Strength of Google Backlinks Ranking Factor to Drop Over Time

At a live session at Brighton SEO, Google predicted that the strength of backlinks as a ranking factor for websites would drop significantly over a period of time. Google is generally known to discourage any form of unnatural link building practices. This factor may become less crucial to SEO professionals in the coming years. As Google has become more advanced at understanding how content fits in with the context of the rest of the web, its algorithm has slowly started weaning off dependency on inbound links to weigh in site options. Though backlinks might diminish in significance, they will continue to be helpful to Google for content discovery, understanding trust parameters, and site authority. A change is already in motion, and it is a matter of time before backlinks lose their current significance, Google adds.