Google’s John Mueller responded to a question on Reddit about backlinks and suggested that focusing too much on backlinks could be a waste of time, a statement that fits a Google pattern over the past six months
Backlink checkers prioritize their backlinks differently
The person who asked the question wanted to know why the backlink checkers show different backlinks and no consensus, especially for this site that was “relatively new” but fully indexed.
Backlink checkers do not choose a site and backlinks. They crawl the web and create a map of the link relationships between sites. Tools also prioritize what they crawl because the web is huge, so not everything is crawled, let alone included in its index.
This is what was asked:
“I have a couple of backlinks in Google Search Console on the ‘external links’ page and I know I’ve gotten a few more recently.
However, Ahrefs says I don’t have one. Is there a reason? My website is relatively new, but I don’t think that should matter because everything is indexed and working properly. Is there a reason?”
Counting links is subjective
Mueller said there is no “objective” way to count links, which may be a reference to the fact that each tool has to choose what they crawl and include in their index.
He answered:
“There is no objective way to count links on the web, and each tool collects its own data from crawling, which each tool does differently, so there will always be differences.”
More important things for websites
Mueller’s response first addressed not focusing on link counts and that search engines are able to discover web pages in ways other than links.
He answered:
“My recommendation would be not to focus so much on the absolute link count. There are many ways that search engines can discover websites, such as with sitemaps.”
In the last part of his answer he starts talking about links and seems to downplay them.
Mueller commented:
“There are more important things to websites these days, and focusing too much on links will often waste your time doing things that don’t make your website better overall.”
It’s pretty clear you’re not talking about backlink counts anymore. Talk about links.
Google has pointed out that links are less important
For the past six months, Google has been saying and implying that links are less important than they used to be. Google’s update coincided with four changes to its documentation that downplayed the role of links, including removing the word “important” from a sentence about links as a ranking factor. Everything else in the sentence remained the same, they just removed the word “important” from the documentation.
Before:
“Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevance of web pages.”
After:
Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevance of web pages.
Read about the March 2024 changes at the links: Google Core Update March 2024: 4 changes to link signal
The first express statement made by a Googler was at PubCon in Austin last fall where Gary Illyes stated that links are not even in the top 3 ranking factors.
John Mueller even hinted two years ago that the role of links was going to be less important.
He said:
“…it’s something where I imagine that over time, the weight of links will at some point come down a little bit, as we can figure out a little bit better how the content fits into the context of the whole web.”
Read the Reddit discussion:
Why aren’t my backlinks showing?
Featured image by Shutterstock/Asier Romero
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