The Link Is Dead: Long Live the Link

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I’m not against any particular web marketing tactic.  To each his own – just please keep the spam down. What is troubling to me is that after nearly 14 years of doing online publicity and link building, I see people way too eager to embrace or abandon any given SEM tactic.  Tactics that were once considered perfectly acceptable gradually (or suddenly) lose favor.  New tactics are hailed as the greatest thing since the last greatest thing.

If you have ever attended an Internet industry trade show or conference, you probably have overheard ad-hoc conversations that develop at lunch tables, hotel lobbies, elevators, and everywhere in-between.  It’s wonderful that people are so willing to share what they know or think they know.  Once the show is over, these conversations will then migrate over to the blogs, forums, and discussion lists devoted to online marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and link building.

One of the topics I hear and read being discussed is whether or not the practice of link building matters anymore.  The general SEO consensus seems to be that the link is dead.  The engines have figured out (or soon will) all the tricks, and thus it no longer makes sense to pin your ranking hopes on tactics related to building links.

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