Google's John Mueller clarified how SEOs should think about Google's index and links on the web. He said on Twitter "we index pages, we don't index links. Links are between pages." That means, Google will index a page, that page may have links on it, and if Google sees the link, it knows there is a link but it indexes the page, not the link.
Here is the tweet:
Can you elaborate or show some examples? We index pages, we don't index links. Links are between pages. I suspect there's some confusion, hopefully it's something that can be cleared up :)
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 30, 2020
This brings us back to when John explained that if one of the pages between the link is removed, gone, 404ed or something else, than the link is gone. If you cut the cord, the two are no longer connected.
It is a small distinction but a distinction.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
