Research: What's Still Working in Link Building According to 2024 Data

The sources consulted for this article include official Google Search Central documentation, quantitative studies from Ahrefs, Semrush, and Backlinko published between 2022 and 2024, statements by John Mueller and Gary Illyes in public formats, and analysis from SEO specialists in both English and Spanish. The coverage period prioritizes 2024 data, with context from the two preceding years where relevant for identifying trends.

Why the Debate Over Link Building Effectiveness Intensified in 2024

Two events dominated the discussion throughout 2024. The first was the leak of Google's internal documents in May of that year, which triggered an intense cycle of analysis about the factors that actually influence rankings. The second was the consolidation of the effects of the Helpful Content Update and the spam updates of 2023–2024, which visibly impacted sites that had aggressively built link profiles in the preceding years.

Adding to this was the growing use of artificial intelligence to generate content at scale, which pressured Google to adjust its quality signals. For those running link campaigns, this raised a concrete question: are the strategies that worked in 2021 and 2022 still valid, or have the rules of the game changed in a structural way? To understand the impact of these updates on active campaigns, it's worth reviewing how Google updates affect a link strategy.

What Google Says About Links in 2024

Google's official position on backlinks has evolved with careful rhetoric. In the Google Search Central documentation (updated in 2024), links are still described as a signal that helps determine the relevance and authority of a page, but the documentation explicitly notes that their relative weight has been adjusted in relation to other content quality signals.

John Mueller, Google's Search Advocate, noted in a Q&A session at Google Search Central in 2023 that "links are just one of the many factors we use, and their importance varies depending on the type of query and page." This statement is not new, but it took on added weight in light of the internal document leak in May 2024, where references appeared to systems such as NavBoost and user behavior signals — which several analysts interpreted as evidence that links might carry less weight than before in competitive queries.

Gary Illyes, a Google analyst, was more direct in a presentation at Search Central Live in 2023, where he stated that links rank third among the most important signals for ranking, behind content and user intent matching. What remained unclear from that statement — and sparked debate among specialists — is whether that hierarchy applies equally across all verticals and countries, or whether it varies depending on the competitiveness of the niche.

Regarding spam policies, the Google Spam Policies (2024 version) consolidated the prohibition of artificial link schemes, including private blog networks (PBNs), mass link exchanges, and link purchasing without the sponsored attribute. Enforcement of these policies became more systematic with the spam updates of March and November 2024.

What Quantitative Studies Show

Backlinko Correlation Study

Backlinko's analysis of one million search results published in 2024 found that the number of referring domains pointing to a page remains one of the variables with the highest correlation to positions in the top organic results. The study notes that pages in position 1 have, on average, 3.8 times more backlinks than pages in position 5 for the same query. However, the same study cautions that correlation does not imply direct causation: in low-competition niches, pages with few or no backlinks can rank well on the strength of their content alone.

Ahrefs Analysis of Pages Without Backlinks

Ahrefs published an analysis on its blog in 2023 examining the percentage of indexed pages that receive organic traffic without having external backlinks. Their data showed that 96.6% of crawled pages receive no traffic from Google, and that the absence of backlinks is one of the common denominators. This is consistent with earlier studies from the same source, but it's notable that the 2023 update maintained a figure similar to previous years, suggesting that the correlation between the absence of backlinks and the absence of traffic has not weakened in any statistically visible way.

For those evaluating whether to invest in the Domain Rating (DR) of the linking site or to prioritize the actual traffic of that site, the comparative analysis available in the research on what correlates more with rankings, DR or link traffic offers a perspective with directly applicable data.

Semrush Study on Quality vs. Quantity

Semrush published an analysis on its research blog in 2024 focused on the relationship between the authority of the linking domain and the ranking speed of the receiving site. Their conclusions indicate that a link from a domain with real traffic and topical relevance produces faster and more sustained effects than multiple links from domains with artificially inflated metrics. This finding is consistent with what several specialists had been observing in practical campaigns.

Authority Hacker Link Building Report

Authority Hacker's 2024 annual report found that guest posting remains the most widely used link building tactic among industry professionals (62% of respondents cited it as part of their active strategy), followed by the creation of linkable assets such as data studies, free tools, and visual resources. Tactics with lower usage or in decline included mass reciprocal link exchanges and direct link purchasing on sites without the appropriate attribute.

What Specialists Are Saying

International Voices

Marie Haynes, an SEO consultant specializing in Google updates, wrote in her September 2023 newsletter that "link building is still relevant, but the type of site the link comes from matters more than ever. A link from a site with real traffic and an active audience is worth more than ten from sites built solely to sell backlinks." Her analysis was published before the 2024 spam updates, but many of her observations proved consistent with the patterns observed after those updates.

Cyrus Shepard, in an X (Twitter) thread from February 2024, noted that diversifying link sources — not only in terms of domains but in types of pages (news sites, blogs, forums, directories) — correlates positively with ranking stability in the face of updates. "Monotonous link profiles are the ones that suffer most every time Google adjusts its weights," he wrote.

Kevin Indig, who publishes technical analysis on his personal site, argued in a May 2024 article that the concept of topical authority is inseparable from effective link building in 2024: "A link from a site outside your topical niche is still useful if the site has general authority, but its effect is smaller compared to one from a recognized reference in the same sector." His position underscores the importance of the semantic context of the link, not just the DA or DR of the domain.

Voices From the Spanish-Speaking Market

Fernando Maciá, CEO of Human Level and one of the most widely cited references in Spanish-language SEO, wrote on his blog in 2024 that the era of "links as votes" is being replaced by "links as context signals": "Google no longer needs to count backlinks to estimate authority; it needs to understand whether that authority is real and relevant to the searcher." His article was published as an analysis of the effects of the Helpful Content Update on Spanish-speaking sites.

Within the analysis of the Latin American market, it is worth considering the data from what link strategies competitors use in LATAM, which documents link profile building patterns across the most competitive verticals in the region.

Points of Agreement Across Sources

The strongest consensus in 2024 is that backlinks from sites with real traffic, topical relevance, and an active audience produce more lasting effects than links from sites built exclusively to transfer SEO authority.

The points where the majority of sources converge are as follows:

• Backlinks remain a ranking signal. No quantitative study from 2024 found evidence that links have stopped mattering. The correlation between referring domains and rankings remains statistically visible.
• Quality outweighs quantity. Both the Ahrefs, Semrush, and Backlinko studies and specialist statements point to the same pattern: a few high-relevance links outperform many low-relevance ones.
• Artificial schemes carry greater risk. The 2024 spam updates demonstrably affected sites with artificial link profiles, reinforcing the shift toward editorial tactics.
• Over-optimized anchor text remains a negative signal. There is no disagreement among sources on this point: anchor text distribution must be natural and diversified.
• Editorial guest posting remains the most widely used tactic with the best perceived effectiveness among professionals, provided the content is genuine and the publishing site has a real audience.

Points of Disagreement

Not all sources agree on everything. The most relevant disagreements for those designing campaigns are as follows:

How Much Does DR or DA Matter Compared to Real Traffic?

Some specialists, such as Kevin Indig, prioritize topical relevance and the traffic of the linking domain over DR or DA. Others, such as Backlinko's analyses, continue to find correlation between authority metrics and rankings. The discrepancy may be explained by methodological differences: correlation studies work with large aggregates, while individual case analyses frequently reveal exceptions. In practice, the operational consensus is that no single metric is sufficient: an ideal link combines high DR/DA, real traffic, and topical relevance.

Are Nofollow Links Still Effective?

Google declared in 2019 that it would treat the nofollow, sponsored, and ugc attributes as "hints" rather than absolute directives, which opened the debate over whether nofollow links provide SEO value. In 2024, the position remains ambiguous: some specialists report having observed positive effects from profiles with a high percentage of nofollow links, while others find no consistent evidence. Ahrefs and Semrush do not include nofollow links in their authority metrics by default, which may underestimate their actual effect if Google considers them in certain contexts.

Does the Speed of Link Acquisition Matter?

Some specialists recommend a progressive, gradual accumulation of backlinks to simulate an organic growth pattern. Others argue that spikes in links, if justified by a real event (product launch, press coverage, published study), do not generate negative signals. Google has not provided a clear official response on this point in 2024, and published case study data is contradictory. The most common operational recommendation is that velocity is not the problem in itself, but rather the lack of contextual justification for it.