Impact of Backlinks on Website Rankings 2023

Everyone in SEO loves to argue about links: 👉 Guest posts 👉 Directories 👉 Press mentions 👉 Partnerships 👉 Random blog outreach So, I decided to test instead of guess. We analyzed 320 backlinks across ecommerce sites to see what actually moved rankings. Here’s what the data showed 👇 ✅ High-authority, niche-relevant links → Consistent ranking lifts (these are gold). ✅ Partnership links (suppliers, distributors, affiliates) → Strong trust signals, low effort. ⚠️ Generic directories → Barely any impact unless hyper-niche. ⚠️ Low-quality guest posts → Sometimes a boost, sometimes a penalty. ❌ Spammy exchanges → A quick way to tank trust. The key takeaway? It’s not about the number of backlinks. It’s about earning links from sites that actually make sense for your business. If Google sees the connection, you win. If not, you’re just building noise.

SEO Study: This analysis of 1M queries found that links still matter. Data showed links were most important for high volume, local + informational queries: This was a solid data study from Patrick Stox from Ahrefs on the importance of links in 2025. The study sought to ask the question "Do links still matter for SEO?". They analyzed 1M queries across top 20 rankings for the correlations to different variables such as backlinks, followed links, referring domains, internal links and more. Here's what he found: 1. In general, the study found that more links still correlated with better rankings. Data showed that both the number of referring domains (0.255) and the number of backlinks (0.248) had the strongest correlations to rankings of any other variable in the study. 2. When segmenting down the data by search volume, Patrick found that links matter even more for high search volume queries. While there was a 0.2+ correlation for queries with 5K volume, it spiked to 0.3+ for searches with 100K+ in volume. 3. Overall, links correlated with rankings slightly less than the last study. In their last study in 2019, links had a 0.27 correlation with rankings. In this study it was between 0.22–0.24. 4. Interestingly, link mattered for local queries a lot. Both referring domains and backlinks had relatively high correlations of 0.33 for local rankings. 5. The study also broke down the correlation by search intent. The data found that for Informational searches, referring domains (0.278) and backlinks (0.269) were most correlated. 6. Surprisingly, links with Commercial intent had the lowest correlation for both referring domains and backlinks with approximately 0.20 for each. This might be because commercial queries are generally lower in volume compared to informational. 7. I was also a bit surprised to see that keywords in the URL had such as negligible correlation (0.034) to rankings. While it's not a huge factor, I thought it would be a bit stronger. I know a lot of people are going to mention that correlation isn't causation, but I appreciate any study that actually brings data to the table.

I rank #1 on Google for high-intent, commercial keywords because I know how to get authoritative backlinks. Plain and simple. You will have a hard time ranking #1 on Google for any legitimate, money-making keywords without strong backlinks. Many business owners underestimate just how crucial backlinks have been and will continue to be for their financial success. From my experience starting multiple B2B and B2C projects, investing in acquiring quality backlinks is non-negotiable. The time to act is now. Here’s why: Backlinks are the strongest factor in SEO rankings. When you compare top-ranking sites to those that lag behind, the differences often come down to the quality and depth of their backlink profiles. While other elements of SEO hold weight, nothing has the same impact as a robust, authoritative set of backlinks. I’ve seen firsthand how this has propelled my own projects to six and seven figure success. The future of search is evolving towards authority-focused models. As search engines pivot more towards AI-driven summaries, overviews, and advanced tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, having authoritative backlinks becomes essential. They signal credibility and relevance -- the cornerstones of surfacing in these next-gen search experiences. So, how should businesses approach backlink building? Here's how I do it: The process starts with my well-curated database of niche-relevant websites (e.g., health, legal, tech) and news publications that can provide meaningful links. Next, once I get those out of the way, I conduct a competitor backlink analysis to find where my profile falls short. Then I reach out to the sites that link to competitors but not me and I find a way to get included. But I don’t stop there. Then I identify unlinked brand mentions and request link insertions. Then I locate broken backlinks within my niche and propose replacing them with my resources. Finally, for the really hard-to-rank-for keywords, I leverage high-tier connections to secure features in major publications. Backlink building isn’t just a short-term play -- it’s a strategy that pays off for years. Prioritize it, diversify your approach, and watch your search visibility soar.

Quality backlinks still matter in 2025…but just differently than before. Ahrefs analyzed over 1,000,000 search results, and found that while backlink metrics correlate slightly less with rankings than in previous years… they’re still critical.  Especially for: ✔️ High-search-volume keywords ✔️ Local search queries ✔️ Informational content And with more and more AI content, Google’s gonna lean harder on links as a trust signal. But I still see too many sites chasing backlinks that don’t move the needle for their rankings. Here’s what's working now: - Digital PR (getting content, data, and reports featured by journalists) - Guest posts that actually provide value (not thin content with keyword-stuffed anchors) - Link exchanges (strategic, no spammy reciprocal linking) - Image outreach (creating link-worthy visuals) - PBNs What's failing hard: - Forum/directory spam links - Blog comments - Web 2.0 - Profile links

Here’s the truth about backlinks in 2025 (from an ex link-building agency owner). I spent 6 years building a 7-figure link-building agency. Sold it six months ago. 10s of thousands of links built. Thousands of clients. Lots of graphs going up and to the right. But I no longer have any skin in the game - I no longer sell links. I have nothing to gain or lose from this. These are just my honest thoughts on backlinks in the AI era. According to Dmytro Sokhach's new 2025 survey, 92% of SEO professionals say their competitors buy backlinks. Fortune 500 companies do it. Your competitors do it. And 73% say they think backlinks help get cited in AI answers like ChatGPT. Here’s what's changed (so far): - ChatGPT looks at page rankings when deciding which sites to cite - Brand mentions (linked or unlinked) matter a lot for brand visibility - Higher-ranking sites get referenced more in AI responses - Backlinks still heavily influence organic rankings (duh) What I'm doing differently: - Adding more brand mentions and positive brand sentiment around links for AI (context wrapping) - More digital PR for high-authority mentions - Stricter vetting to avoid fake metrics (more advanced scams these days) - Listicle posts for manufacturing consensus (not necessarily for links) - More targeted outreach for specific inclusion (not necessarily for links) - More parasite SEO (not necessarily for links) The fundamentals still matter for Google: - Link diversity - Anchor text diversity - Target URL diversity - Relevance (shoulder niches are fine) - Site Health (careful here, lots of fake DR/traffic/etc) Overall, I’m still pretty bullish on backlinks for now. They are a key part of all my SEO campaigns and getting mentions in AI. You can rank without backlinks for low-competition keywords that no one cares about and that are getting gobbled up by AI overviews (and some local stuff). But the moment someone with a link-building strategy enters your space, you're done. And for AI, they still seem super necessary, along with brand mentions everywhere. A lot of the things we used to do for links before, we can modify slightly to have a more AI-centric approach. But that’s just what I think, what about you? I’m sure this will generate some rage comments below. Dropping a link to Dmytro’s study in the comments (great work dudes), as well as a link to my video where I blab about this a lot more.