Are Backlinks Still Important for SEO? The 2026 Answer Is More Nuanced

Are backlinks still important for SEO? Yes—but treating them as a standalone score to maximize is increasingly outdated. The better question for marketers, founders, and content teams is whether other trusted sites, people, and platforms consistently validate what your brand knows, sells, and deserves to be known for.

A recent video on the debate around backlinks argues that Google’s public messaging and many practitioners’ real-world experience can sound contradictory. Google representatives have said links have become less central than they once were, while a Zyppy survey of SEO professionals cited in the video placed backlinks near the top of perceived ranking factors, behind relevance. Both views can be true at once: links are no longer a shortcut around poor content and poor product-market fit, but authoritative, contextually relevant references remain difficult to replace.

The practical implication is not to abandon link building. It is to stop optimizing for links in isolation. Modern SEO teams should build a system that earns useful editorial hyperlinks, increases credible brand mentions, improves topical authority, and gives real people a reason to seek the brand out across search engines, AI assistants, communities, social platforms, newsletters, and trade publications.

Why the backlink debate refuses to disappear

Backlinks have been part of search’s vocabulary for so long that the conversation often collapses into two oversimplified camps. One says links are dead. The other treats every new referring domain as proof of progress. Neither position reflects how search systems or audiences behave today.

A link is, at minimum, a machine-readable relationship between two pages. It can help a crawler discover content and can provide contextual information about what the destination is likely to cover. Historically, links also gave search engines a scalable way to infer that one page or site was worth citing.

That original insight still matters. A reputable industry publication linking to a detailed benchmark study is not equivalent to a network of thin sites linking to a generic listicle. The first represents editorial choice, topical relevance, and a plausible reader journey. The second may represent little more than a transaction.

Google’s own documentation still explains that links help Google find pages, while its spam policies make equally clear that manipulative link schemes can violate policy. That combination is important: Google has not said the web’s link graph is meaningless. It has said that links should not be manufactured primarily to manipulate rankings.

Google’s statement and the practitioner response

The video’s central tension comes from a public statement attributed to a Google Search team analyst in 2023 that links were no longer among the top three ranking factors. That does not mean links became irrelevant overnight, nor does it identify one universal ranking-factor order that applies to every query, country, or content type.

Search ranking is not a fixed checklist where every page receives points from the same ten inputs. A local service page, a breaking-news article, a product comparison, a medical explainer, and a niche software integration guide can each require different evidence of relevance, quality, freshness, usefulness, and trust.

SEO surveys introduce another complication. They measure the informed beliefs and observations of practitioners, not Google’s confidential ranking weights. That makes them useful directional evidence, especially when experienced respondents independently report similar outcomes, but not definitive proof that a factor has a specific numerical value.

The smart conclusion is straightforward: relevance is foundational, and links remain a meaningful way to demonstrate external validation when they are earned naturally and placed in relevant contexts.

Are backlinks still important for SEO in 2026?

The answer is yes, particularly for sites competing in crowded categories, publishing information-rich content, or trying to establish credibility beyond their own domain. But backlinks are best understood as one part of a broader authority and discovery system rather than a commodity.

A new website may publish an excellent guide and still struggle to gain visibility because search engines and users have little external evidence that the site is a credible source. Relevant links can help close that gap. They can also send direct referral traffic, attract subscribers, prompt journalists or creators to discover the brand, and create secondary mentions that never show up in a conventional backlink report.

For an established site, the role of links may be less about basic legitimacy and more about competing at the margin. If several pages are similarly relevant and useful, a strong pattern of high-quality external references can be one reason a page earns more confidence over time.

What backlinks cannot fix

Links cannot sustainably compensate for a page that fails the searcher. They will not turn vague content into an expert resource, hide an uncompetitive product, repair poor site architecture, or persuade readers to trust unsupported claims.

Before investing heavily in outreach, make sure the destination is genuinely link-worthy. It should answer a specific question better than alternatives, provide original information, offer a useful tool or framework, or give a clear perspective from people with direct experience.

A useful pre-outreach checklist includes:

• Does the page solve a distinct problem for a defined audience?
• Does it contain original research, firsthand expertise, data, examples, templates, or product insight?
• Can a writer explain in one sentence why readers should visit it?
• Is the page easy to scan, fast to load, internally connected, and kept current?
• Would the page still be useful if it received no SEO value at all?

If the answer to the final question is no, the problem is usually not a shortage of outreach emails. It is a shortage of substance.

The definition of a valuable backlink has changed

The source video makes a crucial point: the useful definition of a backlink is moving away from sheer volume and toward topical relevance, source quality, editorial context, and brand association. This is less a sudden replacement of link building than a correction to years of metric-driven behavior.

A single link from a respected cybersecurity publication to a security startup’s original vulnerability report may be far more meaningful than dozens of links from unrelated sites. The publication is relevant, the source page has a clear reason to cite the report, the audience is aligned, and the link may lead qualified readers to the company.

By contrast, a link from a generic “top business tools” roundup can have modest value even if the referring site displays a high third-party authority metric. It may still deliver traffic or awareness, but it should not be treated as equivalent editorial validation.

Four signals that make a link more useful

No outsider can see Google’s full weighting model, so avoid pretending that any one metric predicts exact ranking impact. Still, teams can evaluate link opportunities through practical signals:

1. Topical adjacency: Does the referring page cover a subject genuinely connected to your page, product, customer problem, or expertise?
2. Editorial intent: Did a writer, editor, analyst, or community contributor choose the reference because it improved the material?
3. Audience fit: Are the publication’s readers plausible users, buyers, partners, or amplifiers for your business?
4. Context and destination quality: Does the surrounding copy accurately describe the destination, and does the destination fulfill the promise?

These criteria are more durable than chasing a specific number from a link index. Third-party metrics can help prioritize a large prospect list, but they are proxies—not a substitute for editorial judgment.

Nofollow links deserve a more realistic assessment

One of the video’s strongest disagreements with the survey results concerns nofollow links. The speaker argues that SEO professionals may underrate them because the industry spent years treating “nofollow” as synonymous with “no value.” That shorthand was always incomplete, and Google’s policy change in 2019 made it even less reliable.

Google announced that it would treat the nofollow attribute as a hint for ranking purposes rather than an absolute directive, with that treatment applying to crawling and indexing as well. Google also introduced rel="sponsored" for paid or sponsored links and rel="ugc" for user-generated content. The purpose was to give Google more information about the nature of a link, not to create a public promise that every nofollowed citation would pass ranking value.

That distinction matters. A nofollow attribute does not let marketers claim that a link definitely improves rankings. But it also does not justify dismissing a high-quality mention from a major publication, an active community, a trusted directory, or an industry resource.

Value beyond direct link signals

A nofollowed link can create value through several routes:

• It can send qualified referral visitors who convert, subscribe, share, or later search for the brand.
• It can put the brand in front of writers, analysts, creators, and potential partners who may cite it elsewhere.
• It can reinforce the association between the company and a topic, product category, expert, or use case.
• It can produce branded search demand, which is a much healthier business outcome than an isolated rise in a third-party authority score.
• It can diversify a site’s reference profile in a way that looks more like genuine public visibility and less like an engineered campaign.

The important caveat is that not every nofollow link is useful. A low-quality comment, irrelevant profile, or automated listing usually has little audience or brand value. The right question is not “is it dofollow?” but “would we be proud to appear here, and could this reference plausibly help the right people find or understand us?”

Brand mentions are not a magic ranking-factor substitute

As search behavior broadens, marketers are increasingly interested in unlinked mentions: instances where a publisher, podcaster, creator, community member, or customer names a brand without adding a hyperlink. These associations can be commercially meaningful, but they require careful framing.

It is reasonable to say that repeated, credible mentions can improve awareness, shape reputation, and make a brand easier for people to recognize and seek out. It is not responsible to claim that every unlinked mention is a direct Google ranking factor or that AI systems automatically reward any brand name appearing online.

The evidence is clearer on the business side. Familiar brands tend to earn more clicks, more direct traffic, more referrals, more reviews, and more opportunities for editorial citation. Those outcomes can support SEO indirectly and can matter even when rankings do not change immediately.

Association building versus link production

The most useful framework from the original video is its distinction between two kinds of work: link producers and association producers.

Link producers focus on obtaining relevant hyperlinks. Their work may include reclaiming broken links, improving resource-page outreach, identifying unlinked citations, pitching original research, and finding gaps where competitors have earned legitimate references.

Association producers focus on placing the brand in the right conversations. Their work can include digital PR, expert commentary, executive thought leadership, podcast appearances, partner marketing, creator education, conference participation, community contributions, and contributing useful data to journalists.

Both jobs matter, but they answer different questions:

Many agencies overemphasize link production because it is easy to report: number of links, referring domains, estimated authority, and anchor text can all fit into a dashboard. Association building takes longer and may require collaboration with founders, product marketers, subject-matter experts, and communications teams. Yet it is often the work that makes future links easier to earn.

AI search changes the measurement problem, not the need for substance

AI-powered search experiences have made marketers ask whether traditional SEO is being displaced. The more accurate answer is that discovery is fragmenting. People may start their research in Google, ask an AI assistant for options, look for social proof on Reddit or TikTok, consult review sites, and return to a search engine when ready to compare or buy.

Google’s guidance for appearing in AI features does not prescribe a new “AI SEO” loophole. It emphasizes the same baseline: pages should be indexed, eligible to appear in Google Search, and useful to people. There is no special markup or secret optimization that guarantees inclusion in an AI-generated response.

That is why brand association matters. If a company’s only online footprint consists of SEO pages built around commercial keywords, it may be less visible in the places where real questions, recommendations, and peer validation occur. A company that contributes research, helps communities, earns expert commentary, and is repeatedly referenced in its category creates a richer public footprint.

Do not confuse LLM visibility with a single metric

It is tempting to assume that an AI model “sees” the web in the same way as a Google crawler or that a mention in one answer creates a lasting ranking advantage. Those assumptions go beyond what platform providers publicly guarantee.

Instead, measure the outcomes you can verify. Track whether brand demand is increasing, whether referral sessions arrive from relevant sources, whether assisted conversions rise after a PR campaign, whether customers mention a publication or community as their discovery source, and whether more non-branded pages earn legitimate citations over time.

This keeps the strategy grounded. The goal is not to game an opaque model. The goal is to become the company people naturally encounter when researching a problem.

A practical backlink strategy for founders and lean teams

Small teams should not try to imitate enterprise-scale digital PR or buy thousands of placements. They should concentrate resources on assets and relationships that compound.

Start by choosing two or three topics where your business has credible experience. A workflow SaaS company might focus on automation benchmarks, operational playbooks, and implementation lessons. An ecommerce brand might focus on product education, materials sourcing, customer outcomes, and category-specific data.

Then create a narrow set of assets that others have an actual reason to cite. That might be an original survey, a free calculator, a definitive implementation guide, a transparent comparison, a curated data set, or a recurring report that becomes more useful every quarter.

A 90-day execution plan

Days 1–30: Build the foundation

• Audit existing pages that already earn impressions, conversions, links, or mentions.
• Select one topic cluster where the business has proof of expertise.
• Upgrade one flagship page with original insights, examples, visual assets, and a clear point of view.
• Create a target list of 50 to 100 highly relevant publications, newsletters, communities, partners, and resource pages.
• Fix broken internal links and make sure important pages are easy for visitors and crawlers to reach.

Days 31–60: Launch useful outreach

• Pitch a data point, expert perspective, or tool—not a generic request for a link.
• Contact sites that mention your company without linking only when a link would improve reader experience.
• Offer knowledgeable experts for journalist requests and industry commentary.
• Build one partnership asset with a complementary brand, such as a webinar, benchmark, template, or guide.
• Repurpose insight into formats that fit each channel: short social posts, community answers, a newsletter note, and a deeper article.

Days 61–90: Learn and compound

• Separate links that drove qualified visits from links that merely increased a count.
• Review which stories, data points, and pitches generated replies or secondary shares.
• Update the flagship asset based on questions from prospects and partners.
• Double down on the publications and communities where your expertise was genuinely welcomed.
• Document outreach standards so future campaigns avoid low-quality, paid, or manipulative tactics.

This approach creates a flywheel. Better assets make better outreach possible. Better outreach earns stronger references and feedback. Stronger references expose the brand to more potential collaborators and customers, who may create additional demand and citations.

How to evaluate a backlink campaign without vanity metrics

A backlink report that starts and ends with “new referring domains” is incomplete. Quantity may be useful as a leading indicator, but it says little about whether the campaign reached the right audience or improved the business.

Use a scorecard that combines search, audience, and commercial signals. Review it monthly, but interpret it over a long enough period to avoid reacting to normal fluctuations in rankings or traffic.

Core metrics to track

For teams sending transactional messages, brand trust also matters after the click. A prospect who first discovers a company through a respected article may later encounter a product email, receipt, trial notification, or onboarding sequence. Consistency between the public claim and the customer experience is what turns awareness into durable reputation.

Common link-building mistakes to avoid

The pressure to show fast SEO results leads many businesses into tactics that create more risk than value. Google’s spam policies explicitly address practices such as buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, and large-scale campaigns intended to manipulate search results.

Avoid these habits:

• Buying placements on irrelevant sites simply because a tool reports a high authority score.
• Sending mass outreach that asks writers to link to content without offering a genuine reason.
• Overusing exact-match anchor text in guest posts, partner pages, or contributor bios.
• Creating dozens of near-identical “statistics” pages with no original methodology or data.
• Treating every unlinked brand mention as an entitlement to demand a backlink.
• Ignoring technical SEO and content quality while trying to compensate with external links.
• Reporting earned links without reporting whether the placements reached relevant readers.

A sustainable campaign should survive public scrutiny. If a publisher disclosed why your brand was included, would that explanation make sense to its readers? If the answer is yes, the activity is much more likely to build value beyond a single ranking fluctuation.

The strategic takeaway: build references, not just links

The original video is right to reject the idea that backlink building is either obsolete or purely a numbers game. The market is moving toward a more demanding standard: brands must earn useful references from sources that make sense, while also becoming recognizable in the conversations that shape buyer decisions.

That does not mean every business needs national press. A specialized B2B platform may benefit more from being cited in an industry newsletter, a practitioner’s implementation guide, a respected community thread, and a partner’s resource center than from a broad but irrelevant media mention.

The durable principle is relevance. Create work worth referencing, earn distribution from people who already serve the audience you want, and measure the resulting attention as well as the links themselves. In that model, backlinks remain important—but the real asset is a credible, visible brand that the web has reason to talk about.

FAQ

Are backlinks still important for SEO?

Yes. Relevant, editorially earned backlinks can help search engines discover pages and evaluate external signals of credibility. They work best alongside strong content, technical accessibility, clear topical relevance, and a positive user experience.

Do nofollow links help SEO?

Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than an absolute directive, so marketers should not assume such links have zero value or guaranteed ranking impact. High-quality nofollow links can still drive referral traffic, awareness, future citations, and meaningful brand associations.

Are brand mentions as valuable as backlinks?

They are not interchangeable. A contextual hyperlink remains a distinct technical signal and referral path, while a brand mention can build recognition and trust. The strongest strategy earns both through useful content, expert participation, partnerships, and digital PR.

Should startups buy backlinks to compete faster?

No. Buying links primarily to manipulate rankings can violate Google’s spam policies and can create reputational and algorithmic risk. Startups are better served by building highly citeable assets, collaborating with relevant partners, and earning coverage that can deliver customers as well as SEO value.

What is the best backlink metric to use?

There is no single best metric. Evaluate topical relevance, editorial quality, audience fit, referral traffic, placement context, and whether the destination page genuinely fulfills the reader’s need. Third-party authority scores can assist prioritization but should never make the final decision alone.