Is off-page SEO still relevant?

Short answer

Yes, but not in the form most people picture. Links from sites real people read still matter a great deal, and so do reviews and a real reputation. The volume tactics that used to define off-page SEO, directories, article networks and bought links by the month, mostly stopped working years ago and now just cost money.

This question usually comes from one of two places. Someone has read that AI search has made links irrelevant. Or someone has been paying for an off-page package for a year and seen nothing happen. Both are reasonable reasons to ask. The answers are different.

Do links still matter?

Yes. Google still discovers pages largely by following links, and still uses them as a signal of importance and trust. Its documentation on how search works describes discovery as happening when Google extracts a link from a known page to a new page.

And links still correlate with rankings. Ahrefs tracked around 200,000 pages and found that pages in the top position kept gaining referring domains at roughly 5 to 14.5% a month, faster than pages lower down. Correlation is not proof of cause, and pages that rank also attract links because they are visible. But nobody who works on competitive searches believes links have stopped mattering.

What changed

What changed is which links count. Google has spent years getting better at ignoring links that exist only to manipulate rankings. Its spam policies name paid links, large-scale guest posting with keyword-rich anchors, link exchanges and automated link creation. Most of those links are now simply discounted. They do not usually trigger a penalty. They just do nothing.

That is why so many off-page packages produce monthly reports full of new links and flat traffic. The links are real. They are just the kind Google learned to ignore.

What still works

Links with a reason to exist. A supplier listing you as a stockist, a local paper covering your work, an industry site citing your data, a partner linking to a joint project.
Reviews. For local businesses, review volume and recency are among the strongest off-page signals, and they decide whether the person who finds you calls.
Consistent business information. Your name, address and phone number matching across the directories that matter. A finite job, not a monthly subscription.
A genuine reputation. Being the business people mention, recommend and write about. Slow to build and very hard to fake.

What about AI search?

Google says its AI features are rooted in its core ranking and quality systems, so the signals that make a page rank in ordinary results feed into what appears in AI answers. There is no separate off-page game. Google’s guidance specifically warns that seeking inauthentic mentions across the web isn’t as helpful as it might seem, which rules out the most obvious attempt to game AI answers.

If anything, AI search raises the value of being genuinely known. A business that real publications and real customers talk about is more likely to be cited, by Google or by anyone else.

What stopped working

Mass directory submissions. Article directories. Comment and forum profile links. Private blog networks. Exact-match anchor text at scale. Some of these still produce short bursts of movement, which is why they are still sold. The movement rarely lasts, and unwinding it later costs more than it ever earned.

How to tell if your off-page work is relevant

Look at the last twenty links you were sent in a report. For each one, ask whether a real person reading that page might plausibly click through to your site. If the answer is no for most of them, the work is not relevant in the way that matters, however many links there are.

Then compare your profile with the sites ranking above you. If they have links from recognisable sites in your industry or area and you do not, that is your gap, and it is not closed by volume.

Where to put the effort

For most of the businesses I work with, the order is: fix internal linking so existing strength reaches the right pages; get the Business Profile and reviews right if you are local; then earn a smaller number of links from places that have a real reason to link to you. Fewer, better, and steadily.

What a sensible off-page budget looks like

Smaller than most people expect, and spent more slowly. A few genuinely relevant placements a quarter, earned through outreach with something worth linking to, will usually do more than dozens of links a month from a package. Pair that with a steady review process if you are a local business, and a one-off cleanup of your directory listings. If you are being quoted a fixed number of links per month at a fixed price, ask where they come from before you ask what they cost. The answer to the first question usually settles the second.

So yes, it is still relevant. It just rewards patience and judgement now, rather than volume.

If your off-page reports look busy and your rankings do not, my link building service starts by reading your link profile honestly: what is helping, what is being ignored, and what to stop paying for.