With AI taking over everything, do backlinks still hold Matter for website ranking? With about 50% of people using AI to search instead of traditional search, it begs the question if you should care about backlinks.
So… What are backlinks?
A quick refresher: a backlink is when another website links to yours. For a few years, search engines treated every link like a vote, essentially the more votes you had from a trusted site, the more they believed you deserved to be ranked on Google. That’s why an entire industry popped up around buying, trading, and begging for backlinks. You can buy a backlink, but it’s going to cost you anywhere between hundreds to thousands of dollars. but then AI showed up, and it changed how people looked for answers.
This shift is real. According to Pew Research in a 2026 survey of over 5,000 US adults, nearly half of them (49%) now use AI chatbots, up from 33% in 2024, and searching for information is the number one reason people use them. Even people who stick with Google are seeing AI; 60% of US users read the AI summaries that show up at the top of search results.
Google started to soften its stance on links. According to Gary Illyes, a top executive at Google, backlinks are no longer a top three ranking factor, and it has been like that for the past few years. So the small business owner spending money on backlinks is fair to wonder if that money just went down the drain.
Backlinks do still matter, and here’s what small business need to know. AI tools do not make up their answers out of thin air, even though it seems that way. AI models are searching for answers on the Internet. Typically, they are still getting their answers from pages that are already ranked well in traditional search. That means that backlinks didn’t die; they moved one step back in the line in rank-ability. Links help you rank, ranking helps you get found by AI, and getting found by AI puts your brand in front of other people asking the question.
Backlinks still have an importent job, it just not the same as it was 5 years ago.
They feed your rankings. Websites on the first page of Google still have far more backlinks than pages below them, and AI tools learn from those top pages.
They help search engines find you. Crawlers follow links to discover new pages. No links pointing to a page means it gets found slower or not at all.
A strong backlink aslo mentions your brand name. That is the biggest change that brand mentions and links pull double-duty in website ranking and AI ranking. Essentially, Brand mentions are a stronger predictor than backlinks.
Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands to see what actually predicts whether a brand shows up in Google's AI Overviews. The winner was not backlinks.
Brand mentions on the web had a correlation of 0.664 with AI visibility. Backlinks came in at just 0.218. That is roughly three times weaker. A follow-up study that added ChatGPT and Google AI Mode found YouTube mentions were the strongest signal of all, at about 0.737.
The brands in the top 25% for web mentions earned more than 10 times the AI Overview citations of the group right below them.
So essentially, AI cares less about whether someone linked to you and more about whether people are talking about you, links or not.
This is why I’m always saying that branding always wins. Branding is at the heart of business. It’s what people talk about, and how you’re going to grow your business and get noticed.
Here’s what you should stop doing because it’s no longer useful for you:
Stop buying links from shady sites that make big promises. These are two types of bad links you should avoid, link farms—networks of websites that exist only to create backlinks. It’s a collection of different types of industries all in one place that don’t really make sense, like a yoga studio and crypto currency. The second one is spam directories, which are low-quality listing sites that will list any business for a fee with no reviews or curation. Avoid these in favor of legitimate platforms like Google Business Profile or local directories, like chamber of commerce which are still worth being on. These types of sites really do prey on new businesses, claiming that they can guarantee that you will rank higher on Google. However, Google has been cracking down and penalizing these tactics for years.
Chasing link volume is no longer a viable tactic. Ten links from a random site will not beat one feature in a publication your customers actually read.
Stuffing keywords into your anchor text. I’ve worked with so many founders who think that they can get away with stuffing a bunch of keywords in white text at the bottom of their footer. Over-optimizing anchor text has actually been linked to lower AI visibility, and overall Google typically will penalize your site if you do this.
What you should actually do that’s working:
If you’re trying to get featured in AI search or getting ranked, mentions do really help. So if you are a small business owner or content creator who’s trying to launch a digital product or start a business, this is what I would do.
Gather information about where your target audience hangs out online. Are they reading local news, podcasts, newsletters, Reddit, YouTube or even community Facebook groups? That counts in building reputation with AI, even without a link.
Reach out to get on lists. "Best of", roundups, business spotlight these types of list are good for backlinks and brand recognition, These types of websites are typically reputable, like Forbes and other popular blogs, where they write best-of lists. For example, if you have a skincare product, you could be mentioned as the best small business skincare brand. These are different from the link farms and spam directories I mentioned. Typically, you’re not necessarily paying a fee; sometimes you can offer an affiliate link for them. This type of backlink building still helps with traditional and AI ranking. The lists can be extremely lucrative, that is why they are so popular for both consumer to compare and for business.
Collaborate with a YouTuber. If there is somebody on YouTube that talks about small businesses or within your niche, I would reach out to them and see if they would be interested in collaborating. From the above research, YouTube mentions were the strongest signal. If there is a creator talking about your product on camera; that may be worth more than a dozen blog links.
Keep your website worth crediting. AI tools favor fresh content. About 65% of AI bot visits go to content published within the past year. Update your key pages, answer real questions clearly, and include specific numbers and examples. If you are in need of topics to talk about, this is a great website to find topics people are talking about in your niche: People Also Ask keyword research tool | AlsoAsked. The last few things that you could do are brand search and track your mentions. This is something that I do every month with a brand. If more people search your business by name, AI and Google both take notice of every piece of content or collaboration that you do. And with mentions, you can use ChatGPT or Perplexity or whatever AI you use. You want to ask what your ideal customer is, asking and see if you show up; that is your new report card, and I do this at the end of every month.
So to recap:
Backlinks still matter. They are the foundation that helps your page rank, and ranking helps AI recommend your site, But the foundation is no longer the whole story.
The brands that win in AI search are not the ones with the most links. They are the ones where people cannot stop talking about your brand. It is your brand that needs to be the strongest.
So stop asking, "How do I get more backlinks?" and start asking, "How do I give people a reason to talk about my brand?" Answer that one, and the links usually follow. But this has always been the way: when you have a strong brand, people talk about you. People mention you without even being asked; they write blogs, they create content, and that’s the real goal that you want to accomplish.
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