"If anybody tells you that links aren't as important as they once were, slap them."

Linking has always been a major source of value for any website. When the internet was still a newborn, linking was practically the only way for people to discover new websites.

Now we have search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and a thousand others that use similar technologies, and linking isn't essential for the discovery of a new website. Linking isn't nearly as important as it once was. Or is it?

The recent Google PageRank fiasco was reportedly because of controversial linking. So, if you were to ask the number one search engine - Google - if linking is important to a website, you would get a response somewhere along the lines of "Hell yeah."

Google recently spanked websites selling links because Google knows how important links still are, even today.

So links are still as important, if not more so, as they were years and years ago when the internet still had "that new experiment" smell.

The best way to get links and improve the quality of your website? With great, well-written content, of course.

So if anybody tells you that links aren't as important as they once were, or that they hold lesser value for search engines, slap them. Show them all of the recent reports about websites penalized for linking. Then laugh and get back to writing great content for your website so you can get more links.