Links are still one of the strongest ranking signals, but the count matters far less than who is doing the linking.
A backlink is just a link from one website to another. Google treats these links like votes of confidence. If trusted sites link to your page, you have a better chance of ranking higher. Links aren’t the only ranking factor anymore; the total number matters less than it used to. Still, who links to you often separates the top three results from the rest of page one.
What makes one link worth more than another
Start with relevance. A link from a trade publication your buyers read is worth much more than fifty links from unrelated directories. Next is authority, which is about how much trust the linking site has built up. Placement matters too. A link in the main part of an article is stronger than one in a footer or author bio, since those are repeated everywhere and aren’t as meaningful.
Anchor text tells Google what the linked page is about. A healthy link profile mixes brand names, plain URLs, phrases like this guide and only a few descriptive keyword anchors. If 40% of your anchors use the exact commercial term, it looks artificial—because it is.
Followed, nofollow and the rest
A followed link helps your rankings. The rel attribute can label a link as nofollow, sponsored, or ugc and since 2019, Google treats these as suggestions, not strict rules. So a nofollow link from a national newspaper still has value. It might not pass ranking signals directly, but it gets seen, brings referral traffic and puts your brand in front of people who may later search for you by name.
How links actually get earned
Three things reliably attract backlinks. First, original data that no one else has, since journalists often need unique numbers to cite. Second, sharing real expertise with writers on tight deadlines; and third, supplying tools that save people time, which can earn links again and again over the years.
What does not work is asking politely at volume. Cold outreach with nothing behind it converts at a rate that makes the time cost obvious within a month. Our /digital-pr/ work starts from what a publication would want to run, not from a link target, because the link is a by-product of the story being worth covering.
Links to avoid
Avoid paid placements that look like editorial content, guest post networks, large-scale link exchanges, bulk directory submissions and comment or forum spam. Google usually ignores these instead of penalising you, so you mostly waste your budget. If you do this at scale or leave a clear pattern, it becomes a link scheme and you could face real penalties.
Measuring whether it is working
Focus on tracking referring domains, not just the total number of backlinks. Fifty links from the same site only count as one. Watch how many unique domains link to you each month and compare that trend to a few competitors. Rankings for tough keywords usually follow this trend after a few months, which is why link building can seem slow until it suddenly pays off.
Common questions
How many backlinks do I need to rank?
There isn’t a set number. It depends on how many links the top-ranking pages already have. Check the referring domain counts for the top five results for your target keyword to get a sense of what you need. For a low-competition local term, you might only need five. For a national commercial term, you could need several hundred.
Do backlinks still matter with AI search?
In an indirect way, yes. AI systems usually pull answers from pages that already rank high, they tend to cite sources that other sites reference. If your site is linked to and mentioned often, you’re more likely to be chosen as a source. Even unlinked brand mentions help here.
Should I buy links?
You shouldn’t buy links. It goes against Google’s guidelines and you take on all the risk, not the seller. The real issue is that bought links are usually on sites made to sell links,and Google is good at spotting and ignoring those.
What is a disavow file and do I need one?
A disavow file tells Google to ignore certain links to your site. Most sites don’t need one. Only use it if you have a manual penalty for unnatural links or know that a previous agency bought lots of links. Otherwise, don’t worry about it.
See our glossary entry for backlinks.
