With the ever-increasing implementation of AI tools in modern search platforms, SEOs are growing skeptical about the usefulness of earned backlinks in 2025. Google’s AI Overview is one major example - why spend my time creating high-quality content if users won’t scroll beyond the search engine’s automated answer?
Earning backlinks from authoritative sources is not a defunct practice. Google continues to rely on authority signals from high-quality, trusted sites to understand which pages are the best source of information on a given topic - in traditional search and likely in SGE (Search Generative Experience) as well. While there are a plethora of ranking factors Google uses to decide how to populate search results, links from reputable sources still make up a crucial part of these decisions.
How does Google evaluate authority signals?
Google’s PageRank algorithm is guided by the quality of backlinks a page has earned. Although the Search Engine Results Page may look different from the past (and users might get information in a different way through AI overviews), Google’s methodology for populating valuable results still relies on strong backlinks.
Current documentation from Google details that PageRank is “one of the fundamental algorithms at Google.” While it’s “one of…many ranking signals” Google uses to serve relevant results and shouldn’t be an SEO’s sole focus, PageRank plays an important role in how search results are evaluated. Skepticism regarding PageRank’s relevance today has grown, but there is good reason to believe that this system remains a functioning piece of the SERP puzzle.
Sure, Google may not be shouting about PageRank from the rooftops at the same volume it used to. The Google Search ranking systems guide, however, makes it clear that PageRank is one of “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” and “it continues to be a part of our core ranking systems.” Other factors influence modern search results, but PageRank is definitely still in play here.
In addition to doubts about PageRank, a few statements from Google regarding the efficacy of backlinks have led SEOs to believe earning high-quality links is no longer important. In 2024, Google’s John Mueller expressed:
“My recommendation would be not to focus so much on the absolute count of links. There are many ways that search engines can discover websites, such as with sitemaps. There are more important things for websites nowadays, and over-focusing on links will often result in you wasting your time doing things that don’t make your website better overall.”
Some have taken this to mean that links don’t matter anymore and are entirely useless. However, we can come to a different conclusion when we compare this with additional information from Google. The current Philosophy page explains that “Google search works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting links on websites to help determine which other sites offer content of value. We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, which analyzes which sites have been “voted” to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web.”
This is a strong indicator that earning backlinks from trusted sources is instrumental in building your site’s domain authority and winning top positions on the SERP. The word earn is key here - a facet many SEOs miss. In that same Philosophy page from Google, it is stated that “We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank.”
When we compare this with John Mueller’s statement above, we get a fuller picture of the role backlinks play in today’s SEO landscape. It’s not that they don’t matter; it’s that having a few earned links from reputable sites is far more effective than having many paid links that weren’t gained organically. Google isn’t trying to deter us from earning backlinks. Rather, they want sites to focus on quality over quantity in terms of links without trying to game the system with shady practices.
How do Google’s SGE LLMs evaluate authority signals?
The source of Google’s AI overviews is obviously an elephant in the room that must be addressed. There is a prevailing fear that ranking highly in SERPs is a deprecated strategy for building brand awareness and earning traffic, as many worry that AI overviews are an entirely separate entity from traditional search results.
Google largely takes a “mum’s the word” approach when it comes to explaining how SGE decides which pages to use to serve up answers for AI overviews. While the search giant is infamously unwilling to shed light on this process, ongoing research gives some idea as to Google’s decision-making here.
SE Ranking analyzed troves of data to identify overlap between AI overview sources and organic search result, finding that “in 61.90% of cases (79,223 out of the 127,985 links), AI Overviews pull from pages that rank in the organic top 100 for the same keywords.” Their study further suggests that Google gives a massive advantage to high-authority sites with well-built backlink profiles. Although Google is hesitant to deliver an official statement on exactly how these answers are populated, the recent addition of linked sources in AI overviews offers a more insightful glimpse into where the information comes from, with authoritative sites making up the bulk of these results.
The jury’s still out on how Google will continue to evolve its AI overviews, but signs currently point to domain authority being a key factor. Data from the SE Ranking study suggests that sites need to build authority in their niche through compelling content and robust backlink strategies - now does not seem to be the time to run away from earning quality links.
What does the data tell us?
For a more well-rounded perspective on backlinks’ efficacy in 2025, let’s supplement Google’s official statements with some data. A number of case studies have been published (including Stacker’s own in-house study) that evaluate the effectiveness of a backlink profile in elevating a site’s brand authority and impacting downstream performance metrics like traffic.
These studies have largely led to the same conclusion: statistically significant research shows that sites with stronger backlinks perform better overall. Our case study involved paired T-test analyses that found sites experienced significant lift across SEO metrics after building their domain authority through strong backlinks. A study from Rankings.io and Semrush’s 2.0 Ranking Factors study both presented evidence that sites with more high-quality backlinks earned higher positions in the SERP than sites with weak backlink profiles.
Conclusion
The new search landscape before us leaves a lot of questions for the future. A few tried-and-true methods for enhancing your site’s top-of-funnel visibility remain stable, however, and earning high-quality backlinks tops the list. Backlinks don’t exist in a vacuum, either. In addition to expanding your site’s authority, attributive language and positive brand mentions also provide value in improving your visibility and building trust with your audience.
Jacob Posten is a marketing and SEO professional with over 5 years of experience driving impactful digital strategies and enhancing client success. As an SEO Strategist at Stacker, he stays ahead of industry trends to deliver data-driven solutions that maximize visibility and engagement.
Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva