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Backlinks still matter as part of how people discover useful pages, but a high link count is not a reliable measure of whether link building is working—or whether a site will appear in an AI-generated answer. Evaluate links by their relevance, editorial context, audience value, referral performance and compliance with search-engine policies, not volume alone. Current evidence shows changes in how people interact with Google results that contain AI summaries; it does not show that a particular number of backlinks causes citations in AI answers.
Do backlinks still matter for AI search?
Links can help people find a page and give readers useful context about its sources. But the available evidence does not establish that backlink volume causes a site to be cited in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT or other AI search products. Nor is there a universal link count that guarantees visibility.
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Google’s guidance focuses on links that are useful and understandable to readers. It recommends descriptive, concise anchor text that is relevant both to the page containing the link and to the destination. As Google puts it: “Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it’s on and to the page it links to.” Google Search Central’s link best practices also advise placing links in context rather than crowding them together, and say important pages on a site should have at least one internal link from another page. Google notes there is no magical ideal number of links for a page.
What the Google AI-summary click data shows—and what it does not
A Pew Research Center study published in 2025 found that users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits to Google results pages with an AI summary, compared with 15% of visits to pages without one. A link inside the AI summary was clicked in 1% of visits when a summary appeared.
#1 Best Overall
The figures describe observed behavior, not a universal forecast or a test of link-building tactics. Pew analyzed browsing data from 900 U.S. adults in March 2025, covering 68,879 unique Google searches; 12,593 searches produced an AI summary. Researchers collected the corresponding result pages from April 7 to 17, 2025, and cautioned that a query’s summary can change over time. The results concern Google and that observation period, not other AI products or all search users.
In that same sample, 18% of searches generated an AI summary, and 58% of respondents made at least one Google search in March 2025 that produced one. Summaries appeared for 53% of searches with 10 or more words, versus 8% of one- or two-word searches; 60% of searches beginning with question words such as “who,” “what,” “when” or “why” produced a summary. These numbers indicate where summaries appeared in the studied sample, not how backlinks affect inclusion. Although 88% of the summaries cited three or more sources, the study does not show that link quantity made those sources more likely to be cited.
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How to distinguish useful link building from link spam
Google defines link spam as “the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” Its spam policies identify examples including buying or selling links intended to pass ranking credit, excessive reciprocal exchanges, automated link creation, low-quality directories, keyword-rich links in distributed widgets or footers, and optimized links in forum comments.
Paid advertising and sponsorship are not inherently prohibited. Google says such links should be qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". A sound campaign should earn attention or useful referral traffic on its merits, rather than depend on passing ranking credit in a way that violates policy.
- More promising: A relevant publication links naturally to a useful page in editorial context, where its audience could benefit from the recommendation.
- Higher risk: Links are bought to pass ranking credit, generated automatically, exchanged excessively, or placed in low-quality directories or optimized comments.
- For sponsorships: Disclose and qualify paid links appropriately, and judge the placement by its audience and referral value rather than an assumed ranking boost.
Are brand mentions as valuable as backlinks?
There is no established answer in the evidence available here that an unlinked brand mention has the same value as a backlink, or that either independently causes visibility in AI answers. A 2025 industry survey reported that 80.9% of respondents believed unlinked brand mentions affect rankings, while 73.2% believed links influence AI-search visibility. Those are practitioners’ beliefs, not controlled ranking findings.
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Search Engine Land’s report identifies Editorial.Link as the survey publisher; Editorial.Link is a link-building agency whose business centers on selling those services. The figures are useful as a snapshot of industry opinion, but they should not be treated as proof that backlinks or mentions cause AI visibility.
How to assess a link-building opportunity
Use these questions to compare placements. This is a practical evaluation framework, not a Google scoring system or a formula for AI-search inclusion.
- Relevance: Does the referring page serve a similar subject and audience, so the link belongs there naturally?
- Context and placement: Is the link clearly explained in useful editorial material and likely to be noticed by a person?
- Audience value: Could readers follow it to your page and become visitors, leads or customers? Define the outcome that matters before paying for a placement.
- Policy and qualification: Is a paid placement disclosed and qualified with the appropriate
relvalue? Does the tactic resemble a pattern Google’s spam policies identify? - Destination quality: Does the linked page offer accurate, original, useful information that merits a recommendation?
- Cost and measurement: Is the placement worth its cost based on the audience and outcomes you can track, without assuming access to private ranking data?
How to measure whether link building is working
Track outcomes a publisher can observe. Use referral analytics to see whether a placement sends visitors, and assess whether those visits lead to the business outcomes you defined. Review the placement’s relevance and context, and record its cost and link qualification. Search visibility can be monitored with analytics and third-party SEO tools, but their estimates are not Google’s internal ranking data and cannot guarantee rankings or AI citations.
Be cautious with vendors promising guaranteed AI citations or precise claims about undisclosed ranking weights. Google’s guidance on third-party SEO tools and advice says vendors do not have Google’s internal ranking data, Google does not evaluate third-party services, and using a tool does not guarantee rankings. Check vendor recommendations against Google’s published link policies. For AI-generated material on your own site, Google’s guidance on generative AI content is also relevant: prioritize useful, reliable content for people rather than treating automation or a link-count target as a shortcut to visibility.
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