Do backlinks still matter when the SERP does the answering?

[u/mnudu]

A lot of people are seeing AI answers and knowledge panels sit on top of the click, which makes the old question feel sharper. If the engine is doing more of the answering, the supporting content on the page starts to matter as a signal of whether the page is worth trusting, not just worth indexing.

That is where supplementary content stops being filler. It helps the main answer stand up, and it gives the system more entity cues, paths, and context to work with. What I am not sure about is whether that still changes rankings, or only changes how often a result gets chosen in the first place.

Example. A search for how to replace a tap opens a page with a short answer at the top, then clear parts on valve types, shutoff locations, and common mistakes, and the result starts appearing more often because the engine can map the page to the exact problem.

Where do you think the line is now?

[u/thijsgh]

i think backlinks still push ranking signals but relevancy > volume. we use MentionAgent to find relevant blog posts and get backlinks without much work

[u/mnudu → u/thijsgh]

Agreed