Can you show me how Google rankings are correlated with my backlinks database?
Through the recent decade, the lion’s share of site owners and webmasters have spawned immense masses of spammy and tricky backlinks - all for the sake of higher ranking positions in Google’s SERPs. As a result, about five years ago the major search engine delivered its first Penguin algorithm update - to start penalizing and de-indexing several PBNs (private blog networks), automated link-generating farms, link wheels (exchanges), as well as raising a red flag with guest blogging for link building purposes. That’s why even a little deviation from Google’s Main Guidelines on irrelevant, spammy or manipulative backlinks can now throw your website or blog in ranking penalty jail.
Google Tells Good Links From Bad Ones
The first thing that shows a tight correlation between your backlinks database and the actual ranking position in Google is that the modern world of the web is literally overwhelmed with links. Myriads of them are generated by online robots. Some are created for bulk sale or intended for individually tailored exchange deals. At the same time, some links can be perfectly tuned to look as natural as possible, the rest of them are those old-school editorial links. So, the main challenge for Google is to examine backlinks database of every website or blog - to understand who is playing a fair game and actually deserves being ranked that high.
Backlinks Database and Real Actions
In fact, when the major search engines like Google itself see a link showing the way to your website or blog, there are only three actual options for each backlink you have. I mean it can be recognized as valid and worth considering in Google’s main search algorithm. At the same time, everything can just remain all the same - and some links can be recognized as entirely null and void - without any impact from the viewpoint of SEO. After all, your website or blog might as well be penalized, given that a part of your links in your backlinks database (or just one separate link) is suspected to be of manipulative or artificial nature.
Cold Facts About Rankings and Backlinks Database
So, there is a certain relationship between the actual position in the SERPs and every website’s backlinks database. But how tight can it be? Here is a list of bullet points to illustrate what external links can do with your rankings at scale.
- higher positions in the SERPs are correlated with the number of link sources at about 30 on average;
- this correlation estimate can seem even more impressive, given that smaller correlations aren’t surprising as well - considering that Google can rely on about 200 ranking signals;
- over 99% of all websites and blogs reviewed by the recent case study appeared to have at least one inbound external link;
- about 22% of individual pages were found ranked well with no external backlinks at all;
- having more links can correlate with a higher ranking position, but betting on their number rather than quality doesn’t necessarily mean your website will be shown in the top of the search.
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