How Can Websites Rank Well Without Backlinks?

A large proportion of people out there seem to believe that backlinks form the backbone of a website's SEO strategy. Having high-quality and relevant backlinks has its advantages, but are they a necessity? We have talked aboutthis topic many times in the past. Today, I'd like to share highlights from Googler John Mueller's recent hangout where he proved that backlinks, while important, are not a must for ranking well in Google!


John Mueller is the Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google. He shared an instance of a website ranking well without backlinks during his hangout at the GooglePlex with two of his colleagues. Here's the video of the hangout, with adjusted starting position.

Someone asked at the 26 minutes and 3 seconds mark, why does Google use links for ranking at the level they do. He said, Google should use other means to rank sites. Of course, he knows they do use other factors but his point was why do they place so much weight on links.

John Mueller answered that saying they do have tons of other factors outside of just links.
John then said he has a friend of his who is “back home” in Zurich, his friend just put up a new web site for the local neighborhood. The new site does not have any links at all and over 300 pages are indexed and pages are ranking and they are getting a lot of traffic from search.

No one ever linked to the site ever, he said, but they did submit sitemaps to Google and they have an RSS feed.

The web site does fairly well without any links at all, John said. So it is not the case you absolutely need links to rank, he added. John did say that links are "obviously" it is part of Google’s ranking factors, but it isn’t something Google only relies on.

We know a year ago, Matt Cutts said Google did try turning off links in their ranking algorithm and the results were horrible. We also know that Yandex, the huge Russian search engine, did remove links from a niche segment in their ranking algorithm when that segment was spammed to death.

With that being said, let's not forget the importance of backlinks. But the point here is, there are many other factors you need to be focusing on as well.

If you get bored sitting around the office all day without being able to socialize, Facebook has a new hobby for you. Facebook has just announced a new social tool called "Work" (we called it 'Facebook for Work' before), which will revolve around your professional life, and how employees in a Business communicate with each other.

Now, you won't have to go through the hassle of getting around a firewall in order to access Facebook, or hiding it from your boss for that matter.

Simply titled ‘Work’ (as opposed to 'Facebook for Work' as was rumored before), the new product will reportedly allow businesses to create self-contained social networks exclusively for employees. Sounds kind of like an Intranet, with the exception that it would be accessible outside of work.

How is it different from normal Facebook?

The social networks created in Work would mirror Facebook in design and user experience. Users can join using their existing Facebook account, or can create their own ID just for use in Work.

So, why use Work when everyone you work with is already on Facebook? For starters there are no advertisements or data tracking. So you won’t be inundated with ads or have to worry about lack of confidentiality.

Secondly, the company is touting the usefulness of its Groups feature and how it is being integrated in Work. It’s apparently so useful, in fact, that Facebook believes it could replace workplace email the way that other companies like Slack and Yammer have set out to do.

Lars Rasmussen, the engineering director at Facebook, says that the company is currently using Work for its communication, and is using feedback gained by its employees over the years to refine the product before releasing it in an already crowded marketplace.

It sounds like Facebook has recognized the significant growth of workplace communication apps as of late, and is now in reaction mode trying to produce a solution of its own. Perhaps Facebook is banking on the fact that the users’ familiarity with the network will keep them from seeking the services offered by competitive apps.

How Work compares to similar offerings already on the market will remain to be seen as Work is still in the testing phase, having only been released to a select group of partners.