The best way to promote your website up in the search engine rankings is to have unique content(more importantly)that will make visitors link to you. links are still crucial......
Both links and content are important for SEO point of view. You can't depend on only one thing.Good content will always get organic links. Backlinks are definitely the most important for getting high search engine rankings but you need content or nobody will link to you. The link will be your asset, and the content shall be your capital.
i was under the impression that google updated backlinks more often than once a month.. But I'm learning more and more every day.. Perhaps thats why webmaster tools says i still only have 64 even when i do links:mydomain.com there are many many more than 64.
There is no particular date or time for backlink update. but I am sure they are consider new backlinks for search results.
When I look in google webmaster tools at the hundreds of links, I see a column called 'last found'. I see dates there for almost every day, so it seems very clear that Google updates backlink data all the time. Now, having said that, it doesn't mean that Google tells you about the changes every day. If look at the last updated field for links to your site, it usually changes every two or three days. And finally as all the knowledgeable people are saying, Google picks and chooses which links it wants to list. For me sometimes it swings up and sometimes it swings down.
This is an old topic of which is important, link or content. Both are important as you can have a good search engine ranking if you build links on your site. Your site also will rank in search engine if it has good content.