So what does everyone think? I'm not an SEO professional but I often use a lot of guys over various forums to help with projects. Therefore Id say ive had a good feel for the market and one thing that's never changed is the reliance on backlinks for ranking purposes. Of course the game has changed and strategies, but the overall systems seems th e same. But for how much longer...
Yes. The system is changed as well as its improved for the betterness of all of us using internet and searching. So the basic never changed. If your contents are correct and not created for the spiders, you have sufficient backlinks, then your website most probably will be on the first page of google results for certain keywords. If not, it will be after few years; because you do not change the basic algo principle of google is using for the last 14 years and I don't think it will ever change in future.
Look for even more reliance on Social signals in the coming 18-24 months... that's the way things are going to keep heading. WebDev