On "What are backlinks in SEO & how do I get them?"

Backlinks still matter, but the framing that they're primarily about signaling "trust and authority to search engines" is getting stale. What actually moved the needle for years was whether Google thought a linking site was topically relevant and had existing authority—and that's still true. But if you're chasing links as a standalone tactic in 2024, you're probably working backward: the real signal is whether the link sits in content where your actual audience lives and whether it drives referral traffic that matters. Seven tactics for link building miss the point if they don't start with "who needs to know about this and where do they spend time"—because a link from nowhere doesn't move conversions, and Google knows it.