I believe that manual link building will continue to play a massive role in SEO

The year isn’t the first year the demise of link building and SEO has been predicted. Link acquisition has come a long way from the pre-Penguin era. Prior to the Penguin algorithm, link building was full of spam and automation, and quantity mattered more than quality. Google has stated that a new Penguin update should be released by the end of the year, and the new version will update in real time.

After the penguin release was announced many people who are within the digital marketing category began to move away from link building. Some reasons for this included:

  • Penguin devalued link spam, making getting links more difficult.
  • Penguin punished spammy sites, rather than just devaluing them, making link spam high-risk.
  • Google was vague on the details of what triggered Penguin, which spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (and misinformation) regarding links.
  • Clients hit by Penguin became wary of link building, and SEOs and marketers attempted to distance themselves from the term.
  • SEOs are a naturally adaptive lot, and content marketing was growing in popularity.

 

Links have always been an important ranking signal, having famously been the main focus of Google’s original search algorithm today links remain powerful, precisely because Google continues to view links as a signal.

Acquiring Links Involves Physical Effort

Links are still a strong signal within Google’s search algorithm, necessary to ranking within competitive SERPs. Links are important online, and missed link opportunities equal a substantial loss of marketing value.

Links are important online, and missed link opportunities equal a substantial loss of marketing value so it is something you don’t want to miss out on.