Google’s John Mueller said something positive about a strategy SEOs use to get attention and therefore hopefully natural links. He said on Twitter “I like some of the things I see in digital PR, it’s a shame it’s often associated with the spammy type of link building. It’s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many case.”

Here is that tweet:

I like some of the things I see in digital PR, it’s a shame that it’s often piled with the spammy type of link building. It’s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 23, 2021

You can click to see the conversation about this tweet, if you want. john later added “I feel like there’s a simplification of ‘link building=against Google guidelines’, which seems to require a lot more nuance. On the other hand, “Doing SEO=against Google guidelines from Google” seems less common (or maybe/probably, I just have a skewed viewport).”

I feel like there’s a simplification of “link building = against Google’s guidelines”, which seems to require a lot more nuance. On the other hand, “Doing SEO = against Google guidelines” seems less common (or maybe/probably, I just have a skewed viewport). pic.twitter.com/v6sQlqhCTB

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 23, 2021

But is that all, no it is not:

Yeah, there’s usually no need to compare (sorry). It takes a lot of people with different skills and experiences to create something fantastic together.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 25, 2021

Let me take you back 16 and a half years to Danny Sullivan’s keynote on a former SES show where he said back then that SEO was all about PR. Yes, that was almost two decades ago.

Discussion forum on Twitter.