Is Google rewarding topical authority more than backlinks in 2026?

[Zoebrandvertas]

I've noticed something that few sites I'm tracking have fewer backlinks than their competitors, but they're consistently outranking them for competitive keywords.

Well, the common pattern could be:

- Strong topical coverage (covering every subtopic in a niche)

- Internal linking that's actually well thought out

- Regular content updates instead of publishing hundreds of new pages

- Better user engagement metrics

And, I've also seen websites with stronger backlink profiles that slowly lose rankings. So, I'm curious if anyone else has observed the same thing.

Do you think topical authority has become a bigger ranking factor than backlinks?

Would love to hear some REAL experiences.

 

[jorge1243]

Yeah, it’s interesting how some smaller sites keep beating bigger ones just by going deeper into the topic. Feels like covering intent properly and staying consistent is doing more heavy lifting than links alone in a lot of cases.

 

[Fabian_Bau]

Hi. Yes, agreed with you. I consistently see smaller niche sites with 50–100 high-quality, relevant root domains outrank legacy giants with thousands of spammy or outdated links. Backlinks still matter as a tie-breaker, but they no longer save a site with poor topical depth or bad user signals.