How Important Are Links For Your 2019 SEO Strategy?

Links have always been a major ranking factor for Google but do they still hold importance in 2019? The short answer is YES. Eric Enge conducted a ‘Links As a Google Ranking Factor Study” and found that there is a strong correlation between links and rankings. Besides, the relevancy and the quality of links also plays an important factor.

The importance of links for your SEO strategy

As Webgator suggests in this blog post, links help to increase the DA of your website and higher DA sites have better chances of ranking higher in the Google search results. The below graph presents the Quadrant Mean Spearman Correlation between total number of links pointing to a page, the DA of the link URL and the PA of the linking page. It is evident from the above graph that sites that are ranking on top have backlinks that are high in number, have links coming from high DA and PA sites. An interesting point to note here is that both DA and PA plays an equal role in rankings; meaning if you obtain a link from a high PA page not necessarily the home page, then that link can be considered equal to a high DA link.

How To Build Links in 2019?

Having proved that links still play an important role in rankings, the most pressing question for every SEO is - how to build links in 2019? Link earning is a strategy that you need to master in 2019. Here are the most effective link earning strategies that every SEO must follow in 2019.

1- Guest Posting

This is by far the best link building strategy used for having a natural looking profile. An experienced SEO expert certainly uses networking as one of the strategies to earn high quality links. Under this strategy you identify websites who are looking for guest contributors and email them asking for their permission to accept you as an author on their site. It is necessary to pitch only those sites that are relevant to your niche and you must have a solid author reputation else the strategy won’t succeed. You can use sites platforms like Pitchbox to automate your outreach efforts. It is an influencer outreach and content marketing platform that helps you to find bloggers, influencers and publishers in quick time. Making use of effective tools lets you automate repetitive tasks and improves your overall productivity.

2- Help The User By Publishing Useful Content

There is no better way to earn links than to publishing useful content pieces on your blog. Content that are useful for your target audience often helps in generating a good number of links. The key here is to find topics that your audience will find useful. You can make use of tool like BuzzSumo to find content pieces that are popular in your niche and produce a content piece that is 10 times better than it. This is known as the 10X content marketing strategy, a term coined by Rand Fishkin. Besides, you can also use content repurposing as one of the strategies to earn more links with a single piece of content. Fashion brand H&M regularly publishes content on their blog that talks about the latest design trends which fashion conscious people are always on the lookout. Similarly, online grocery store, Mercato, regularly publishes some exciting Kitchen and food hacks on their blog which are extremely helpful for the user. Content like these are shared more the user and this increases the probability of attracting quality links. Natural link is by far the best way to create a backlink and creating quality content is the only way to achieve that.

3- HARO

HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. It is a platform for journalists and sources to come together. You can register as a source on HARO and you will start receiving around 3 emails on a daily basis. These emails will contain information related to journalists who are looking for information related to a particular story angle. You can send an email to the journalist containing information about a latest event of news in your locality if that meets the story angle demanded by the journalist. You can get a link back to your site if your business is a part of the event whose details you are sending to the reporter. HARO is a great way to build media links to your website but you need to remain active locally. Participating in seminars, sponsoring local events, sponsoring scholarships etc are great ways to remain in the news that can help you to earn links.

What’s Next?

Start building links to your website because a link is the only ranking factor that has remained constant all these years and is set to remain constant in the coming years. Acquiring high quality is tough but if you follow the strategies discussed in this article then it will become easier for you to rank your website higher in the search results.

Related reading

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• SEO Tips: 3 Advanced Strategies for Content Generation
• Boosting Client Acquisition with White-Label SEO Services
• Off-Page SEO: Need to Shift from Spammy to Brand Building Strategies
• generative engine optimisation

2026 Update: What Has Changed About Links and SEO Since I First Wrote This

I wrote the original version of this post back in 2019 and, honestly, a fair amount of what I said still holds up. Links matter. They have always mattered. But the way Google weighs them, the way you should be building them, and the risks attached to getting it wrong have all shifted considerably. So before you read the rest of this post, let me give you the honest 2026 picture first.

The biggest shift I have seen over the past couple of years is that Google has got significantly better at ignoring low-quality links rather than penalising for them. That sounds like good news, and in some ways it is. But it has also made it harder to get credit for the links you have worked hard to earn. A link from a site that Google considers thin, spammy, or irrelevant is now largely treated as invisible rather than harmful. The practical upshot is that you need fewer links but far better ones. One strong, editorially placed link from a genuinely respected publication in your niche is worth more than fifty directory submissions or guest posts on sites nobody reads.

AI-generated content has flooded the web since about 2023, and a lot of it has been built specifically to manufacture links at scale. Google has responded by tightening its assessment of what counts as a genuine editorial endorsement. If a site linking to you looks like it was created primarily to host outbound links, that link is almost certainly doing nothing for you. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush are useful for auditing your backlink profile, but do not rely on their authority scores as gospel. Use your own judgement about whether the linking site has a real audience.

I also want to be straight with you about digital PR and link building in 2026. The tactics that worked brilliantly in 2021 and 2022, things like reactive newsjacking campaigns and data-led infographic pitches, have become so crowded that results are much harder to predict. Journalists are overwhelmed with AI-drafted pitches. Standing out now requires a genuinely original point of view, real data you own, or a story that connects to something a journalist actually cares about. It is harder work than it used to be.

The core message of this post, that links remain a central ranking signal, is still accurate. But quality over quantity is not just a phrase to repeat in 2026. It is the only approach that consistently delivers results. Read on with that framing in mind.