Google: More Traffic Doesn't Mean You Need More Links

John Mueller of Google answered a question in the Google Hangout on Google+ saying a site that is getting more and more traffic, doesn't necessarily need to get more and more links to match that traffic increase. Basically the question was does Google expect a site that sees more traffic to also see more links and if not, the rankings might decline?

Here is the actual question:

Would you say that the more traffic the site receives from google, the more links and recommendations should that site generate in order to stay ranking and move to a higher level?

Here is John's answer:

I don't know.

Sometimes that happens naturally, sometimes that doesn't happen so naturally. I think that isn't necessarily related directly so it's not the case that we say. oh we send you this much traffic therefore we expect you to get more links over time because of that. That's usually not not the way that it works.

Here is the video embed at the start time:

Forum discussion at Google+.