Link building is definitely not dead. Many consider link building to be dead but there are still many benefits to having quality backlinks to your website. Other than the SEO benefits, links to your site can improve brand exposure and goes hand in hand with online marketing strategies. It is the best way to improve brand exposure & visibility. It also shows that your content is relevant, valuable and important.
Good backlinks is the best way to show search engines that your content is valuable. If you have dozens of people linking to your content, its an easy sign to search engines that your content is informative, popular and what other users want to see.
If you have tried building links before Google’s Penguin algorithm was released, you may have some bad backlinks. This can include links from low quality websites or link farms. You can try to get these links removed or disavow the links but it is not always as easy as it sounds. It may be impossible to reach the webmaster of old low quality sites and disavowing links in link farms is up to Google to honor. The only way to combat them is to improve the number of good links you have to your site.
Link building has changed in recent years but it is still important to focus on. If not, you may be missing out on valuable opportunities that could improve your SEO efforts.