Matt cutts said in a video that backlinks, over time, will become a little less important. He says that Google is now working on determining the ways to review websites which meets the expectations of the end users. This is currently performed by looking at the backlinks that the website obtained from.</p> This will slowly be brought down when Google understands the actual language better. Google will be better to understand expert user's queries and match them better to a better answer.
He also added that, Google is working on an expert author boost for their rankings.</p>
Matt Cutts added that for the ";next few years"; links aren't going anyway and will still be used for determining reputation. But overtime, Google will rely a little bit less on links for reputation purposes.</p>
