Is it this simple? John Mueller of Google said on Twitter "You're overthinking it. If the link is natural, then it's a natural link." It makes sense to me? I mean, if you are building and forcing new links, is that natural? Is there a gray area?
I can say, honestly, I don't ask for links on this site. I don't do things specifically to get links. I don't even look at how many links I have.
But that is the other extreme. Most SEOs do look at links and think about them. But is even thinking about links natural?
Are we over thinking this or is Google?
Here is John's tweet:
You're overthinking it. If the link is natural, then it's a natural link.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 17, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter.