I have pondered for years why there is such differing opinion on the need for links when it comes to ranking. There are a lot of people who find it ludicrous to think that you can rank content without links. And yet, the majority of businesses I consult with have had little ROI from link building for many years now and have given up on link building for SEO. Here's why I think both camps are right. Links help Google discover new content. If nobody knows you or recommends you, then you can get into the game by getting links to your site. The anchor text of those links gives Google context on what your site is about. But know that Google is continually learning and improving its understanding of which links are worth considering as a vote for your site. If you're building your own links, there's a good chance that the systems will see patterns consistent with manipulation and just discount them. Now, if you're an established business or well known website, Google already knows who you are, and that you have an audience, and what topics you are known for. Most links won't make much difference here. With that said, if you start getting links and mentions from authoritative places for your topics, this can improve Google's understanding that others consider you as knowledgable on that topic. I don't think this is primarily a PageRank thing - it was in the past - but rather, it adds to the collection of signals that indicate that others see you as a topic expert and that your content is worth showing to people. Those signals are used by Google's deep learning systems that create algorithms to try to predict what users will find helpful and reliable. But, what about the case of my site I shared in this thread? It's a single page with a helpful tool I made with ChatGPT a couple of years ago. I published it anonymously. It had no authority. It went for a couple of years with a smattering of traffic. Google did rank it - most queries were low page one. I think their machine learning systems that try to predict helpfulness could see it had merit and was worthy of showing to users. Over time, the site collected more signals that indicated that people found it helpful, and this helped push the rankings higher. Today it ranks well, often top 3, for many of its top queries. Could links have helped it rank faster? I think the answer to this is yes and no. If I managed to get true buzz and attention, those links likely would help. If I built links in traditional SEO ways (like getting articles published with a link pointing back to my site for example), I likely would have created signals consistent with manipulation for SEO purposes and perhaps could have sabotaged Google's trust in my site. So if you're unknown, yes, earning some links can possibly help get you on Google's radar so your site can start gathering signals to help Google's systems better predict that you could be a good site to show searchers. But if you're already known for your topics, you're already in that auction. What makes you rank higher is a whole variety of signals that Google can use to predict whether your page is among those the user is likely to be satisfied with. Google told us years ago there were over 200 signals they use beyond PageRank - and that was before they had today's current AI infrastructure and computational power. I suspect there are even more now. The answer really, IMO, is to work to truly be the option people will click on and go on to be satisfied with. So my thought on links is that if you're brand new, some links can help. Truly earned links are by far better than ones you can make yourself. And for established sites, the only links that really make a difference are the type that would help your business even if SEO wasn't a thing.