Yes. Google still uses links in its ranking systems, and says its AI search features rely on those systems. But research from Ahrefs found that how often a brand is mentioned across the web tracks much more closely with appearing in AI answers than how many backlinks it has.
That doesn’t mean mentions have replaced links, or that buying mentions will get you recommended by ChatGPT. It means a link-building program deserves a harder look: whether its links help your search performance, whether the sites matter to your buyers, and whether the work also gets your company talked about where it counts.
Four things that often get lumped together
It helps to separate what you might be paying to improve:
- Backlinks: links from other sites to yours, which help pages rank in Google.
- Brand mentions: other sites, videos and discussions naming your company, with or without a link.
- AI citations: the sources an AI answer shows to support what it says.
- AI recommendations: an AI answer actually naming your company when someone asks for options.
They overlap, but you can improve one without moving the others. A link that helps a page rank in Google doesn’t necessarily make ChatGPT more likely to recommend you.
What Google says
Google’s guide to its ranking systems says PageRank, its original link-based system, “continues to be part of our core ranking systems.” Its guide to optimizing for generative AI features, updated in July 2026, says those features “depend on” its core ranking and spam systems, and that optimizing for them “is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.”
That gives links a plausible indirect role in Google’s AI answers, though Google hasn’t said how much weight they carry there. The AI guide doesn’t mention backlinks at all. It does say AI features can show “what’s being said about products and services,” including in blogs, videos and forum discussions, and it warns that “seeking inauthentic ‘mentions’ across the web isn’t as helpful as it might seem.”
ChatGPT, Perplexity and the other assistants retrieve and weigh information in their own ways and don’t publish how, so nobody outside those companies can tell you what role links play in their answers.
What the research shows
Ahrefs selected about 75,000 brands to see what tracked with being mentioned in Google’s AI Overviews (May 2025). Mentions of a brand across the web had a correlation of 0.66 with its AI Overview visibility. The number of backlinks came in at 0.22, and referring domains and Domain Rating at around 0.3. In Ahrefs’ words, AI Overview visibility “correlates weakly with link metrics.” A follow-up in December 2025 covering ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews found mentions of a brand in YouTube videos (in the title, transcript or description) had the strongest correlation of the factors measured, with web mentions close behind, and link metrics again “very weak.”
Three cautions. It’s correlation, not proof that mentions cause visibility. Big, established brands have more of everything: mentions, links, searches for their name. And the studies only looked at established brands, sites with a Domain Rating above 40 and a branded search term with real volume, so they may tell a smaller company with little name recognition less than they seem to.
Still, it’s a strong enough signal that I’m acting on it. My own decision to lean much more into video in 2026 relates directly to findings like this, though that’s a call for my situation, and yours may point somewhere else.
Should you keep paying for link building?
It depends on what the program is producing.
| Your situation | What I’d do |
|---|---|
| You’re earning relevant editorial links, rankings are improving and qualified organic traffic is growing | Keep it. Don’t disrupt something that’s working. |
| Your vendor delivers a set number of links a month, mostly on sites unrelated to your business | Audit it before you renew. Link count alone is a weak reason to keep paying. |
| You rank well in Google but rarely appear in AI answers | Look at which sources the AI answers in your category cite (here’s how to check). More links may not fix it. |
| Your content or technical SEO is weak | Fix those first. Links and mentions won’t make up for pages that don’t deserve to rank. |
| Few people in your market know your name yet | Consider industry press, associations, partnerships and useful original material, which can earn links and mentions at the same time. If you already sponsor events, associations or causes, ask for the link and the mention on their site and in what they share. |
What to ask your link-building vendor
- Can you show me every link earned in the last six months, the page it’s on, and whether it’s followed, nofollow or sponsored?
- Why is each of those sites relevant to our business and the customers we want?
- Which of our pages are the links meant to help, and how have those pages performed?
- How many placements also mention our company by name, and do any send visitors or leads?
- Are any of these placements paid, and if so, are they marked as sponsored?
- What would you change if we wanted to improve how often we show up in AI answers as well as Google?
Paying an agency for real outreach and editorial work is different from paying sites to place links meant to move rankings, which Google treats as link spam. Nobody can prove the effect of each individual link. What you’re looking for is a strategy that makes sense and evidence that it’s paying off.
How I’d change a program
Make each month answer to something. The trouble with a plan that’s just a set number of links a month is that nobody revisits it. Each month should start with where the opportunities are and why, and end with whether it worked.
Check the quality of the links, not just the anchors. A link profile dominated by keyword-stuffed anchor text is worth investigating, because Google’s spam policies list keyword-rich anchors in distributed articles and guest posts as link spam. But don’t start forcing your company name into every link. What matters is relevant, credible sites, with your company clearly identified in the content around the link.
Stop dismissing mentions just because of how the link is tagged. Link programs have historically ignored a mention in a respected industry publication because the link was marked nofollow, or because there was no link at all. Whatever ranking value those links carry (more on that below), the case for the mention is different: a mention in a trade publication your customers actually read can be worth having for awareness, credibility and referrals, and it’s one more place your company is talked about.
Pick mentions on business value. Not every mention deserves budget. Ask whether real buyers or the people who influence them will see it, whether it ties you to something you genuinely do, whether the source is independent and respected, and whether the page or transcript is public. A hundred generic directory listings can be worth less than one quote in the publication your buyers read every week.
Don’t manufacture endorsements. Publishing self-serving rankings dressed up as independent recommendations, or buying fake mentions, is a poor bet even if it occasionally produces visibility. Anything you’d be embarrassed to explain to a buyer who found it isn’t a foundation.
How to tell whether it’s working
Measure three things separately: traditional search (rankings for searches that matter, qualified organic visits and leads), brand presence (independent mentions, referral traffic, searches for your company name), and AI visibility (how often you appear in relevant AI answers, alongside whom, and from which sources). The last is the least mature and hardest to measure consistently, so treat it as a trend rather than a score. Start with Search Console, which since August 2026 has given every site reports on impressions in Google’s AI features, and treat third-party rank and visibility tools as estimates. Those reports show when your site appears, not whether the answer recommends you. And an AI mention only counts as a win if it reaches people who might buy from you.
Do nofollow links help SEO?
Possibly, but nobody outside Google can say how much. Google has treated nofollow as a hint since 2019, but it hasn’t said how much those links count, and it said it would generally keep treating them as it did before. Value them for the audience and credibility a good placement brings, not as a ranking shortcut.
Judging what a link-building budget actually buys, and where your company needs to be mentioned for AI answers, is part of my AI SEO consulting. Ask me about it.
