Social Media Marketers master class ?

"Ok my little minions go forth and proclaim the gospel in Warrior Forum. I will review your threads and grade you tomorrow for your creativity!"

???????????????

Ha. I never even saw those threads.

I saw someone post a message earlier that mentioned Google+ in the title and it made me think of this because of how my thoughts have been going towards social media lately.

As my previous post, I'm not saying they are going to die as a whole, I am just saying they shouldn't be as useful.

Yes they are votes from other high authority websites, but social presence means a lot more and I believe that's where the search engines are headed. I have no intention of promoting some crap WSO and I don't personally promote anything on Warrior Forum, but this is a choice that I made on my own.

I plan to create a WSO in the future, but it's not targeted towards people of this same interest.

(I was also referring to another responder in that, so sorry if I mixed you guys up)

Anyhow, thanks for the criticism, these are just my personal opinions and if you have read my threads back a few weeks ago I have talked about this before and have felt the same way for quite some time.

I just personally think backlinks, smacklinks, be gone

[boxoun]

Social signals are just as easy to game. Just because you can't think of it doesn't mean its not as easy. Can't wait till Google is filled with fake profiles and we get " social signals are stupid" posts.

I agree social signals will be big but your reasoning is based on ignorance. Google doesn't want fb to succeed so they are stuck with one social signal..their own.

Another thing social signals aren't new. What do you think bookmarks are? Tumbler is huge but plays a small part in backlinks. Twitter has already been exploited etc etc

[David Ogden]

I believe that back links will be with us for a long time, however social marketing is having an impact on results and Google are testing author linking which ties in with Google plus, until I see conclusive results I will continue with my daily routine of building my own backlinks.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by boxoun

Social signals are just as easy to game. Just because you can't think of it doesn't mean its not as easy. Can't wait till Google is filled with fake profiles and we get " social signals are stupid" posts.

I agree social signals will be big but your reasoning is based on ignorance. Google doesn't want fb to succeed so they are stuck with one social signal..their own.

Another thing social signals aren't new. What do you think bookmarks are? Tumbler is huge but plays a small part in backlinks. Twitter has already been exploited etc etc

Actually it's not associated with ignorance at all. I build backlinks (traffic) to my site all the time, I post articles, participate in forums, and all that jazz everyday.

What I'm saying is I can see backlinks not counting towards the ultimate impact in the future and I hope it goes that route.

Yes you can fake accounts, but algorithms on social websites would be much easier to track that type of thing.

Also Google+ is considered "Google" now and is integrated into everything, hence why it will ultimately have a larger impact on the search engine in the future.

[mattlaclear]

Goodbye Backlinks, Hello Social Network Spam.

Goodbye Social Network Spam, Hello Backlinks

[lovboa]

The only answer to this is "We'll see..."

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Nah, I'm not saying they will die to an absolute death. I'm saying that I feel they will become way less important versus social interaction and seeing how social media is dominating the markets, it's going in my favor so far.

You are dreaming Justin . Nothing is going in your favor. Yes the engines are adding social factors to their algo but there is absolutely no indication that they are going to downgrade backlinks so that any SEO can say goodbye to them. All it is is an added user experience factor not a replacement for authority links.

People have just not thought this through (and yeah I think Yukon is right. I smell some WSOs in development.). This idea that your friends are going to lead you to the best sites is just full of holes.

A) How many of your friends are into everything that you are into?

When my friends want a computer built they come to me. they are clueless on the subject and I would HATE to see a search result for that subject come back based on their guidance. That goes for a whole ton of other stuff . None of my friends are chemists, carpenters, only one is an english professor and on and on there are things I will want to look up that my friends are not into and tons of stuff they are good at and want to look up that they would not need my social input into.

B) Popular signals are often plain wrong

The day that social signals take over from authority links is the day that everybody will be fed that there are 7.2 million people competing in SEO for the term "Blue fried Fingers". NO matter how many times we point out that that is wrong the social signals here keep mentioning search word count as a good indicator of competition. Just imagine the potential ramifications if WebMD gets beat out for the symptoms of a disease because of some medical urban myth. Plus if the whole premise of social factors being better were true than every popular WSO would be a great product

C) Social signals would be far more easier to game than backlinks.

People running around with this act like social factors will be so much better than getting backlinks. Why? They say because real people make the decisions but sorry the only thing a computer knows are inputs from mouse, keyboard and touch from different IP addresses. All of which can be simulated, replicated and gamed by a single programmer using proxies.

D) Social signals will be little different from present links.

People will still give CNN more credibility, Apple will still get more mentions. No the physical links won't be there but the same basic system of references equaling credibility and authority will still rule. It will just move to another phase and with no way possible to put a nofollow on someones opinions it will again be far more easily gamed.

We've seen what a purely social ranking system gives us. It s called Digg and according to them this was the top story in the last 24 hours

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1...eading-trailer

[robp12]

Organic back-links are an excellent thing that are created through trust and authority. There really is no substitute for them, especially as a smaller site when a larger site links to you out of respect for your content. Not only does it provide traffic, but also helps with your PR.

The back-links that should die are the BS spam posts and comments that simply build links to build PR rank and get search engine clicks. Although with Google Panda and the evolving trend in SEO, I too, hope these crappy back-links die out.

[TheFBGuy]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Note: If you don't understand some of the terms in this, please "Google" it

I can't wait to see the death of the "backlink".

I understand a lot of marketers enjoy it, but personally I think it's the wrong approach to search engine optimization.

There are daily algorithmic changes everyday (averaged at 17 hours in 2010 I believe) and personally I feel it would be a joy to watch the search engines move away from the "backlink" and more towards social presence.

I know they are already doing that, especially with Google +1 feature in Google search results, Facebook likes in Bing results, and tons of other things that they are taking more into consideration.

But when the "backlink" dies, I will be ready. If anything, I wish it would happen sooner.

These are just my personal thoughts on backlinks.

P.S. Backlinks are VERY easy to create, which sucks, and they are very easy to leave without footprints. But social networks are more closed, they relate more to actual humans and they aren't as easy to automate, and even if they are they are much easier to detect when they are fake. Seeing as Google+ now forces you to use a real name, that's another huge factor and I am stoked about it.

P.P.S. What do you think about the deterioration of backlinks and integration of social interactions relating to search engine rankings?

Lol, death to backlinks? They may as well shut down the World Wide Web.

You will be waiting for a very long time...

[terrapurus]

2008 called ...

[Oranges]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!
One more this will happen, that will happen thread!
I'm bored of it dammit!

[WakondaMarketing]

Search engines like Google and Yahoo must die first before backlinks vanish into thin air. Social interaction is a factor in promoting a website but no matter how we assess things, the search engines and its backlinks will always be the boss.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

The reality is not everyone is interested in Social Interaction. In fact I know a lot of people who use the Internet and could careless about Social Sites. They use the interent only as a search tool to get information they want.

With Facebook taking a Big Brother approach and the lemmings migrating to Google +, how much longer will the trend for Social Interaction continue to climb?

Right up to the point that there is a BIG BROTHER incident that goes public and makes people rethink why they are feeding the machine all that personal information.

[Talen]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Nah, I'm not saying they will die to an absolute death. I'm saying that I feel they will become way less important versus social interaction and seeing how social media is dominating the markets, it's going in my favor so far.

What social interaction? The majority of social sites actually suck. Twitter and facebook are spamfests.

I actually believe social sites will become less relevant over time as more and more webmasters use them to spam content across the void.

[melltonroper]

I think the connivance of the two will be good...

[dburk]

Hi Justin,

I think you have it all wrong. Social media is just another vector for promoting targeted traffic to your website, so that you can gain backlinks, which in turn, help your rankings.

If anything, social interaction is increasing the importance of backlinks. Particularly those gained through effective social media optimization. This isn't a new trend, it is a significant channel of SEO and has been for at least 7 years.

Welcome to the party! (newbie! )

[nadavs]

Backlinks aren't going anywhere. Search engines today have the ability to distinguish between a link that appears in thousands of identical articles over weird blogs and a link on the CNN site or a personal blog. Gaming this system for long periods is very hard if not impossible.

Social interactions can be forged easily. Right now I can get 1,000 new friends or fans for my page, and some may even be real humans who will interact with me for money. I doubt a search engine will be able to tell if I'm talking to a friend or someone I paid to get my site #1.

I'm going to focus on backlinks for my current SEO efforts. They're harder to manipulate with today's algorithms and they make math much easier for the search engines.

nadavs

[John Hocking]

Backlinks will not die because of social interaction.

If your content is good and you ad viral aspects for the social web, you will get lots of traffic and links to your site.

Google will pick up on those links and count them as backlinks to your site.
What you have done is stop worrying about creating links to your site and focus on creating and sharing great content.

[packerfan]

Why don't people understand that there are different types of content? Things like news, farting dogs, funny cat videos, and kids doing cute stuff are great for social networks, along with 1000s of other things, some of which are really profitable.

But I'd never go to facebook to find general information, and I'd never share a page that answers the question "how do I stop myself from crapping in my pants".

So yes, social is great, but SEs are still going to have to figure out who does the best job of telling me how to stop crapping my pants when I want to know.

[Nero Arcnumé]

Whatever happens in the future, I hope social media won't become the dominant force. Sup lolcats, x factor/talent shows and internet memes owning the SERPs! (Obviously exaggerating but I don't think social interaction has all the information needed to provide relevant results globally)

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by packerfan

Why don't people understand that there are different types of content? Things like news, farting dogs, funny cat videos, and kids doing cute stuff are great for social networks, along with 1000s of other things, some of which are really profitable.

But I'd never go to facebook to find general information, and I'd never share a page that answers the question "how do I stop myself from crapping in my pants".

So yes, social is great, but SEs are still going to have to figure out who does the best job of telling me how to stop crapping my pants when I want to know.

I agree on that level.

But I'm not pertaining to optimization in this aspect. I think on page optimization and content on the websites will pervail, but I feel the "backlink" era will end. I'm not saying all backlinks are worthless, I just feel that the dominance of backlinks will be less valuable in the future and social presence, optimization, and up to date information will be more rational.

[ChartTraderZ]

What's the difference between backlink and someone posting in his Facebook wall a link?

It's the same ... just that the first one is relatively hard to fake compared to a wall posting.

Honestly this whole "social" bubble seems like a temporary phase to me. Too much bull****, on twitter, on facebook, many bots filling those networks in **** (more on Twitter than Facebook). You can't really use that to give GOOD results

[NETDAWG]

There's truth to what you're saying, but as long as it isn't broken, nothing needs to be drastically changed. Using the backlinks predominantly - Google still produces great organic results in my mind, I'm able to find what I need usually.

Adding the social media aspect will help improve results, but backlinks are still a legitimate form of endorsement. People always find a way to work the system.

"Goodbye Backlinks" was a bit overbearing, but hey if you're trying to stir some good conversation - mission accomplished! Cheers.

[monere]

Originally Posted by David Ogden

I believe that back links will be with us for a long time, however social marketing is having an impact on results and Google are testing author linking which ties in with Google plus, until I see conclusive results I will continue with my daily routine of building my own backlinks.

I so agree with you, especially with the "... until I see conclusive results I will continue with my daily routine of building my own backlinks" part of it

[jordyhill]

Just thought I'd throw this into the ring. I added the "Tweet Like" plugin for Wordpress to 3 of my sites and they all climbed Google a couple of spots, not much but a bit.

Gotta keep the links comin' though!

[Justin Lewis]

I'm testing a current project which I have not built a single backlink directly to.

I can't say that Facebook likes have helped as I don't know the exact algorithmic effects, but in the last hour, that page has received over 400 likes (all legitimate) around 20 comments (all legitimate) and the overall website jumped from page 4 to page 1 in that time.

Again, I can't say that this was the reason as I personally do not know. But I put no effort into building backlinks (the dirty kind) at all.

I just don't see the purpose as it's wasteful space and it's trying to cheat the search engines. You can tell me I'm incorrect, but I'm not.

If you are building backlinks to your website non-organically, that's somewhat considered cheating, especially if you are doing it on the masses.

When I build backlinks, it's done via interacting with people or providing useful information.

I don't use services that build mass amounts backlinks automatically as I have seen the way they work and how they are destroying the internet. I just don't seem them as logical.

Yet again, these are my opinions and I have a right to them, but I can tell you, I have certainly done much better now that I focus primarily on traffic.

If the search engines say buh-bye, I'll be fine.

Edit: While writing this post on Warrior Forum to show you my statistics, the same page now has over 460 Facebook likes.

[mkl3377]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Backlinks are VERY easy to create, which sucks, and they are very easy to leave without footprints. But social networks are more closed, they relate more to actual humans and they aren't as easy to automate, and even if they are they are much easier to detect when they are fake. Seeing as Google+ now forces you to use a real name, that's another huge factor and I am stoked about it.

Backlinks wont die it will just take on a different form in the mix with Social interaction. FB Likes and Google + are in a sense backlinks. You get added to the profiles of the people that Liked and + your stie.

And I disagree that backlinks are easy. Cheap almost irrelevant backlinks are easy. There are high quality backlinks that are very much difficult to get. Also, social networks are just as easy to game as a traditional backlink. Just browse through the social marketing section of Fiverr. Facebook likes, google plus are just $5 away and you dont have to write meaningful content and interact with people. It's only a matter of time when someone comes out with a software that automates this.(there's probably some blackhat marketers already doing this).

Facebook advertises that they have like 800mil users/accounts. to put that number into better perspecitve. I have to ask:

How many of those users have more than one user account? When I was into FB games I probably had like 10 diff accts so I can send my self stuff to advance faster in a game.

How many of those users are under 14 and lieing about their age to get an account? these kids will click and do just about anything if you tell them to cause it's fun to them. I know cuz I have one of them.

How many people have signed up and left acct dormant?my other 9 acct that i've not used since I gave up FB games.

So just how many REAL users are left on FB?

so for google to give up backlinks and rely on social interactions for ranking. I dont think it's ever gonna happen. Social Interaction will certainly have it's turn in the spotlight but in the end it will just get added into the ranking algo like all the other backlinking methods.

[MaverickUK]

Sorry this is ridiculous. This is your second thread on the death of backlinks and the promotion of social media and social marketing. You stick with your tactics and allow the rest of us backlinks to grow our businesses exponentially in much shorter time.

[Fallen_Angel]

Justin, I agree and disagree.
I also have positioned my websites to not need google for traffic. I have done this by interacting with people on social networks interested in my keywords. Google traffic is still king and I am glad when I have top rankings.
I also agree that google has downgraded value of certain types of backlinks. Article marketing will work because contextual links have been given more importance. Google changes all the time and how they rank today may change tomorrow. That is why most people do an assortment of links back to their websites. Google has implemented some of ranking algo's that the popular russian search engine uses Yandex. It may stay but it may also go.
Do not put your eggs in one basket. Yes building a strong social following is good for targeted traffic. You should still develop a backlink strategy.

[rowanman28]

Regarding back links, if you don't have back links from Facebook and Twitter, Google thinks you are not a site worthy of sharing. There are many sites like Favit, Social Whale, TweetMeMe, and more that make back links to your site when you show up a lot on Facebook and Twitter. Social media is of vital importance in SEO, and personally, that's where I get most of my traffic.

[Mike Grant]

You're about 6 months too late.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by Mike Grant

You're about 6 months too late.

I've been on the track for a long time bro haha. I've seen how amazing it has helped me in my own business and even have a Facebook page with over 45,000 likes now which is helping me a lot via case studies and strategies.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by MaverickUK

Sorry this is ridiculous. This is your second thread on the death of backlinks and the promotion of social media and social marketing. You stick with your tactics and allow the rest of us backlinks to grow our businesses exponentially in much shorter time.

Actually, if you think about it. I'm not totally against backlinks as a whole as I have stated before. I just think people need to rethink their strategies and stop focusing on spamming the internet with useless junk that isn't even seen by real people.

Everyones interested in pleasing the search engines.. well why not please the visitors? You'll end up getting much further in many different ways.

I posted something earlier today that now has upwards of 1,000 Facebook likes (all legitimate from real people just sharing the info). Backlinks are then created moreso organically where others will share the post on their blogs, with their friends, and where ever else they feel comfortable sharing the information.

So, I don't feel this is "ridiculous" as it's just another way of thinking.

You don't have to read these posts, nor do you have to bash someone for their theories Have a good day sir.