Is Link Building Still Relevant to SEO?

Link building has long been a key ingredient of successful SEO campaigns.

Within SEO circles, it’s common knowledge that earning backlinks from authoritative websites boosts your site’s ranking potential.

But recent announcements from Google have cast doubt on this core SEO doctrine.

In this post, we’ll unpack Google’s latest stance on the importance of backlinks and discuss to what extent they still matter to SEO.

But first, a quick recap on the role of link building in SEO over the years.

A Brief History of Link Building for SEO

When the Google search engine first launched in 1998, it used a formula called PageRank to determine the importance of a webpage based on the quantity and quality of links pointing to it.

PageRank was based on the idea that information on the internet could be placed into a hierarchy based on link popularity. A page that received links from many other pages, especially high-quality pages, was deemed more authoritative and rank-worthy.

Given the centrality of links in Google’s early algorithm, link building became the go-to strategy for marketers looking to improve their search rankings. 

This led to an explosion of different tactics aimed at increasing the number of inbound links to a site, regardless of the quality or relevance of those links. Techniques such as link farms, comment spam, and hidden links became widespread.

Google was, therefore, forced to evolve its algorithms to maintain the quality of search results. It began to penalize sites that engaged in manipulative link-building practices and prioritized sites that provided valuable, relevant content to users. 

Today, Google’s ranking systems analyze hundreds of factors to determine where a page should appear in its search results. So, although it continues to use PageRank as one of its core ranking algorithms, the model has been integrated into a more complex system that also takes into account signals like user experience, content relevance, and machine learning insights. 

Google’s Latest Stance On the Importance of Links

In light of Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, the company has gradually placed less emphasis on the role of links in determining search rankings.

Here’s a timeline of recent statements made by Google employees about the diminishing importance of links:

• In 2020, Google’s John Mueller stated that “links are not the most important SEO factor.”
• During a 2022 Google SEO office-hours video, Google’s Duy Nguyen said that “backlinks as a signal has a lot less significant impact compared to when Google Search first started out many years ago.” 
• At a 2023 search conference, Google’s Gary Illyes stated “I think people overestimate the importance of links” and links are not a “top three” ranking signal. Illyes also mentioned that “it is possible to rank without links,” citing an example of a page ranking in position 1 for “Porsche cars” that Google had only discovered via a sitemap.
• In March 2024, Google updated its spam policy documentation. The new version says “Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.” Previously, it had described links as “an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”  
• At an April 2024 conference, Gary Illyes said “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”

So, if links are no longer the most important ranking factor, what is?

Well, according to Gary Illyes, the single most important ranking factor is content: “Without content it literally is not possible to rank. If you don’t have words on page you’re not going to rank for it.” 

Assessing Google’s Latest Claims About Links

Many members of the SEO community have responded to Google’s narrative that links are losing importance with a healthy degree of skepticism.

In June 2024, a study by Internet Marketing Ninjas looked at the feasibility of ranking on page one without many backlinks.

They found that over 96% of websites in the top 10 of Google had at least 1,000 referring domains (links from other unique sites). Meanwhile, only 0.3% of top-ranking sites had 100 or fewer referring domains.

In other words, the quantity of links pointing to your domain still appears to strongly correlate with rankings.

Of course, cause and effect is hard to untangle here. For example, the study doesn’t tell us whether the sites in question rank well because of their backlinks or whether they rank well because they contain valuable content (which organically attracts backlinks).

That said, the study definitely calls into question the idea that links are irrelevant to rankings.

The Verdict: Are Links Still Relevant to SEO? 

In short, yes.

Even if we accept Google’s claim that links aren’t the all-important ranking factor they once were, they still appear to play a central role in its ranking algorithm.

In fact, there are several reasons to believe that links will remain relevant to SEO for the foreseeable future.

First, despite what Google has said about links in recent years, at no point has it claimed they don’t matter at all. Google continues to list link analysis and PageRank in the official guide to its ranking systems. 

Likewise, Google’s “How Search works” guide states that one of the ways it determines the quality of content is by “understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content.” 

Another clue that links will remain important to Google can be found in its Search Generative Experience (SGE) documentation. SGE is a new Google feature designed to enhance the way users interact with search results through the integration of generative AI.

The documentation states that: “SGE places even more emphasis on producing informative responses that are corroborated by reliable sources.” In other words, AI-generated results will rely on links to authoritative sources.

With this in mind, it looks like links are here to stay and that link building will continue to play a fundamental role in any successful SEO strategy. 

However, by de-emphasizing the importance of links, Google has highlighted an essential point. Good SEO isn’t just about accumulating links; it’s about crafting relevant, high-quality content that naturally attracts links and delivering the best user experience possible.