The short answer is – yes, you do. But, If you need more information, there’s a long answer as well 🙂
First off, let’s make sure you understand what a backlink index is.
Simply put, a backlink index is a record of backlinks. To be more specific, it is a database containing information about inbound links (backlinks) to web resources, as well as relevant information about the referrers (websites pointing to the resources).
As a rule, this information is collected with the help of web crawlers that systematically browse through web resources, follow the hyperlinks placed on them, and record (or index) the necessary information. This is how Googlebot indexes the web, and how any other web spider works. However, the ways the recorded data is kept and made available to users may be different.
One way to keep a backlink index is based on a split architecture where the latest data and historical stats are stored separately. However, this approach is not very convenient as it usually requires switching between the indexes, and takes a lot of time for updates.
A different approach to keeping a backlink index is based on a unified database, where data can be gradually updated. Simply put, as the crawler passes new information to a data record, it is immediately available to those requesting information from the database.
DataForSEO provides the second type of a backlink database, which is commonly called a live backlink index, as the data is updated continuously and is accessible in real-time.
Historical data is available by the History endpoint. All other endpoints supply fresh stats.
Note that all endpoints in Backlinks API are also working in the Live mode. Once you POST an API request, you will immediately get data in the response from the API server. You can learn more about the difference between the Live and the Standard methods here.