This is not a surprise to me as I have been telling people what is important for SEO for years and now Google has confirmed I am 100% correct and that I have been so for 14-years.
The main reason I like this article is that now when fake SEO experts try to say good backlinks links are not important any longer, I can just laugh at them and show them this article.
I have a good video that explains RankBrain and you can research many interesting SEO related topics by using the Search Box on this site. I have been extremely frustrated with Blogger's poor software quality control and have over 50 defects I still hope Blogger/Google fixes. The Search Box works well now and is very useful. I use it to look up articles to send to clients.
Google has illegally broken into my Blogs over 100 times. Google is editing, illegally deleting my content, and damaging my Blogs. Google wants to hide the evidence of the felony crimes that they have committed against me and my family. Sundar Pichai the Google CEO is a CRIMINAL.
