‘Why links are still the core authority signal in Google’s algorithm’ – Search Engine Land

Jayson DeMers says, “It’s almost impossible to see any meaningful search engine optimization (SEO) results without spending some time building and honing your inbound link profile.

Of the two main deciding factors for site rankings (relevance and authority), one (authority) is largely dependent on the quantity and quality of links pointing to a given page or domain.

As most people know, Google’s undergone some major overhauls in the past decade, changing its SERP layout, offering advanced voice-search functionality and significantly revising its ranking processes. But even though its evaluation of link quality has changed, links have been the main point of authority determination for most of Google’s existence.

Why is Google so dependent on link metrics for its ranking calculations, and how much longer will links be so important?

The concept of PageRank

To understand the motivation here, we have to look back at the first iteration of PageRank, the signature algorithm of Google Search named after co-founder Larry Page. It uses the presence and quality of links pointing to a site to determine how to gauge a site’s authoritativeness”.

Why links are still the core authority signal in Google’s algorithm

Search Engine Land