Do backlinks still matter for White Hat SEO?

Yeah, you absolutely still build backlinks even with pure White Hat SEO. Think of it like this: amazing content and topical authority are your foundation, but backlinks are the votes of confidence that tell Google your site is truly legit and popular. You don't chase them; you earn them naturally by creating stuff so good that other sites want to link to it. So it's not one or the other—top-tier content attracts the powerful backlinks you need.