Have Backlinks Died in SEO Industry?

Backlinks (also known as Inbound Links) used to the most influential traffic getters a couple of years ago. With the drastic changes after Google updates, they seem to have lost their charm. But, is it wise to say that the backlinks have entirely eliminated from the game of SEO? Well, no. According to SEO experts around the globe Backlink is still in the game but, is playing as a substitute. To be fair, let us just say that tradition backlinking is long gone but smart backlinking can still provide you the link juice you are seeking.

Before moving forwards with the subjective discussion of the backlinks, let me explain one common technical matter which directly impacts the weight of the backlink. Weight of a link depends upon how natural it looks. If you get a backlink from a strong authority domain then it will be having much more weightage than a backlink from your neighbor’s. How google knows about it? It assesses links from the same IP C-block. An IP address compromises of 4 octets : XYZ.XYZ.XYZ.XYZ. These octets are called A-block, B-block and, C-block respectively. If the domain linking back to your site has same blocks then they will be carrying much less weight as they are considered as unnatural links.

Links within the same domain is also one of the ranking factors which Google considers nowadays. Every page of your website should be published openly (as much as possible) and the navigation links should be provided wherever necessary. This helps in building an ongoing loop of traffic flow within the domain and the increases the thematic strength (with the help of anchor link text) of the webpage.

Geographical profile of a link is new but a killer move by google. If you are a dentist and you have a website where you target local customers having dental issues then it is a better move to build your backlinks locally. Having a local business with foreign backlinks will increase your pain subsequently. This is because the geographical profile of the website does not match with the geographical profile of the link and this makes it look artificial or forced backlink.

SEO for many is just generating irrelevant back links which used to work once but not now. SEO friendly back-links are there in the dark, ready to be used but often neglected. To make a backlink SEO friendly, one must spend some quality time gaining knowledge of the business and the customers’ needs. Since the market is consumer centric, even the Anchor text of a link has to be properly optimized.

Search Engine Optimization has evolved from a service providing approach to value providing approach. Providing real values to the customers is not unmanageable as long as you have the correct pool of data in your disposal. Collecting data over the net has become elementary with the help of professional analytical tools. These webmasters tools provide real time information on traffic and keyword which in turn, helps in marketing and remarketing the products.

Coming back to the backlinks, SEO world has witnessed a drastic drop in the influence of “For-The-Sake-of-it” backlinks and a tremendous raise in influential and relevant inbound links. So, it should not hurt to conclude that the algorithms are now supporting relevant backlinks and penalizing non-relevant backlinks.