What's the Big Deal with Inbound Links?
Links today are what keywords were several years ago. The hottest topic in SEO. Most search engines, and Google in particular, use "link popularity" as one of several criteria to evaluate and rank your website. Link popularity refers to the number, quality and relevance of inbound hyperlinks from other websites to yours.
What do other experts have to say on the subject of links?
"Backlinks are very important because they are supposed to be a measure of the popularity of your site among the Web audience. It is necessary to say that not all backlinks are equal. There are good and bad backlinks. Good backlinks are from reputable places - preferably from sites with a similar theme."
SEO Tutorial at www.WebConfs.com
"Link analysis is one of the most important techniques search engines use to determine relevance, and understanding how it works is successful search engine optimization.
Craig Fifield, "Search Engine Strategies: Looking at Links"
"Then when Google arrived with their link-based PageRank, link popularity took off and became an absolute essential ingredient in achieving top rankings."
"Inbound links, link exchanges, and link acquisition"
"It's not always 'He with the most links' who wins the game ... often, 'He with the right links' can win the game as well. Really, very often, he with the right 10 links can beat the guy with 1000 of the wrong links - I see it all the time."
SEO expert Jim Boykin
You might also like my article on this subject, 10 Commandments of Link Building
Related question: How do search engines rank websites?