Will backlinks lose their importance in the near future? Matt Answers

himanuzo

10 years ago

Hmmm....

Backlinks are still needed for SEO at Google....

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Synnuh

10 years ago

Short answer: no

Long answer: hmm, still no

Until someone can break the protocol used to connect web pages to each other, links will ALWAYS be used.

Relevance between pages and sites is going to become more and more strict, along with site age and so called "authority", but LINKS aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Google's "author score" is a good example of this. Rankings based on the author / publisher instead of the domain's authority.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Funny how he suggest Google is working on Star Trek type language comprehension. What he's actually talking about is Googlebot scraping structured text data from Wikipedia & freebase.com.

Welcome to 2010 (Knowledge Graph).

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2 replies

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RandySwanston

10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Funny how he suggest Google is working on Star Trek type language comprehension. What he's actually talking about is Googlebot scraping structured text data from Wikipedia & freebase.com.

Welcome to 2010 (Knowledge Graph).

But his answers are most of the time skeptical...

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Funny how he suggest Google is working on Star Trek type language comprehension. What he's actually talking about is Googlebot scraping structured text data from Wikipedia & freebase.com.

Welcome to 2010 (Knowledge Graph).

It's not that crazy. If you have been paying attention to Google's acquisitions and patents, they have been working towards that goal for quite awhile now.

How close they are to it, is a different discussion.

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1 reply

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

It's not that crazy. If you have been paying attention to Google's acquisitions and patents, they have been working towards that goal for quite awhile now.

How close they are to it, is a different discussion.

Those are all physical/proximity sensors (self driving cars, bots, drones). I guess that's what your talking about.

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MikeFriedman 10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Those are all physical/proximity sensors (self driving cars, bots, drones). I guess that's what your talking about.

What? No. I'm talking about the conversational search thing. That is something they have been working towards for about a decade.
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- yukon Banned 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman
  
  What? No. I'm talking about the conversational search thing. That is something they have been working towards for about a decade.
  
  I'm sure their idea of conversational search would be more along the lines of Youtube video transcripts, sort of like converting audio to plain text then doing the usual search. Google has search by voice, I've never used it but I see the option. Even much smaller businesses have had that technology (converting audio to text) for a few years (ex: Dragon Naturally Speaking). Google is looking at source code on webpages, they're not comprehending what's on the page like a human does.
  
  I doubt Google is going full blown AI on us anytime soon. The day that happens we'll have bigger things to worry about besides SEO or search engines.
  
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  1 reply
  
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  paulgl 10 years ago
  
  So Matt Cutts says backlinks and their importance will be around for
  many years to come....and people take that to mean...what?
  
  Google has been tweaking the importance of backlinks for years. But
  people forget the rest of the line...
  
  Backlinks that are spammed, idiotic, or just don't make sense in various
  ways are losing their importance.
  
  Google's algorithm has always tweaked that. What's more important,
  one link from NYT, or 1,000 on some Joe Blow and his army's blogs?
  
  Does that mean backlinks lose their importance? Of course not. But
  some SEO guru in a cave will broadcast that it means backlinks are
  losing their importance. Hardly.
  
  Google keeps trying to convince webmasters to stop spamming and
  creating useless links. That's a different than saying backlinks won't
  count.
  
  Paul
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.
  
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AskAnAffiliate

10 years ago

I think this only depends on if the sites your linking from lose there importance or disappear. This is why backlinking is so effective because its truly a pyramid. If you have links coming from multiple sites and they keep ranking well building importance, than your links will remain active and strong.

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CutPasteProfits

10 years ago

What I hate about Matt Cutts is that he still leaves a lot of questions unanswered in his videos. He's very vague whereas I would expect a Google employee to be much more articulate and explain things better. I saw some of his other videos on guest posting, disavowing links, etc and can't take him seriously.

Long story short - just do what works, without spamming

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by CutPasteProfits

What I hate about Matt Cutts is that he still leaves a lot of questions unanswered in his videos. He's very vague whereas I would expect a Google employee to be much more articulate and explain things better. I saw some of his other videos on guest posting, disavowing links, etc and can't take him seriously.

He is vague on purpose. You don't expect him to give away algorithm secrets, do you?

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strategic seo services

10 years ago

Quality backlinks will not lose their importance. A backlink is a high quality one when it meets the first and some/all of the subsequent characteristics:
Dofollow
On a Page with a high PR
Contextual (If the backlink is surrounded by text related to the targeted keyword used as anchor text)
Relevant (if the backlink is on a site that is related to your site's niche)
On a page with low OBL (Out Bound Links)

On the other hand, nofollow links on spammy blogs (for example) will not help (and can damage) your rankings.

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Advertising

10 years ago

Originally Posted by strategic seo services

Quality backlinks will not lose their importance. A backlink is a high quality one when it meets the first and some/all of the subsequent characteristics:
Dofollow
On a Page with a high PR
Contextual (If the backlink is surrounded by text related to the targeted keyword used as anchor text)
Relevant (if the backlink is on a site that is related to your site's niche)
On a page with low OBL (Out Bound Links)

On the other hand, nofollow links on spammy blogs (for example) will not help (and can damage) your rankings.

How can nofollow links hurt you? I have never heard this.

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Kevin Maguire

10 years ago

Originally Posted by strategic seo services

A backlink is a high quality one when it meets the first and some/all of the subsequent characteristics:

Dofollow
On a Page with a high PR
Contextual (If the backlink is surrounded by text related to the targeted Keyword used as anchor text)
Relevant (if the backlink is on a site that is related to your site's niche)
On a page with low OBL (Out Bound Links)

On the other hand, nofollow links on spammy blogs (for example) will not help (and can damage) your rankings.

Going by your own standards of what equates to a good link, I guess that means you're screwed.

If you're taking any orders, mine is a double cheese with large fries and a coke please.

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1 reply

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nettiapina 10 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire

If you're taking any orders, mine is a double cheese with large fries and a coke please.

Damn, now I want a cheeseburger too. With Link Spam light, please!
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Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

What's your excuse?
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- RandySwanston 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by nettiapina
  
  Damn, now I want a cheeseburger too. With Link Spam light, please!
  
  lolzzzzzzzzzzzz
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
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DizenSounds

10 years ago

I will worry about what Mr Cutts has to say when it's relevant, worrying about something in the future like this isn't worth it.

For now links work and that's whats the most important thing. Let's focus on now and let Mr Cutts keep making pointless videos.

Thanks

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st0nec0ld

10 years ago

Can't watch the video doesn't seem to work on my end..
Anyway, I don't think backlinks will lose its importance.
No follow and Follow are options we have now so I don't think it is necessary for them to focus on decreasing the importance of backlinks.

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Arshid

10 years ago

I think, google checking spammed urls and sandboxing ...

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Will backlinks lose their importance in the near future? Matt Answers

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