In 2025, the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) began, and apart from facilitating people’s workload, AI will soon replace the traditional web search. Because of these, the question “Is link still relevant to SEO?”
In this article, I will delve into whether the link remains relevant to SEO in the era of AI and explore how it can enhance your website’s visibility.
Are you ready to get started? Let’s dive in.
What are Backlinks?
Before we dive right into our core topic, “Is link building still relevant to SEO?“, let’s understand backlinks. Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are the hyperlinks pointing from one website to another, e.g., site A linking to site B.
This process differs from internal linking because internal links are the hyperlinks that link from one page to other pages within your site.
If the question remains, why should one website link to another? Here are reasons that every website must link out to others:
- Provide resources to your readers
- Add values to your content
- Improve user experience (UX).
- Improve SEO performance
Understanding the Role of Backlinks
Backlinks act as votes of confidence for your site, with authoritative sites lending credibility to those they link to. Acquiring links from high-quality and authoritative websites continues to signal trustworthiness of your site to search engines.
Search engines use links, both internal and external (backlinks), to access webpages and analyze various link-related factors to determine their values, relevance, and impact on the search ranking, including the link’s source, anchor text, and the overall topical relevance of the linked page.
There are three different types of links you need to know:
- Backlink, AKA inbound link: A hyperlink from another website to yours.
- Internal link: A hyperlink from one page to another within your site.
- Outbound link: A hyperlink from your site to another website.
Is Link Still Relevant to SEO?
Yes, link building remains relevant and crucial for today’s SEO, but the focus has shifted from quantity to quality. A study shows that 92% of top-ranking websites have at least one backlink, which proves that search engines like Google still value inbound links. Apart from that, websites with a strong backlinks profile usually rank 40% higher than those that have only good on-page SEO.
However, links aren’t built with the same weight. While search engine algorithms have evolved, high-quality backlinks from reputable sources continue to signal authority and credibility to search engines, positively impacting SEO performance and ranking.
Focusing on acquiring backlinks from high-quality and authoritative websites in your niche by implementing ethical white-hat link building from reputable sources in your industry is a game-changer for your website’s visibility and ranking, which leads to sustainable success.
SEO experts agree that focusing on acquiring links naturally through valuable content is more effective than attempting to manipulate the system.
How Link Value Has Changed
Link value has changed significantly over the years, as search engine algorithms now focus less on quantity and more on quality, relevance, and authenticity.
Link value is not static and can change over time. Several factors influence a link’s value, including the context of the link, the authority of the linking website, the relevance of the content, and the type of link (dofollow vs. nofollow).
A link’s value can also be affected by changes to the page it links to, such as broken links or outdated content.
While Google continues to update its major link-related ranking algorithms, such as Penguin, SpamBrain, and Helpful Content, these updates can affect the changes in link value.
Ensure your link values aren’t affected much by future Google algorithm updates over the years; acquiring them from a high-quality, relevant, authoritative, and reputable resource is a must-implement strategy for your link-building campaign.
The Types of Links That Matter Most
In SEO, the type of links that matter the most are internal links, backlinks (especially editorial links), and contextual links. These types of links play a crucial role in driving confidence, authority, credibility, and improving search ranking.
1. Internal Links
- Definition: Links that connect from one page to other pages in the same website.
- Importance:
- User Navigation: Help users easily find relevant content on your site.
- Search Engine Crawling: Allow search engine bots to discover and index all your website’s pages.
- Link Equity: Distribute “link juice” (SEO value) across your site, helping to boost the ranking of important pages.
- Content Clarity: Help users understand the relationships between different pieces of content on your website.
2. Backlinks (Inbound Links)
- Definition: Links from other websites to your website.
- Importance:
- Authority and Trust: Signal to search engines that your website is a credible source of information.
- Ranking Boost: Help improve your website’s visibility in search results.
- Referral Traffic: Drive traffic to your site from the websites that link to yours.
3. Contextual Links
- Definition: Links are placed within the body of your content, rather than in a navigation menu or footer. Usually, these are acquired from niche-relevant guest posts, high-quality resources, niche edit, and more.
- Importance:
- SEO Value: Generally considered more valuable for SEO than navigation or footer links, as they are naturally integrated into the content.
- User Experience: Provide relevant information to users within the context of the content they are reading.
- Link Juice: More effectively pass link equity.
4. Dofollow vs Nofollow
Dofollow and nofollow backlinks differ in how they affect a website’s search engine ranking. Dofollow links pass “link juice,” which is the authority and ranking power of the linking page, to the linked page, potentially boosting its search engine ranking.
Conversely, nofollow links, which include the rel="nofollow" attribute, instruct search engines not to pass on this link juice, meaning they have no direct impact on the linked page’s ranking.
How to Build Backlinks?
Link building is a process of acquiring links from other relevant websites to your website in your niche. The strategy involved developing link link-building outreach campaign, building relationships with other bloggers and influencers, writing guest posts on relevant sites, etc.
However, acquiring a link from a high-quality website in your industry is no longer as easy as it once was.
The process requires some techniques and strategies to acquire one, such as implementing ethical link building, developing a link-building outreach campaign, developing a personalized email outreach template, finding link-building prospects, and much more.
Your link-building email outreach campaigns may look a bit different from each other based on the link-building methods. There are several link-building methods you can use to acquire links from authoritative and relevant sites in your niche.
Here are some useful strategies SEOs use to acquire quality links:
- Build relationships with bloggers, SEOs, and influencers.
- Guest blogging on relevant sites
- Link insertion (Niche edit)
- Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
- Link-worthy Content
- Broken link-building
- Resource page link-building
Outsource Tips:
If you have a lack of in-house SEO and human resources, and want to scale your business growth fast. Consider outsourcing the link-building task to an agency like LinkEmpire, where we've experienced link builders to help you acquire high-quality backlinks to boost your website ranking, drive more organic traffic, and leads.
Link Building Best Practices in 2025
Link-building best practices involve creating high-quality, valuable content that earns natural backlinks from reputable and relevant websites through strategies like guest blogging and broken link building.
Some of the most important practices are understanding your audience, analyzing competitor backlink profiles, personalizing outreach to build genuine relationships, and avoiding spammy techniques.
Regularly monitoring your backlink profile and focusing on long-term strategies also contributes to successful link building.
Here are the most important elements to focus on while implementing a link-building best practices strategy that helps you acquire high-quality backlinks to your site. These include:
- Focus on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
- Leverage digital PR and thought leadership.
- Build links through content worth linking to (guides, studies, infographics).
- Diversify your link profile to avoid algorithmic penalties.
Beyond Links – Other Key SEO Factors
Apart from backlinks, some of the most important SEO elements are focus on user-centered, quality content, a solid technical framework (such as site speed and mobile responsiveness), and a good user experience (UX) through simple navigation and readability.
Additionally, there are more important aspects to consider when it comes to SEO optimization, such as keyword research, on-page optimization with distinctive title tags and meta descriptions, using structured data to gain rich snippets, and using tools such as Google Search Console to track performance and solve problems.
Implement all of these tactics while optimizing your site for SEO, and building more links from reputable websites in your industry will enhance your search visibility and boost your site ranking.
Conclusion
Links remain one of the strongest signals in SEO, but only when they are high-quality, relevant, and natural. Spammy or manipulative link strategies can work in the short term, but don’t tend to stand the test of time.
What builds lasting results is building links that genuinely add value to readers and complement your content.
Looking ahead, SEO success will be shaped by a holistic approach, where compelling content, technical excellence, and strategic link building work together.
Those companies embracing this single strategy won’t just rank higher; they’ll earn trust, authority, and long-term visibility in an ever-evolving search environment.