Backlinks Are the New PageRank Theater
The SEO industry is addicted to backlinks like it's still 2010. Meanwhile, Google has moved on. You should too.
Every SEO pitch deck has the same slide: "We'll build high-quality backlinks to boost your domain authority."
It sounds good. It's measurable. You can put it in a spreadsheet. And it's almost entirely theater.
The Backlink Industrial Complex
Somewhere around 2005, the SEO industry discovered that links were how Google ranked pages. PageRank. Revolutionary.
So they built an entire economy around manufacturing links. Guest posts. Link exchanges. PBNs. HARO pitches. Niche edits. "Digital PR."
It's all the same thing: artificially creating signals that are supposed to represent organic endorsement.
And here's the problem: Google figured this out years ago.
Google Doesn't Need Your Links Anymore
Google has user behavior data from Chrome, Android, and every site running Google Analytics. They know what people actually click on. They know what satisfies search intent. They know when someone bounces back to the SERP.
They have machine learning models that understand content quality without counting links. They can identify topical authority from the content itself.
Links are legacy infrastructure. A ranking signal from an era when Google couldn't actually read and understand content.
That era ended around 2015.
Why the Industry Can't Let Go
Link building is the perfect agency service:
It's measurable. We got you 47 links this month! Look at this spreadsheet!
It's repeatable. Same playbook, every client, every month.
It's easy to sell. More links = better rankings. Simple story.
It justifies retainers. Building links takes ongoing work. Ka-ching.
The industry has a financial incentive to keep the backlink myth alive. So they do.
What Actually Works
Here's the unsexy truth: make something worth linking to.
Original research. Useful tools. Genuinely helpful content. Controversial opinions that people want to reference.
When you create something valuable, links happen naturally. Not because you begged for them. Because people genuinely want to share them.
That's the signal Google is trying to measure. And they're getting better at finding it without the proxy of links.
The best link building strategy is building something worth linking to. The second best strategy is not worrying about links at all.
Stop paying for PageRank theater. Start creating actual value.