You and your team have been working tirelessly on getting those high value SEO links. Looking for opportunities, building relationship and helping your site authority to maintain its position or grow.
For me, I partnered with many PR teams go get links to the website. I used to have a saying when site would give a link, but make it NOFOLLOW. Well, the search engines might not follow it, but human beings will.
As go the human beings, go the robots.
Do Backlinks Matter in AI Search?
In a new AI Search Backlinks Study by SEMrush, the initial assessment is that “backlinks are important for AI visibility, but quality and authority matter far more than quantity.”
The team looked at 1,000 domains using their AI Visibility Toolkit to determine what influence backlink-related signals had in AI-generated responses. They included ChatGPT, ChatGPT with Search, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity in the platforms they evaluated.
The review included looking at the number of AI mentions (how many times a domain was referenced across AI-generated answers) and AI Share of Voice (a domain’s visibility in AI-generated answers relative to non-branded queries) against key backlink signals including total links, number of referring domains and Authority score.
Authority Score had the Biggest Impact on AI Citations
Domains with higher Authority Scores—a metric heavily influenced by backlink quality and referring domain diversity—are more likely to appear in AI-generated answers. Although it might be the best performing, it had a modest impact to the performance overall.
That means that a lot of small link won’t move the needle that much. To move up, you need to earn backlinks from higher-authority, topically relevant sites. This is when PR comes into play. Earn media placements from well-known publications, leading blogs, or industry directories have higher authority and credibility. They make a bigger impact on performance.
Link Quality Drives AI Visibility More Than Volume
Sometimes . . . more is just more. It is a mantra that I have always thought was important in link building. Lots of links for OK sites won’t buy you that much and take a lot of effort to maintain over time.
In the AI Search world, the SEMrush research study shows that quality of backlinks plays a major role in how often a domain appears in AI-generated answers.
If you domain has high-quality backlinks, that usually translates into appearing more often in AI-generated answers, especially once they cross key authority thresholds.
Why do I say usually, the effect varies across models: ChatGPT Search and Perplexity weigh link quality the least. However, standard ChatGPT (without Search on) shows the strongest correlation.
Nofollow Links Carry Almost as Much Weight as Follow Links
Do you remember all of that time you spent slightly bummed out that you landing a great link, but it was NOFOLLOW. Well, that tide has turned in the AI world.
I had always wondered why Google and other Search engines even had such a ridiculous rule. It was like, I think your content is valuable and I will link to you, but I don’t link you enough to let the search engine like you.
Don’t forget getting a few high value links is the better is more links of mid or low quality. So basically, getting mentioned by an authoritative and relevant source is more important than chasing quick gains.
To read the full study and get details about the analysis of the study, view the study at: Do Backlinks Still Matter in AI Search? Insights from 1,000 Domains [Study].