Does Google's website ranking still heavily rely on backlinks?

[cffpsp]

I'm extremely fortunate to have found this forum. I've been doing SEO in China for over 10 years, but this is my first time working on international website SEO.
As I understand it, Google SEO places considerable importance on backlinks when it comes to determining website weight rankings. I wonder if this is the case.
I'm currently studying. Please feel free to offer your guidance and share your experiences. Thank you!

 

[hipcat]

Backlinks ARE still important, but now it's all about quality over quantity. Years ago you could rank easily with 1000's of backlinks, as each one was seen as a "vote" for your site, but now that same SEO strategy will HURT your ranking, not help it.

The modern SEO strategy is to get just a few, or even just one, highly relevant backlink from a trusted, authority website in your niche, and even multiple links from one site are just counted as one "social signal" now.