Are backlinks no longer a “top 3” ranking signal?

Liar, liar.. ?͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ Hi,  Gary Illyes (Analyst on the Google Search team) stated during his speech at the Pubcon Pro this september:  "Links are not a “top 3” ranking signal and hasn’t been “for some time..”  Or to quote Search Engine Land: "Liar, liar? Whenever a Google representative makes a statement like this, many SEOs say it is typical Google disinformation or flat-out lying. Nobody will ever agree on this – it is SEO, after all."  We leave it up to you, but here are our backlink API solutions.. ;-))    - [The backlink endpoint](, to collect all backlinks pointing to an URL or domain. - [The backlink overview]( endpoint, to get all the backlink statistics.  Collect these Backlinks metrics:  ✔️ Individual backlinks ✔️ Lost backlinks  ✔️ Linking domains ✔️ Spam score ✔️ Domain authority ✔️ Page authority ✔️ Referring IPs ✔️ And more..  You can also use the API with our Google SEO Spreadsheets to get unlimited backlinks without any coding knowledge: [( Related API:  - [Domain authority API]( - [Backlink API endpoints]( - [SERP / Rank checker API]( Happy optimizing! Jasja ter Horst SEO Review Tools SEO Review Tools Sloep, 10, 9801 RG, Zuidhorn This email was sent to {EMAIL} You've received it because you've subscribed to our newsletter. [View in browser]( | [Unsubscribe](