The SEO world is having another one of its periodic identity crises, and this time backlinks are in the hot seat.
On one side, you’ve got the “links are dead” crowd pointing at AI Overviews and ChatGPT citations, arguing that when Claude can cite your content without caring about your domain authority, traditional link building has become as relevant as a VHS collection. On the other side, link builders are doubling down, insisting that backlinks are more crucial than ever because they determine what gets scraped into AI training datasets in the first place.
Both sides are yelling past each other, and honestly? They’re both right and both wrong.
The “Links Are Dead” Camp Has a Point
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth that’s making link builders sweat: AI models don’t give a damn about your DA score.
When Perplexity cites your article about sustainable farming practices, it’s not because you have 500 referring domains. It’s because your content directly answered the user’s question with accurate, comprehensive information. The AI read your content, found it relevant and trustworthy based on the data itself, and cited it.
This is fundamentally different from how Google’s algorithm worked for the past two decades. PageRank was built on the premise that links = votes = authority. More links from authoritative sites meant higher rankings… simple math.
But AI models are evaluating content quality more directly. They’re looking at:
- Factual accuracy and consistency with other sources
- Comprehensiveness and depth of information
- Clarity and structure of the content
- Recency and relevance to the query
Your 2019 guest post on a random marketing blog with DA 40? The AI doesn’t care. Your well-researched, cited article that actually answers questions? That’s what gets referenced.
But Links Aren’t Actually Dead (Sorry, Not Sorry)
Here’s where the “links are dead” crowd gets it wrong: they’re confusing how links work with whether links work.
The dirty secret about AI training datasets? They don’t magically discover every piece of content on the internet. Training data comes from crawled web content, and guess what determines crawl priority and discovery? Links. Backlinks. The same signals we’ve been chasing for 20 years.
If your content isn’t linked to, indexed properly, and associated with authoritative domains, it’s less likely to make it into the datasets that train these AI models in the first place. You can’t get cited by an AI that’s never seen your content.
Plus, let’s be real about where AI models are pulling their citations from right now. Look at the sources in ChatGPT responses or Claude citations. They’re not random blog posts. They’re typically content from:
- Established publications with strong link profiles
- Government and educational institutions
- Well-known industry authorities
- Sites that have been cited and referenced extensively
Coincidence? I think not.
The Authority Evolution: Same Game, Different Rules
Here’s my take: building authority from high-quality websites is still crucial, just not in the same way it was important 10 years ago.
Ten years ago, link building was often about gaming the system. Get enough links from enough domains, and you could rank for almost anything, regardless of whether your content deserved it. The focus was on link quantity, DA manipulation, and elaborate link schemes.
Today’s authority building looks different:
- Quality over quantity became quality over everything. One mention from a truly authoritative source in your industry can be worth more than 100 directory links or guest posts on random sites.
- Relevance beats raw authority. A link from a niche industry publication might matter more than one from a general high-DA site that has nothing to do with your topic.
- Context and co-citation matter more. Being mentioned alongside other respected sources signals authority to both traditional algorithms and AI models.
- Brand building and link building converged. The best “link building” strategies now look suspiciously like PR, thought leadership, and genuine relationship building.
What Actually Works in the AI Era
Smart link builders (the ones who aren’t panicking) have evolved their strategies:
- Focus on citation-worthy content. Instead of creating content to attract links, create content so good that AI models will want to cite it. Then the links follow naturally.
- Build relationships, not just links. When industry experts know and trust your work, they cite it in their content. When AI models train on that content, your expertise gets baked into their understanding.
- Target sources that AI models already cite. Look at where ChatGPT and Claude are pulling information from in your industry. Those are the publications and platforms worth getting mentioned on.
- Optimize for discoverability across channels. AI training datasets are pulled from social media, forums, industry publications, and traditional websites. Diversify your authority-building.
The Uncomfortable Middle Ground
The reality is that links haven’t died—they’ve just stopped being a cheat code.
You can’t buy your way to authority anymore with a pile of guest posts and directory submissions. But genuine authority signals—being referenced by peers, cited by experts, mentioned in industry discussions—still matter enormously. They just happen to look more like actual authority and less like SEO manipulation.
AI models are actually making link building more legitimate by caring more about the substance behind the links than the links themselves. But the pathway to getting that substance recognized and included in training datasets? Still runs through many of the same authority signals we’ve always tracked.
The Bottom Line for Link Builders
Stop building links for the sake of links. Start building authority for the sake of being worth citing.
The best backlink strategy in 2025 looks like:
- Creating content so valuable that experts naturally reference it
- Building relationships with the people AI models are learning from
- Getting mentioned in the places where authoritative information lives
- Focusing on quality signals that indicate genuine expertise
Links aren’t dead. Link spam is dead. And that’s exactly how it should be.
The future belongs to the people who understand that authority was always supposed to be earned, not manufactured. AI models are just better at telling the difference.
Sincerely,
Brooke
Director of SEO at RiZen Metrics
Scranton, Pennsylvania
If you enjoyed reading this, please explore our other articles below.
