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Backlinko Isn't What It Used to Be

 Key Points - Top "white-hat SEO blog" owned by SEMRUSH appears to be artificially refreshing old content (date refreshed without significant content changes). - Also appears to be publishing overly self promotional listicles (Google is targeting overly self promotional content this week). Backlinko was once the gold standard for white-hat SEO. Brian Dean built it into a go-to resource with beginner-friendly yet deeply insightful pillar content. Long-form " skyscraper " posts that dominated SERPs through sheer value. Leading SEO platform SEMrush owns Backlinko. Adobe recently announced they are buying SEMrush for $1.9 Billion,  Adobe, November 2025 .  Brian Dean created Backlinko in 2012.  The SEO Blog That Defined Quality White-Hat Optimization Backlinko's success came from massive, in-depth guides that earned natural links and bookmarks. A decade ago, almost every SEO bookmarked at least one Backlinko post. The length encouraged repeat visits (an indirect rank...