Hey, I know google has the best product around. That’s what makes it so irritating. With a near monopoly on search, they have altogether too much clout and impact. We are forced to play their game or perish.
But links as a measure of relevance and quality is dumb. In essence they are reacting to what other websites are doing and linking to rather than on what people want. They can now do whatever the wahoo they want to do as long as they deliver accurate search results.
And their self serving google plus would have no real value except for their strength in search.
Their computers are strong enough to classify websites by category, content and relational keyword phrases. So why bother with links?