Do links still drive discovery for search engines?

as long as the links are of good quality google will
always see them as a good source for driving clicks

In my tests, links are incredibly powerful. I work on a blog with about 30 or more posts, with rankings here and there, and when I started buying links (only the cheap ones), it started getting much better and faster rankings.

But that said, I don't recommend buying links like “3000 blogspot links.” It might be fine for a blog that's already big, but it can ruin a small blog.

Links are still one of the main ways google discoveries new pages - sitemaps help, but links make it natural.