People also ask
In practice
Link building keeps working because the underlying signal keeps working: a page that many relevant, credible sites reference is more likely to deserve visibility than one nobody references. What has changed is what a “good” link means and where links matter. The metric-chasing era — volume, raw DR, any anchor that moved — has been priced in by search systems that discount manufactured patterns and devalue whole clusters of sites built to sell links.
The surviving practice looks less like SEO plumbing and more like targeted distribution: identify the finite set of pages your buyers actually read before shortlisting (comparison roundups, review lists, alternatives pages), and earn or place your product into those pages with content that belongs there.
The disciplines that make it repeatable: a written plan (which pages, which publishers, which anchors, in what order), qualification before purchase (real traffic, real relevance, no link-farm patterns — a metric floor is a filter, never the verdict), negotiation with publishers rather than transaction with marketplaces, content that stands on its own, and monitoring for the life of the link, because placements get removed and pages die. The AI-era extension runs through the same pages: answer engines citing tool comparisons draw from the same roundups, so a well-placed link now feeds both the ranking signal and the citation layer.
The honest frame for expectations: links are a lever on visibility, not a purchase of rankings — the plan controls inputs and quality; the engines control outcomes.
See also: Backlink, Link relevance, Link building basics for founders.
