Is your SEO strategy too focused on backlinks? Here’s what the numbers show about the connection between links and search rankings today.
People in the world of websites often argue about how important links are in making a website show up in search results.
A person from Google named Gary Illyes recently said that many people think links are more important than they really are. He said that links haven’t been one of the top three things that make a website show up high in search results for a while.
This kind of statement from Google has been said before, and it has made people who work with websites think about their strategies. It made me wonder how important links really are these days. What would the data say?
To figure it out, I looked at 100 random words that people might type into a search engine, like Google. I checked the top 100 websites for each word and looked at how many websites linked to them. I had a big list with over 10,000 rows of information about websites and links.
It’s important to know that just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean one causes the other. Google says that many different things affect how websites show up in search results. But by looking at the data, we can get an idea of how important links are compared to other things.
What the Data Says
- Not a Strong Connection: No matter which category the words belonged to, the connection between having more links and having a higher ranking on the search results was not very strong. It was like a 0.4 out of 1, which means not very strong.
- Some Words Did the Opposite: For some words, having more links actually made a website show up lower in the search results. But again, it wasn’t a very strong connection.
- Categories That Liked Links: The categories where links seemed to be more helpful were Outdoor and Sports and Health and Wellness.
- Categories That Didn’t Like Links: The categories where links didn’t seem to help much were Home and Kitchen and Ecommerce and Online Services.
What Does It Mean?
So, knowing what the data says, what should you do for your website?
- Links Still Matter: Even though links are not as important as they used to be, they still show that people like your website. If your website or a page on it gets a lot of links, it means people like it. This can help you know what to focus on.
- Check Your Competition: Look at the other websites that are similar to yours. If they have a lot more links, it could be a challenge. But remember, links are not the only thing that matters. You can use this data to make your website better.
- Be User-Friendly: The most important thing is to make your website useful and good for the people who visit it. Google cares about things like Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These things are more important than just getting lots of links.
This data was interesting because it looked at many different types of websites. It showed that links are important, but they are not the only thing that makes a website show up in search results.
We will keep watching to see how things change with new technology. It’s an exciting time for websites, and data will help us understand what makes a website show up when people search for things. We’ll see how links continue to affect search results in the future.