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Are web backlinks dead?
What should I do for SEO?
So you want your website to be on page 1 of Google search engine results. What you need to keep in mind is where Google is coming from when deciding which websites go on page 1.
Your business is absolutely dependent on displaying the most relevant websites for a specific keyphrase search, otherwise your competitors might start taking a look.
In the early days this was just a matter of looking at the words on the web page. That’s how YAHOO started. Then the founders of Google were doing a research project at Stanford University called “backrub” that looked at web links between websites. (backlinks) as a way of judging the importance and usefulness of websites. They could also exploit the anchor text (the text in the actual web link). This turned out to be a huge success, and before we knew it, Google had usurped YAHOO as the leading search engine because it gave better results.
Needless to say, once everyone knew that Google was looking for web links, the search engine optimizer guys started creating web links anyway and this was for a while a very powerful technique to trick the system and promote your website.
Google responded with the PENGUIN update, which attempts to recognize genuine web links and remove artificial links based on relevance, non-random IP addresses, and non-random anchor text (the link text), etc. This caused a lot of distress to webmasters who had built poor web links and found themselves penalized and ranked well on page 1.
Even recently, Google’s Matt Cutts admitted that when Google tried to set search rankings without using web links, it got poor results. Therefore, web links are still important, and you should try to build web links as long as they are relevant links and add genuine value to the person browsing the web.
What other factors does Google use to determine search engine rankings? It’s worth keeping in mind that the precise algorithm Google uses is a state secret and is constantly changing. Just remember to think about Google’s business model, where they need to show the most relevant results to their users.
But you can listen to the chatter on the internet, and in particular take note of Google ads, for example, they have announced that in searches done on a mobile (now more than 50% of all searches), they will give priority to responsive websites, that is, designed to display correctly on mobile phones with their narrow screens.
Recently, the Google Search Quality Guidelines have come out. This document is for your internal testers, but emphasizes experience, authority, and trust. In practice, this means that links and mentions from people who are considered a authority they are valued.
There are many articles on SEO, which will have a lot of detail, but the main thing to do for SEO is:
(1) Provide useful content/information/service, be prepared to reveal some trade secrets
(2) Persuade others to share your content, perhaps through social sharing buttons on your own website or relevant backlinks from others to your website.
http://www.ruby-web-links.com