Backlinks are still one of the most essential ingredients for successful SEO in 2022. Links from high quality websites are still part of the core foundational ranking factor conceived by Google’s original PageRank algorithm developed in 1998. Google’s algorithm uses a hierarchical system to determine the authoritativeness and rankability of a website based on the number of backlinks it has and the quality of those links. The Google algorithm still puts great emphasis on following the relevant backlinking pathways, which ties authoritative and user-focused websites together. Google’s algorithm still works within the premise that if a website has excellent user-focused content, other websites will want to link to it, and Google rewards those sites accordingly with better rankings. So just to clarify, the foundational hierarchical system for ranking websites based on their linking behavior created during Google’s conception back in 1998 is still just as relevant in 2022 as it was back then.