Backlinks are important for SEO and for Google ranking because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant than others in their results pages for a search query. The number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that website

SEO involves backlinks. They always move in pairs. If you have any one of them then it does not look good. But, it is not impossible that you can’t rank your blog without a backlink.

Why backlinks are important for SEO?

There are 4 reasons, the importance of backlinks in search engine optimization.

# With the help of backlinks Google finds new pages:

 A backlink is a tool with the help of which Google Crawls your site and make visible on the 1^st page of Google. If you created the good quality and relevant backlinks then you can increase the SERPs in a shorter period of time.

# Backlinks are Google’s reputation management tool:

 Google crawls the site which is popular and can be trusted. And this trust comes from Backlinks.

# Relevant Backlinks boost your site credibility:

 Backlinks from good sites and genuine backlinks show the reputation of your website for Google.  It also increases your site Credibility. If you make backlink on irrelevant niche blog then there will be the opposite effect and soon you will see that your site will get penalized by Google.

# Backlinks increase traffic on your site:

 Visitor post accommodation or index posting, any individual who clicks a backlink and terrains on your website supports your referral traffic.

Thus, when you’re actualizing your own external link establishment technique, go for backlinks from pertinent, top-notch destinations with a Domain Authority of 40+. These sites have a greater, set up the crowd—and a superior shot of expanding generally traffic to your very own site.

Is Backlink Still Important For SEO After Google Algorithm Updates?

Google has released many algorithm updates which have resulted in altering the rankings of many websites for every Google algorithm update. Websites that rank high in Google, they have found out that, quality content is an important factor in SEO for ranking your website in search engines.

Are backlinks still relevant for Search engine optimization?

If you have quality content posted on your website, then this quality content should be automatically linked by other websites in your niche.

There is a correlation between a high ranking website in Google with the number of backlinks it has. This correlation data is declining with the recent clampdown of Google on link spam.

Number of Backlinks

Earlier websites used to rank higher when it has more backlinks than any other competitor. Now, Google is only looking for relevant links, but not the number of links.

Backlinks are still considered as the number one factor which affects your ranking. Backlinks are important for SEO and for Google ranking. As you can see in the below graph, the graph drawn between the Google positions of a website for a keyword against the number of backlinks a website has.

Figure 1

Currently, the correlation data between these two metrics is 2.8. And this has been declining as years passed by.

But overall, the top 30 websites which appear on Google’s results are still having a high amount of backlinks than others. But the gap between those at the top and the rest has been declining.

You need a good amount of backlinks from relevant websites than from irrelevant websites. If you have 1000 backlinks from irrelevant websites say blog comments and your competitor has few backlinks from relevant websites that are from the same niche, then there are greater chances that his website can outrank your website.

Conclusion

If you’re taking a closer look at the way search engines work, it’s pretty obvious why backlinks and anchor text still play a big part in their algorithm:

• The internet is built on content and links.
• Search engines use these links to crawl and index the web. 
• Adding a link to a web page takes much more time and affordable compared to sharing a link on Face book or Twitter.  

Backlinks are still a very important factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. Make sure you pay enough attention to link opportunities when they arise and be proactive. Don’t just wait for people to link to your content, start focusing again on building relations and links, to get your content the exposure it deserves.