Do you know the truth about backlinks, their relevance, and the real relationship they have with SEO positioning?
You may have heard that if you want to have a successful website, you have to have a group of backlinks to your website so that it has a greater chance of appearing in search results and ranking higher.
Backlinks, also known as inbound links or incoming links, are links to a website from other websites. When a website links to another website, it is considered a vote of confidence in the content.
Backlinks are related to the relevance and authority of the website. For example, if an authoritative and relevant website links to another website, search engines may interpret this as a signal that the linked website is also relevant and trustworthy. That's why backlinks are said to be related to the SEO positioning of websites.
It is important to note that Google constantly makes changes to its algorithm, which can have a significant impact on the positioning of websites in search results. Bearing this in mind, do backlinks still serve a purpose?
In this article, our experts, Blas Giffuni and Camilo Ramírez, tell us the truth about backlinks. Keep reading!
Backlinks are as old as SEO
It all goes back to the beginning of Google, where backlinks were considered relevant in SEO positioning. The algorithm, 20 years ago, determined rankings based on the number of incoming links to a website from others. Basically, those with the highest number of backlinks gained more visibility.
At that time, having a website and having a link within it was very important because it was very likely that link would serve users. Experts said that having a link to a website meant a vote. Hence concepts like "Link Juice" and PageRank emerged.
PageRank is an algorithm developed by Larry Page, one of Google's creators. It is used to look at the entire internal architecture of a website and how they interrelate and allows measuring the authority of the website.
Although in the past backlinks were considered fundamental in SEO positioning, Google has updated its algorithm, and other elements such as content and presence on social networks have become more important. Now, could these concepts that some still talk about be relevant today?
Everything related to "Link Juice" is outdated. "Link Juice" no longer influences the algorithm as much as before because Google is now capable of reading all the content of a page and recognizing all its elements, including links, videos, images, text, PDFs, etc.
In other words, the counting of links has ceased to be so important for the algorithm, and other concepts have become more important, such as content, images, positioning in networks, etc.
Is it possible to reach the first position with backlinks?
When it is said that the only way to reach the first position is by having the highest possible number of links, it is not entirely true. Positioning a page in the search engine without having any links is possible. For this, it is essential to have a website with very good and quality content.
A link actually serves to be discovered. If, for example, you have a poorly constructed website, without a sitemap, that Google does not recognize, but for some reason you earn a link from another website to your website, then Google would already have the possibility to know that your page exists, but to be honest, the chance of that happening is very slim.
That's why the best advice, if you want to position your website in the top search results, is to create very attractive content that generates traffic and allows Google to recognize the site. Additionally, it is important to follow SEO best practices and stay updated on changes in Google's algorithm, so it will not be necessary to implement backlinks for your website.
Do all backlinks serve a purpose?
No, and it is important to note that not all backlinks are equal: some are more valuable than others, depending on the authority and relevance of the linking page.
Backlinks are important, and they can be helpful when the links are related to each other on the same topic or complement each other on a subject. For example, if we have a website that deals with cooking recipes and the website links to another cooking website, this can help increase the relevance of the website for keywords related to cooking. Therefore, it is important to focus on obtaining quality backlinks rather than simply accumulating a large number of links.
Certainly, when it comes to links, many people associate them with SEO, for organic traffic, but it must be understood that backlinks are used for marketing. For example, for brand positioning because they help discover the brand and the website. But this does not imply that there is a direct relationship between a link and SEO positioning.
Does it make sense to talk about a backlink strategy?
It makes sense to talk about a backlink strategy, but keep in mind that when you are invited to write somewhere, theoretically the blog should have a "nofollow" for the link to your page. If you pay for an article, it must necessarily have a "nofollow" because the article was paid for.
It is worth talking about a backlink strategy when we are clear about what we want to communicate, the media we want to know and take our content. Then, once they take our content, we can use it within our own strategy.
In other words, it is not about planning a strategy to get 10,000 links in a year because not all links are good, and there will be links that will not help at all. There are people who spend money and buy links or fill their website with links believing that they will improve their SEO positioning. Such strategies make no sense.
If you are going to implement a backlink strategy, be clear about your content, and prefer to search for quality links related to the content you are generating.
Is it possible to buy backlinks?
It is said that Google prohibits the sale of links but it is not that it is prohibited, simply it has to be stated that it is a purchased backlink and it must have a "nofollow".
In this sense, it is important to be careful with this type of practices, besides that many times when links are bought, it may be that they are buying garbage links.
Speaking a little about the topic of "nofollow" and "follow," is it irrelevant today?
It's not that it's irrelevant. Google knows the internet very well, all the websites that are indexed. However, what Google does not know is what they do not let it know, that is, the websites that are blocked or those that ask it not to index.
So, what does "nofollow" really mean? Previously, it referred to "this link is good but I don't give it my vote." At that time, Google's guidelines were quite broad to be "nofollow". For example, if you had user-generated content, you put a "nofollow" on it, or if it was affiliated, you also put a "nofollow."
Subsequently, Google left the "nofollow" for articles that are paid, for sections that you do not want the search engine to go to, like a link to a shopping cart or something similar. And in addition to that, it generated two more alternatives, an affiliate and a UGC so that Google could understand a little better how the links work.
This is a topic that we will discuss further in another article so that you can understand it much better. The most important thing here is to be clear that "nofollow" does not mean that Google will not follow it. Google follows it and will find the link but they already have a kind of relationship, they already know that it is not an affiliated link and that it is not generated by the user.
Some final considerations
In summary, the backlink strategy is worth doing. It is not so good if you are going to buy because you will not always know what you are buying. What has the most effect on the backlink strategy is to have good links.
On the other hand, "Link Juice" is a fantasy, it does not exist. The update in the algorithm, machine learning, artificial intelligence, have changed the rules of the game. What is important, when you carry out a backlink strategy, is to look for websites that do have a relationship with the content you are generating.
And finally, doing SEO is related to creating content that is really relevant to people, that the content being created is from your own knowledge and not copying from someone else. In addition to this, make sure with the links, that the content continues to be related to websites that make sense for your website, and not just because they are well known.
As a final recommendation, if you plan to buy backlinks to the website, make sure that they are going to write the article where they are going to upload it and make sure that that article is very good so that that link is really worth it. If not, that content on the page will never generate anything.
We hope this article has helped you understand a little better about backlinks, their relevance today, and how you can use them correctly in the positioning of your website.
We invite you to keep reading the blog so that you can learn more about search engine optimization!
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