I’d like to dedicate this SEO article to Russ Jones, who passed away in the summer of 2021, he was a great SEO leader here in the Carolinas and was always willing to help anyone, Russ you are still remembered and missed.
In 1995, I was trying to emulate the late Englishman Roger Banister who broke the 4-minute mile back in the 1950’s. While I ended up being about 35 seconds off Roger’s time, my high school running career helped open some athletic and academic doors in my life.
Around the same time across the country on the West Coast, a new team of players, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, started a Ph.D. paper titled ‘The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine’. This was the academic paper that helped start the idea of the search engine of Google. The idea of “PageRank” was born, and it further developed the idea of external links being a vote. Fast-forward 29 years to present-day and the concept of external linking still exists today for SEO optimization.
So, you may have asked yourself if you should invest resources into external link-building optimization type strategies and tactics for the second half of 2024 and into 2025?
The answer starts here. You by now have all seen tons of articles about the Google leaked API document from this this past June and Majestic had some great discussions here on the topic.
YES, you should be investing in external linking optimization strategies and tactics for 2024 and 2025. In my view a well-balanced SEO roadmap strategy plan is similar to training for the mile run for the Olympics.
You’ll need each of these on a recurring basis:
- Healthy diet (Technical SEO)
- 8 hours of sleep each night (Content Plan)
- Medium strength training (Internal Linking)
- Long runs for cardo benefit, 1-2 times per week and recovery days (Content Freshness)
- Speed workouts, for aerobic benefit (External Linking)
- Partying with Dixon Jones only once every 90 days (you don’t want the entire body/website to crash and not recover in time before the big race or next speed workout).
Sometimes SEO is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound). You perform your list of ABC items and you see measurable result of XYZ in X number of weeks or months
But sometimes SEO is like running.
You don’t really know what the performance difference will be if you slept 7.5 hours vs 8 hours the night before the race or big work out. But you do know that if you surround yourself with smart, hard-working people who challenge you, maybe some of their good habits and best practices will rub off on you and your websites. Then, who knows, you may be both successful and lucky as Russ Jones used to tell me.
So instead of getting advice from me, let me give you some thoughts from some of my friends below who are much better 2024 Olympic SEO runners than I am – their comments are podium worthy.
Whilst Googlers and Nooglers (Non-Googlers) alike might like to say links are deprecated or not important, the evidence is to the contrary. In the recent Google leaks, for example, I searched for the word “link” (over here: https://dixonjones.com/google-ranking-signals/). The word is used over 500 times in the calls, so this implies that any Googler working on any part of the algorithm has multiple ways in which they can call data points that might be affected by links. This excludes mentions of “PageRank” which, in itself, is entirely based on link data.
This means that it is likely nobody really can tell you HOW important links are… because no one person, even in Google, will know how many algorithms call any of the relevant API calls. What we CAN say is that links are hard-baked into the crawl data and the Google index. They ARE used, but it is not as transparent now as it used to be. This is why Majestic remains so valuable as an independent link graph. The methodology for evaluating links might be Majestic’s independent data, but at scale it does a great job of instantly providing materially relevant metrics about links and how pages are influenced by links.
If none of this sways you, consider this: The only two ways to find a web page are to type in the whole url correctly into a browser or… click a link! Links will never die.
Hannah McNaughton / FOUNDER & CEO of Metric Marketing
“While there are constant rumors that try to dispel the importance of backlinks, they have always been and still are incredibly important, and I’ll be so bold to also argue that—until Google determines a better way to understand someone’s reputation—they always will be.
Think about it from the perspective of everyday life. When I was growing up, my mom told me to be careful who I made friends with because who you know and who you hang out with influence who you become… or at least influence who others think you are.
There’s also a saying that “you’re a combination of the 5 people that you spend the most time with,” and another saying that “your network is your net worth.”
What do all of these have in common? They show that the groups, people, clubs, neighborhoods, or even links that we associate with have an influence on how we are viewed. And just like friends, the quality of backlinks is so much more important than quantity.
Now, does this mean backlinks are the only way to strengthen your reputation online? No, not at all. But backlinks are the equivalent of someone putting their reputation on the line to vouch for you, so they carry a ton of weight. Add in mentions, articles, or press coverage and you’ll be far ahead of anyone who thinks backlinks are a thing of the past.”
Bill Hartzer / CEO of Hartzer Consulting
I still think backlinks are relevant, and should be a part of any marketing plan. Your site needs to get mentioned on other related and topical websites, and with mentions comes links.
Google will ideally not have to rely on links as a part of their algorithm, but as they’ve said time and time again, their search results weren’t very good when they didn’t include links.
Evelina Milenova / The SEO & Growth Manager at Opinion Stage
Links are still relevant, but in 2024, the focus is on the type of links you’re getting. You want to get links from real brands, and even better if those brands are related to your business. You also want links to position you as a brand, especially if your company is not well-established yet—this means getting links to your homepage in your brand name.
Considering all this, digital PR is one of the best strategies for link acquisition. It’s great for brand mentions and can build the authority of brand personas through quotes. Google’s API documentation leak suggested Google considers an author’s niche authority when ranking content.
Another strategy that’s becoming more important is getting added to relevant listicles in your niche. Assuming that AI’s role in search will grow, you want your business to be mentioned up top when people ask AI about the best tools/services in your category. I’ve been testing this approach since the beginning of 2024 and have seen dramatic improvements in appearing in AI-generated responses.
“Backlinks are definitely still a critical component of SEO in 2024. Here’s what we are seeing:
1. URLs that get backlinks tend to outperform URLs that don’t. We did a test on one client where we refreshed content across several pages. The refreshed URLs that had relatively new links outperformed the URLs with no traceable links by 20 percentage points.
2. Domains that get backlinks tend to outperform domains that don’t.
3. We see links as a key differentiator in Local SEO. Once a Google Business Profile is fully optimized, there’s not much a business can do to rank well other than add content to their site, get more reviews, and get targeted backlinks. Often SEOs can be constrained in terms of content and reviews, so backlinks can be a great way to unlock value while waiting for the other levers to move.”
Nick LeRoy / Freelance SEO Consultant and owner of SEOJobs.com
Backlinks are ABSOLUTELY relevant to SEO in 2024. I don’t talk in absolutes very often but the idea of links having no value is one of the silliest debates in SEO today.
Gone are the days of link penalties and mass spam being able to yield top rankings. To succeed in SEO in 2024 (and beyond) requires building a brand. Brand building requires getting your name out to REAL people on REAL publications. If we learned anything from the leaked API documents is that Google still values authoritative placements and highly contextual anchor text.
Ann Smarty / Co-Founder of Smarty Marketing, the boutique SEO agency based in NY
Links remain fundamental to any SEO strategy because, from experience, it’s the only signal that can actually move the needle. Links are harder to get these days, and there are many more signals added into the mix. Plus, Google seems to get much, much pickier when it comes to which links it wants to include into their ranking system, but good links can make wonders to a steady growing ranking profile of any site.
Duane Forrester / What Def Leppard tried with SUGAR, Duane did for SEARCH / SVP, Search INDEXR.ai
Links. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they have an impact. Listening to the engines, they’ll say the impact is low. Listening to link sales companies, they’ll tell you the value is high. Like so many things, the truth is in the middle somewhere.
Bottom line: don’t abuse link building. Create links that make sense to people. Inbound links can/do help, but it’s often not a volume thing. Linking out to useful resources is also important. Both need to be curated carefully. Your internal link architecture is also important, so it’s safe to say, “yeah, you still have to pay attention to links today.
Julia Logan a.k.a. IrishWonder / CEO of Zangoose Digital, SEO consultant
Backlinks are the foundation of the World Wide Web, this is what it has initially been built on. Before search engines came to exist, people used to discover new sites, navigate from site to site and find their way around the Internet via links. Later on, when search engines have incorporated links as a ranking factor into their algorithms, the significance of links only increased.
With the current state of Google, when it is trying to be the end source of answers to searchers’ queries rather than a traditional search engine, links seem to be overshadowed. But nevertheless, if a site wants to be discovered, crawled, indexed and appear before its potential visitors as a result of their search queries, it needs links. I don’t suppose it will change any time soon, regardless of the form factor search engines (and other user discovery channels) may take.
Google tells SEOs that links aren’t very valuable anymore. They say they are no longer in the top three ranking signals. I even have a client whose CMO was told by Google at their Marketing Live event this year that they did not even need to bother with links because Google doesn’t use them anymore. But is this true? No.
Now, Google is not lying when they say they are no longer in the top 3 signals. Back in 2018, Google added Rank Brain to the top 3, and then Neural Matching came out and it is responsible for the final sort order you see in the SERPs and does not use links, but the Core Ranking Signals do. Neural Matching is there to refine the final sort order by matching the users query to the document text ONLY. Links were used in the ranking sort Neural Matching receives, but no links are used in Neural Matching. So, links move down in the importance chain to Rank Brain and Neural Matching, but does this mean they are no longer important? No.
You know how I know this? I have a client site that has done literally nothing regarding link building in the 8 months I have worked with them. New site with new content, but they have approximately 30 legitimate links. You know what else? Despite the site being well optimized for SEO purposes and User Intent they rank for almost nothing outside their brand terms.
Of course, this is anecdotal; I have no large study to validate my anecdotal example here, but others do, showing the same thing this site does. Links are not only important but necessary. Sure, you can rank some obscure terms without them, but nothing that is competitive. Links are the backbone of Google Search, and as much as they wish they could stop relying on the most easily gamed ranking signals, they can’t.
Links, with their historical significance in the evolution of the Web, are not just relevant to SEO but also form the very foundation of the Web. While their role has evolved, their institutional features remain significant in information consumption and data gathering.
Links will always be crucial for:
- Easy navigation between related, contextual content;
- Understanding the relevance and authority of a source;
- Allowing search engines to discover and index web pages;
- Links are a relevant and essential tool that provides the necessary signals to establish:
- The importance of a page from an algorithmic perspective;
- The context and relevance of content;
- Trustworthiness;
- Context and the opportunity to drive high-quality referral traffic from other websites.
Links are not just a tool but a strategic competitive factor. This understanding can make you feel the importance of links in the digital landscape. They will remain important for as long as the web exists as we know it today.
Links and Structured Data
Links provide a significant contribution to structured data. They are the backbone for creating comprehensive knowledge graphs – sophisticated data structures representing information through interconnected entities and their relationships. Unlike traditional databases that store data in tables, knowledge graphs utilize nodes (representing entities like people, places, or concepts) and edges (representing relationships between these entities) to construct a graph. This structure allows for a more intuitive and flexible way to organize, retrieve, and infer information.
Links are not just simple connectors; they are essential for establishing semantic connections between nodes, enabling the graph to capture and reflect the nuanced relationships and meanings inherent in the data represented by entities. By providing these vital connections, links empower knowledge graphs to deliver deeper insights and facilitate advanced AI applications.
Links and AI
The synergy between AI and links is rooted in the essential connections these links establish, empowering language models (LLMs) to create meaningful associations across the vast expanse of the Web. In AI, links are the underlying, invisible threads, intricately weaving together the fabric of online information. This enables AI to navigate and understand complex concepts by following these pathways. Links allow AI models to contextualize and integrate diverse pieces of data, significantly enhancing their ability to deliver coherent and relevant responses. By tapping into the interconnected web, AI can distil insights from multiple sources, becoming invaluable in developing nuanced perspectives and articulations of intricate subjects.
In AI, links are the crucial connectors that elevate a model’s comprehension and generation capabilities. They ensure that the immense online knowledge repository is accessible and profoundly meaningful.
The Evolution and The Future of Links
As the web has evolved, the original purpose of links was to connect documents, providing seamless access to resources regardless of their location—much like having a vast library at your fingertips.
Initially, links facilitated the real-time opening of any document, ensuring a fluid navigation experience. Over time, links began to carry additional information that helped establish sources’ relevance, authority, and trustworthiness. Today, while many still view links through this traditional lens, it’s essential to recognize their expanded role. Links remain invaluable for structured data and AI, yet their evaluation criteria must evolve.
How should we assess links in this new context? Rather than questioning their continued usefulness, we should ask more meaningful questions – for example, if there are opportunities to develop new metrics to gauge their relevance and effectiveness because we are using them in new and different ways. By doing so, we can fully harness the wealth of information that links provide today, appreciating them as connectors and rich data sources that drive the web’s ongoing innovation and sophistication.