Search professionals have long chased followed links from high-authority domains. Yet the rules shifted years ago. Backlinks still carry weight. Their dominance has faded.
According to data compiled by Search Atlas, backlinks now account for about 45 percent of off-page ranking influence in 2026, down from 80 percent in 2012. Brand mentions and entity signals make up the remaining 55 percent. The change reflects how Google and AI-powered answer engines weigh reputation.
Evelina Milenova has spent six years acquiring links for more than 90 SaaS brands. In an article published today by Search Engine Land, she argues that the strongest off-page signals aren’t always followed links. Content, public relations coverage, and targeted outreach reinforce one another. Brands become the central authority on topics that matter to them. The process demands coordination across three distinct approaches.
Link building involves explicit requests. Practitioners ask for links through guest posts, broken link recovery, or direct pitches for brand mentions. Linkable assets attract links without asking. Digital PR pitches newsworthy stories to journalists. The goal isn’t a single link. It is sustained visibility across trusted sources.
Traditional metrics focused on followed links and domain ratings. That view now looks incomplete. A brand mention in a top-tier outlet on a relevant topic can outperform a standard followed link. This holds especially true for AI search. An Ahrefs study cited in both the Search Engine Land piece and recent analyses found visibility in AI Overviews correlates more strongly with brand mentions (0.664) than with backlinks (0.218).
Survey evidence backs the trend. A Q1 2026 poll of 500 SEO professionals by Reporter Outreach revealed that 74 percent believe backlinks influence AI search visibility. Only 19 percent have altered their building methods. Digital PR has overtaken guest posting as the top-performing tactic. Thirty-four percent of respondents ranked it first, compared with 18 percent for guest posts. A separate survey by Aira and Editorial.link put the figures at 48.6 percent versus 16 percent.
Budgets reflect commitment. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed spend at least $3,000 per month on backlinks. Thirty-eight percent spend $6,000 or more. Fifty-eight percent increased spending from 2025. Average cost per quality link reached nearly $509. Costs are expected to climb. Eighty-one percent of respondents said link building will grow harder and more expensive.
Google’s own updates underscore the pressure. The company rolled out a core update in May 2026 and a spam update in June. These changes continued emphasis on quality and relevance. Analysis of a 2024 Google Search document leak, referenced in WordStream’s July 2026 guide, shows the algorithm uses signals such as siteAuthority, a modernized PageRank at the domain level. It also incorporates chromeInTotal, aggregated user experience data from Chrome. Topical authority measured by siteFocusScore and siteRadius has gained prominence. Sites that spread themselves too thin lose ground.
Document quality relies on title and body match, an LLM-estimated contentEffort score, and penalties for thin material. Freshness rewards substantive updates. Engagement metrics, including navBoost click signals, influence re-ranking. The leak confirmed several factors Google had previously downplayed.
WordStream advises practitioners to prioritize proprietary data, named authors with demonstrated expertise, custom visuals, and clear methodology. These elements raise the contentEffort score. For domain authority, digital PR through platforms like HARO or Qwoted, combined with research-backed content, delivers results without risky tactics. Topical focus requires pruning off-topic pages and concentrating links and content around core subjects.
Milenova breaks the three tactics into practical categories. Link building targets commercial pages and bottom-of-funnel posts where control over context and anchor text matters. It carries risks. Google condemns link buying and excessive exchanges. The 2024 leak suggests poor links are devalued or ignored. Scale remains difficult under current spam policies.
Linkable assets come in two forms. Self-earning assets such as free tools, industry top lists, templates, and statistical roundups attract links through inherent usefulness. Canva’s business name generator earned nearly 2,000 followed links from unique domains without media coverage. Yet these assets rarely draw links from reputable news outlets on their own.
PR-promoted assets require active pitching. They turn data into stories. A statistical page built with third-party sources, enhanced by Semrush and Google Trends data, secured more than 50 links including from Entrepreneur and Shopify. Gusto combined a survey of 1,000 workers on AI-related job anxiety with state-level Google Trends insights. The resulting page earned links from more than 40 unique domains.
Digital PR introduces unpredictability. A campaign can syndicate hundreds of times or generate nothing. Results prove hard to forecast even for experienced teams. Successful stories can be updated and repitched. Failed ones sometimes succeed with a fresh news angle. Costs vary. Small surveys or first-party data analysis keep expenses reasonable. Large statistically significant surveys run into thousands of dollars.
The real power emerges when the three tactics interact. For a fictional time-tracking tool, a guest post links to a statistics page. Internal links pass equity to the commercial landing page. Internal data from the tool fuels a PR story about email time sinks. Coverage creates new outreach targets for direct link requests. The story itself becomes an evergreen asset that continues earning mentions long after the initial push.
Tracking must expand beyond link counts. Milenova recommends four views. Referral traffic and revenue from links come first. Then correlations between acquired links and rankings, traffic, AI visibility, citations, and revenue. AI-specific visibility and citations for assets matter. Overall brand visibility and citations broken down by topic and market complete the picture.
Search Atlas echoes the call for integration. Campaigns that monitor brand mentions saw average ranking increases of 18 percent. Google weighs brand mentions equally to backlinks in Knowledge Panels. Unlinked mentions now influence rankings directly, sometimes surpassing traditional links. Positive sentiment and strong entity associations in the Knowledge Graph become competitive advantages.
Recent discussions on X reinforce the shift. One post noted that not every backlink passes authority, but all contribute through referral traffic, natural profiles, and relevance. Another highlighted how SEO now asks whether AI tools recommend a brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity. Structured data helps search engines deliver direct answers beyond the classic ten blue links.
Local search has followed a parallel path. Review signals and behavioral data gained importance in 2026 according to updated studies. Citations lost some ground. AI visibility factors now include presence on expert-curated best-of lists.
Practitioners face a gap between awareness and action. Seventy-four percent see the AI connection. Fewer than one in five have adapted their workflows. The opportunity sits in that gap. Teams that coordinate link building, asset creation, and PR storytelling position their brands as the default source.
Link acquisition remains challenging. Fifty-two percent of surveyed professionals called it the hardest part of SEO. Yet 78 percent reported positive return on investment. Ninety-four percent expect links to stay a ranking factor five years from now. Seventy-three percent believe the same for ten years.
The message is clear. Stop measuring success by followed links alone. Build assets that earn attention. Pitch stories that spark coverage. Use those wins to secure additional links and mentions. Track brand presence as rigorously as link profiles. The brands that own their topics across traditional search, AI answers, and media narratives will pull ahead. Others will chase metrics that no longer tell the full story.