Google’s John Mueller posted a cryptic tweets this morning with a dark photo with the date, October 6, 2021 imprinted on an object. John’s tweet says “A system of sites interlinked.” To me, this says Google has claimed interlinked sites as a link strategy as dead as of October 6th – but John did not say much more.

Here is the post on Twitter:

He did add after a reply that asked “Wow. Backlinks are losing worth?” John responded “Things were simpler then.”

I asked John for more details but I am still waiting to hear:

I mean, he did go even more cryptic:

What do you think this tweet means?

I think it is about Google figuring out a way to target link schemes that involve a lot of interlinked types of sites. Although, I would have thought that would have been solved in 2012, not 2021.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: So John liked the tweet, can that be a hint that this hint is true? 😛

Update 2: Edu Pereda from Google also dropped some cryptic messages:

Update 3: More from John on this:

Update 4: This image is from BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017):

Update 5: Just a movie?

Update 6: Just a movie…