Their demise as a ranking signal has been predicted for years as Google has moved against spammy and low-quality links. But the fact is that search engines still love backlinks, which can still greatly help to grow search engine traffic and also cause a website to drop from the SERP in an instant. Former senior Search Googler Kaspar Szymanski explains:

• Where the backlink risks lie in 2023 and how to detect them

• How to deal with backlink liabilities

• How to build backlinks safely to improve SEO signals