AI search looks very different from what most of us grew up with. Instead of ten blue links, we now get AI Overviews, answer boxes, and chat-style results that summarize the web for us. It’s easy to assume this new layer has replaced the old rules and that backlinks, in particular, no longer matter. That assumption is wrong.
Behind the flashy AI interface, search engines still need a way to decide which pages to trust and which sources to pull into AI answers. Backlinks remain one of the main ways they do that.
To show up in those AI summaries, you usually have to be visible in classic search results first, and you need a backlink profile that tells search engines: “this site is a reliable voice on this topic.”
A similar pattern shows up outside pure SEO metrics too. Brands that consistently publish helpful content, earn mentions on relevant sites, and get referenced as a trusted source tend to attract more organic traffic and brand searches than equally good but invisible competitors.
Let’s unpack what’s actually going on.
What Really Changed with AI Search (and What Didn’t)
AI Overviews and AI answers feel new, but under the hood they still lean heavily on the same two layers:
- The traditional search index: The huge database of pages that Google, Bing, etc. crawl and rank.
- A generative layer: A model that reads a handful of those pages and writes a summary.
Most of the time, those AI answers don’t come out of thin air. They quote or link to existing pages. If you don’t show up somewhere in traditional search, your chances of being featured in AI answers are much lower.
And what still has one of the strongest correlations with good rankings? Backlinks. That’s why companies still invest in link building services, like those offered by backlinkers.com as part of their search strategy: not because links are trendy, but because they’re still one of the strongest “trust” signals machines have.
What Backlinks Actually Do for You
Think of a backlink as a public recommendation. When another site links to you, it’s saying, “this page is worth visiting.” Search engines treat that as a signal in several ways:
- Authority: If many relevant, trusted sites link to you, you look like an authority. Multiple studies in recent years show that pages with more referring domains (different websites linking to them) tend to rank higher and for more keywords. Put simply, backlinks help search engines see which sites are genuinely trusted, and over time, that trust helps you grow online authority in your niche.
- Topical relevance: It’s not just the number of links. Links from sites in your niche tell search engines what you’re about. A link from a respected cybersecurity blog to your security tool carries more topical meaning than a random link from a lifestyle site.
- Discovery and crawling: Search bots follow links. If strong, frequently crawled sites link to a new page, that page tends to get discovered and indexed faster. In an AI world where freshness matters, being indexed quickly is a real advantage.
- Reputation “scorecard:” When Google and others look at a domain, they don’t only see content. They see the pattern of links coming in: from which sites, how often, and in what context.
How AI Systems Lean on Backlinks (Even if They Don’t Say So)
AI assistants and AI Overviews don’t typically announce “we used backlinks to pick this source,” but backlinks shape the pool of content they work with.
Here’s how:
AI Overviews Sit on Top of Traditional Rankings
For AI Overviews on Google, the connection is clear: independent research has found that a large majority of cited pages in AI Overviews rank in the top 12 organic positions.
Strong rankings → higher chance of inclusion in AI answers → more visibility, even if the user never scrolls.
Because backlinks are still a key driver of those rankings, they indirectly influence whether your content ever appears in AI Overviews at all.
AI Assistants’ Bias Toward “Trusted” Domains
Outside of Google, tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot mix search results with their own retrieval pipelines. When they fetch pages to read, they often:
- Pull from search APIs that already favor authoritative sites
- Maintain internal lists or heuristics for “credible” domains
- Down-rank obvious spam, link farms, and thin affiliate sites
Those credibility judgments come heavily from links. A domain with years of consistent, relevant backlinks from reputable sources looks far safer than a brand-new site with a suspicious link pattern.
Human Behavior Reinforces Link-Based Authority
The sites that earn good links usually also attract more direct visits, branded searches, social mentions, and citations in articles and reports. Those behavior signals are increasingly important ranking factors, too.
You can’t easily get those signals at scale without some level of link-driven visibility.
What “Good Backlinks” Mean in the AI Era
The bar for “good” links is higher than it used to be. A decade ago, sheer quantity could move the needle. Today, with spam filters, link spam penalties, and more sophisticated models, that approach is risky and often pointless.
Modern, AI-era backlinks tend to share a few traits:
- Relevant sites in your space: Links from topically related sites (industry blogs, niche publications, partners, associations) are far more useful than random high-metric domains that barely relate to you.
- Editorial placement: A link placed by a real editor or writer because your content helped them is worth far more than a paid directory or obvious guest post farm.
- Unique referring domains: Data shows that having links from many different domains correlates more strongly with good rankings than having many links from the same few sites.
- Natural, descriptive anchors: The clickable text (anchor) should make sense to a human and match the context. Over-optimized anchors (“best cheap blue widgets NY”) on low-quality pages are a red flag.
- Clean profile (no spam tactics): Large numbers of obviously bought links, site-wide footer links, spun content, or private blog networks can all trigger manual or algorithmic demotions. Google still warns that links meant mainly to manipulate rankings break their guidelines.
Common Myths Worth Dropping
A few beliefs pop up again and again; they don’t hold up under current data.
Myth 1: “AI Made Links Irrelevant”
Reality: most AI Overview citations still come from pages with strong organic rankings, and strong organic rankings still correlate with better backlinks.
Myth 2: “Only Followed Links Matter”
Reality: nofollow, UGC, and other “hint” links may not pass value in the old PageRank sense, but they still help with discovery, brand awareness, and behavioral signals. Many SEO specialists report seeing ranking movement after coverage that technically used nofollow links.
Myth 3: “Social and Brand Will Fully Replace Links”
Reality: social proof and brand searches are important, but most large studies still show that backlinks are among the strongest measurable correlates of high rankings, alongside content quality and page experience.
You don’t have to pick one. Strong brands tend to earn strong links; strong links help more people discover and search for your brand.
Closing Thought
AI has changed how results look. It hasn’t changed the basic problem search engines are trying to solve: among millions of pages on a topic, which ones can we trust?
Backlinks remain one of the clearest, hardest-to-fake signals of that trust. They help search engines and AI systems decide what to read, what to quote, and who to treat as an authority. If you keep publishing genuinely useful content, earn mentions from relevant sites, and avoid spammy shortcuts, backlinks will quietly keep doing what they have always done.
