SEO today is more complex and challenging than at any other point, especially due to the advent of AI systems, which give users more information discovery choices.
Links were cited as the most important thing in SEO for many years, starting with the arrival of Google’s PageRank.
But is that still true?
This article will examine the significance of links today, including:
- Various perspectives within the industry.
- Analysis of empirical evidence.
- Google’s recent statements and updates on the role of links in their ranking algorithms.
- The use of co-citation data within AI systems.
Backlinks and SEO: Confusion in today’s landscape
Links matter. The volume and quality of external links to a webpage can influence its search rankings.
Beyond the number of links, other factors that play a role include:
- Link diversity (do your links come from multiple sites?).
- Relevance.
- Quality.
- Authority.
Technical aspects and Google’s preference for editorial (non-paid) links further impact effectiveness.
Links transfer PageRank, which helps elevate keyword rankings. Although Google no longer shows PageRank publicly, it still influences Google’s various algorithms.
How much? Opinions vary. Some still believe PageRank is crucial, while others think its importance is all but dead.
Check out these recent LinkedIn posts:
Above, we have opinions varying from links are a scam to links are important. Opinions on the importance of links vary widely, leaving many confused.
So, are links as crucial as sellers claim? Or are links an industry scam costing thousands for unnecessary links?
The truth, as is typically the case, is somewhere in between.
Let’s further examine these perspectives and measure them against the facts.
Google’s statements and updates
Before we proceed, it’s probably prudent to check relevant comments from Google.
Most of these comments were made between September 2023 and April 2024.
Let’s start with comments from Gary Illyes, a webmaster trends analyst at Google, from September 2023, as reported here on Search Engine Land:
- “I think they [links] are important, but I think people overestimate the importance of links. I don’t agree it’s in the top three. It hasn’t been for some time.”
Then, in March 2024, Google released a Spam Policy update, removing the word “important” in reference to links as a ranking factor. This change coincided with the March 2024 core algorithm update.
In April 2024, there was a bit of a storm when Illyes indicated that links were less important at a search conference:
- “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years, we’ve made links less important.”
John Mueller, a Google search advocate, also made these comments:
- “My recommendation would be not to focus so much on the absolute count of links. There are many ways that search engines can discover websites, such as with sitemaps. There are more important things for websites nowadays, and over-focusing on links will often result in you wasting your time doing things that don’t make your website better overall.”
Some parts of Google’s documentation still mention links and PageRank as core aspects of its ranking systems.
Within their documentation, Google states that PageRank is:
- “One of our core ranking systems used when Google first launched. Those curious can learn more by reading the original PageRank research paper and patent. How PageRank works has evolved a lot since then, and it continues to be part of our core ranking systems.”
Even if Google is reducing the prominence of link data within its ranking algorithms, it seems that it will be a gradual sunset.
And here’s what Google’s philosophy page says:
- “We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank
algorithm, which analyses which sites have been ‘voted’ to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web. As the web gets bigger, this approach actually improves, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted.”
This suggests that links and PageRank are still important. However, if you read further:
- “We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results, and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.”
The statement that “no one can buy better PageRank” indicates that Google aggressively defends this part of its ranking algorithm.
It also suggests that Google believes, or wants us to believe, that paid link building services are ineffective.
If such services were effective, Google couldn’t claim that no one can buy better PageRank.
This doesn’t mean links are unimportant. But Google invests heavily to make simple link building strategies ineffective.
Despite Google’s efforts to reduce reliance on links and prevent backlink exploitation, the SEO industry still promotes link building as a valid tactic.
The industry continues to generate business and educate those they see as uninformed.
Have a look at these suppliers, advertising link building services on LinkedIn:
These practices have persisted through 2025, though it’s worth noting that finding promotional posts on LinkedIn (posts, not ads) marketing these services has become noticeably more difficult compared to 2024.
Back then, a large volume of link-related content centered around the direct sale of such services.
In 2025, those posts are far less common.
Instead, there’s been a shift toward content explaining how to do the work yourself, or presenting studies that evaluate link agency performance across multiple websites.
Not all of these studies are favorable in their findings.
At the same time, we know that Google is actively working to reduce its reliance on links as a ranking factor. But what could realistically replace PageRank?
Given Google’s expanding AI capabilities, several avenues are emerging.
If Google can assess the usefulness of content directly – without depending on external links – it could move away from ranking pages based on popularity metrics altogether.
In this scenario, search would shift toward AI-driven, technical content extraction and intelligent surfacing.
Webpages could be evaluated based on their standalone quality, with AI rendering more nuanced and informative responses pulled directly from page content.
This shift, which seemed inevitable just a year ago, is now well underway.
Google’s AI Mode is proof of this.
If Google’s AI mode tab becomes the default way for users to search, the world of SEO will change radically. It’s only a matter of time until this happens.
Empirical evidence and studies
The key question to ask when it comes to your SEO efforts is: “Do links work right now?”
Let’s look at findings from Ahrefs, Backlinko, and MonsterInsights.
Study 1: Ahrefs backlink statistics and findings
Ahrefs has published SEO statistics showing a strong positive correlation between the number of referring domains linking to a page and that page’s ranking and SEO traffic performance.
Most top-ranking pages gain between 5% and 14% more followed links each month, according to the data.
Many other stats from Ahrefs reference publishers like Authority Hacker and include survey-based data.
Study 2: Backlinko search ranking findings
“A site’s overall link authority (as measured by Ahrefs Domain Rating) strongly correlates with higher rankings,” according to a Backlinko study, updated on April 14.
Google doesn’t use SEO tool scores in its algorithms, but it still uses PageRank.
Ahrefs’ Domain Rating is designed to simulate PageRank, so a correlation is expected if Ahrefs is accurate.
Backlinko’s study also said:
- “Pages with lots of backlinks rank above pages that don’t have as many backlinks. In fact, the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10.”
However, correlation doesn’t imply causation. High rankings can make a page more visible, leading to more backlinks and citations. Still, the correlation between link authority and higher rankings is strong.
- “We found no correlation between page loading speed (as measured by Alexa) and first page Google rankings.”
The point above is slightly misleading. Google doesn’t adjust rankings based on Alexa page-speed ratings.
Instead, they use Core Web Vitals to assess page performance. Therefore, this statement might be based on poor input data.
On to the next point:
- “Getting backlinks from multiple different sites appears to be important for SEO. We found the number of domains linking to a page had a correlation with rankings.”
The importance of link diversity is generally accepted within the search community.
Study 3: Monster Insights Ranking Factor Findings
Monster Insights, a WordPress plugin provider, determined that backlinks “have a huge influence on Google’s ranking algorithm.” The study was updated Jan. 1.
Monster Insights concluded that sites with higher quality backlinks usually achieve higher Google ranking positions (on average):
- “All in all, backlinks from high-authority websites are more valuable and will boost your rankings more than links from lower-rated sites. Acquiring these links sends a signal to Google that your content is trustworthy, since other high-quality websites vouch for it.”
Making sense of link data and associated claims
While most studies show a correlation between links, rankings, and search traffic, they don’t address causality. Do links cause pages to rank higher, or do high-ranking pages attract more links?
This has been a major debate in SEO for over a decade.
Some have had success with link building, while others have seen no results or even received a manual action from Google.
I trust Ahrefs’ study the most because it provides tools and data without selling link building services, reducing bias. They have a massive index of over 35 trillion live backlinks.
What about AI systems and LLMs?
As hinted earlier in this article, there’s now massive overlap between SEO link building and AI co-citation building.
Why is this?
When users enter prompts (queries) into AI platforms, a check is performed to see whether the data needed to resolve the prompt exists within the AI’s large language model (LLM).
If the required information is not within the AI’s pre-trained model, the AI will then engage in RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) operations.
The AI will use technology to access web content, to see whether such content can be incorporated into its response.
This is particularly important for highly temporal queries.
For example, requests revolving around recent events or news items, which may not yet exist within the AI’s LLM.
As such, AI systems are connected to their own crawl bots, and RAG technologies, to update their information for a single response.
Compared with search engines like Google, there’s a different balance of complexity.
Google gives simple responses (lists of links until AI mode becomes the default) yet is extremely algorithmically complex at the crawl or content assessment level.
For years, Google has been creating updates and patches to fight link spam.
The opposite is true of AI platforms like ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Such systems give rich, nuanced responses. Yet, they are remarkably unsophisticated at the algorithm level.
AI crawl bots and RAG systems aren’t so strong in terms of evaluating a strong link, a spammy link, or whether related citations can be trusted.
As a result, the clock on the effectiveness of link building – or rather, link-adjacent work such as creating related citations within content (where the links themselves matter less than the context) – has effectively been reset.
While this article takes a generally skeptical view of traditional link building, particularly in relation to Google’s current ranking systems, it’s entirely possible that this type of activity is on the verge of becoming highly relevant again.
In the context of AI-driven search, creating co-citations that associate your brand with the information you want to be found for can be a powerful optimization strategy.
“How to get cited by AI: SEO insights from 8,000 AI citations” explores this shift in more depth.
If a player other than Google gains dominance in the AI search space, it’s very possible that link building – or its modern, co-citation-based equivalent – will once again become both prominent and effective in digital marketing.
Understanding the role of backlinks in 2026
Your main takeaway is that links still hold some relevance for SEO in the here and now.
However, traditional link building, which often produces poor-quality links, has been ineffective for some time.
Success requires creative ideas and real-world events that garner high-tier editorial coverage.
While backlinks are becoming less important, they are still a core part of SEO for now.
Adopting a holistic and quality-focused approach in link acquisition and broader SEO strategies will likely yield the best results in this changing landscape.
Most importantly, with the advent of AI systems serving large volumes of users, link building could easily rise to prominence again in the coming weeks or months.
Such systems are response-complex yet algorithmically weak compared to Google’s mainline search engine.