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.

 

[arpit]

Yeah, Backlinks are still very important but today quality matters more than quantity.
But it doesn't mean Google ranking heavily rely on Backlinks. I see lots of pages ranking top without a single backlinks. Reason - social media platforms. These sites focusing more on social media and increasing follower/reach then using links to get traffic on website and Google is loving it, if user is staying on page then google rank it too fast. So, website gets organic traffic as well.
So what i think is Social Media & Forums are also very important.

 

[Marc van Leeuwen]

Marc van Leeuwen

if user is staying on page then google rank it too fast

Click data does exist in the ranking stack, that much came out in the DOJ antitrust testimony around the Navboost system, so the instinct is not wrong. But it is not a dwell timer you can feed. It works off aggregated click patterns across many queries and long periods, which is why one page holding one visitor longer moves nothing on its own.

On the original question, coming from ten years of Baidu work the harder adjustment is probably not link volume. Exact match anchors, keyword density targets and mass directory submissions still get results in some markets and will cost you on Google. Worth unlearning that first before worrying about how many links you need.

 

[erp-schoolaura]

If you are managing a new website then Content is your priority, if you have spend some time in the market on your niche then you should do backlinks