Do Backlinks Still Matter? What Google Has Said, With Dates
Seven of the eight guides we read sell links, and none links to the source of a Google quote. Here is what Google has actually published about links since 1998, and what its staff have said out loud.
Yes, backlinks still matter in 2026. Google's ranking systems guide, last updated in December 2025, says PageRank, its link-based system, "continues to be part of our core ranking systems." What has changed is how many links count. Since 2016 Google has been making spammy links worth nothing rather than penalising them, and its staff now say links matter less than SEOs think. Fewer links count, and the ones that do still carry weight.
We read eight guides that rank for "do backlinks still matter" on 16 October 2026. Seven come from companies that sell link building, SEO services or an SEO tool. Only one quotes a Google employee, second-hand, and none links to the original source of any Google statement. So we built the record ourselves, from Google's own pages and the talks its staff gave.
Why Google uses links at all#
Links were Google's founding idea. Brin and Page's 1998 paper says "PageRank is an excellent way to prioritize the results of web keyword searches." A link was treated as a vote: if many pages point to one page, it's probably useful.
That idea had an obvious weakness. Votes can be bought, swapped and faked, and for twenty years the link-selling industry did exactly that. Most of what has changed since is Google learning to tell the votes apart, not dropping the vote. If you're new to the basics, start with what is a backlink.
What Google has published about links#
Google's documentation has never stopped describing links as a ranking signal. Here is what it says today:
- Ranking systems guide (link): "We have various systems that understand how pages link to each other as a way to determine what pages are about and which might be most helpful in response to a query." PageRank "continues to be part of our core ranking systems."
- How Search works (link): "one of the factors used to determine quality is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content. This is generally a good sign that the information is trustworthy."
- 2021 link spam update (link): "Links are one of the ways Google understands what content may be helpful to searchers, and they can be good for sites to receive, as long as they're well deserved."
That's the published position: links help Google find out what a page is about and whether other sites trust it.
Read the timeline in two colours. Every filled dot is Google writing on its own site, and every one still treats links as a signal. The hollow dots are what its staff said at conferences and on social media, reported by others. Those say links matter less than people think. Both can be true.
What Google's staff have said out loud#
The "links are dying" claims trace back to a handful of remarks. None has a public recording that we could find, so each comes from someone who was there:
- John Mueller, November 2022, at a live Brighton SEO session, as quoted by Search Engine Journal: "over time, the weight on the links at some point will drop off a little bit." In the same answer: "links will always be something that we care about because we have to find pages somehow."
- Gary Illyes, September 2023, at Pubcon, from an attendee's post embedded by Search Engine Roundtable: "I think they are important but I think people overestimate their importance. I don't agree that it's the top 3 and it hasn't been for some time."
- Gary Illyes, April 2024, at SERP Conf, as reported by Search Engine Journal: "We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we've made links less important." He later posted that he "shouldn't have said that."
Notice what none of them says. Nobody at Google has said links stopped working. They said links are overrated, not that they're gone.
The written record moved the same way. In March 2024, Search Engine Journal reported that a line in Google's documentation changed from "Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages" to "Google uses links as a factor." The sentence has since been removed.
Google never said links stopped counting. It said fewer of them count.
What changed: which links count#
The real change is in how Google handles bad links. Three dated steps:
- 2016, Penguin goes real-time. Google's announcement says "Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site."
- 2019, nofollow becomes a hint. Google said the sponsored, ugc and nofollow attributes "are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search." See our dofollow vs nofollow guide.
- 2022, SpamBrain. The December 2022 link spam update uses SpamBrain "to neutralize the impact of unnatural links," and says "any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost."
Put together: a paid, swapped or automated link is now more likely to be ignored than punished. That's why the same number of links can do less than it did ten years ago. The links Google can't tell apart from editorial ones still pass credit, and Google's spam policies still call "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" link spam.
What the data says#
Correlation studies keep finding links next to rankings, and their authors are careful about what that proves.
Backlinko's study of 11.8 million results found "the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10." It also found "the number of domains linking to a page had a correlation with rankings." In Ahrefs' traffic study, "96.55% of all pages in our index get zero traffic from Google," and of about 20 million pages with no referring domains, "only 2,997 of them get more than 1K search visits per month." Ahrefs adds: "Does any of this data prove that backlinks help you rank higher in Google? No, because correlation does not imply causation."
AI search is the newer question. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands to see what goes with being named in Google's AI Overviews.
Link metrics still correlate, at 0.218 to 0.326. Mentions of the brand across the web correlate at 0.664, about three times as strongly as backlink counts. For AI answers, being talked about seems to matter more than being linked. The two usually come together: the coverage that earns a link usually mentions you by name too.
What the ranking guides get wrong#
The eight guides split four ways "as much or more," three ways "less," and one makes no strength claim. None says links are dead. The weak spot is evidence:
- Sources. Five cite a correlation study, but only Rankability links to the studies themselves. Single Grain credits the 11.8 million-result study to "Gotch SEO"; it's Backlinko's.
- Google. Only HawkSEM and Rankability link to Google's documentation. None mentions Illyes's 2023 or 2024 remarks.
- Incentive. Seven of the eight publishers sell link building, SEO services or an SEO tool. That doesn't make them wrong, but it's a reason to check their sources.
What to do about backlinks in 2026#
Step 1: earn links that would exist without SEO. If a link only makes sense as a ranking trade, assume it's neutralized. Editorial links from relevant pages are the kind Google's documents describe. See high quality backlinks.
Step 2: count referring domains, not links. One site linking a thousand times is one vote. Work out your target from the pages that rank, as in how many backlinks do I need.
Step 3: chase mentions too. The AI Overview data favours brands people talk about. Coverage, reviews and expert quotes earn mentions, and many come with a link. Digital PR is built for this, and link reclamation turns unlinked mentions into links.
Step 4: give people something to cite. Original data and useful tools earn links without asking. Our linkable assets guide shows what works.
Step 5: put content first. Illyes said "the top ranking factor is content." Links help good pages rank; they don't rescue bad ones.
Want the links Google still counts? GenLink's agent pitches relevant sites for editorial links from your own domain, every day. No paid placements.
The limits of this evidence#
The staff remarks come from attendee posts and articles, not recordings, and Illyes walked one back. The March 2024 wording change rests on Search Engine Journal's before-and-after, since the sentence is gone from Google's page. Every study here is correlation from a vendor's own index, and the AI Overview figures cover brand mentions, not page rankings. Our eight guides came from a web search on one day, not a verified Google results page.
Links still count, just fewer of them#
Do backlinks still matter? Google's own pages say yes, in 2025 as in 1998. Its staff say they matter less than SEOs assume, and its spam systems make sure fewer of them count. So build fewer, better links, from sites that would link to you anyway. For the full playbook, see our link building guide.
Build links that hold up to SpamBrain. Put one agent on your domain to find relevant sites and earn links on merit.
Frequently asked questions#
Are backlinks still a top 3 ranking factor? Not according to Gary Illyes, who said in 2023 that links aren't in the top three "and it hasn't been for some time." Google has never published a ranked list, though, and its guide still names PageRank as a core system.
Can you rank without backlinks? For low-competition keywords, yes. Ahrefs found pages with no referring domains rarely get much traffic, so competitive keywords still need links.
Do backlinks matter for AI search? They correlate with AI Overview visibility, but brand mentions correlate about three times as strongly in Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands.
Is buying backlinks still worth it? Google's spam policies call it link spam, and SpamBrain is built to detect "sites buying links." At best the credit is neutralized, so you pay for nothing. Our buying backlinks guide covers the details.
Do nofollow links matter? Google treats nofollow as a hint, not a rule, so it may count some. They're rarely worth chasing for rankings alone.
Will Google stop using backlinks? There's no sign of it. Mueller predicted the weight on links would "drop off a little bit," and in the same answer said links will always matter because Google has to find pages.
