diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 9bc23237..46a95128 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,9 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+### Fixed
+
+- Fixed issue where searches return an empty `links` array [#241](https://github.com/stac-utils/stac-fastapi-elasticsearch-opensearch/pull/241)
 
 ## [v2.4.0]
 
diff --git a/stac_fastapi/core/stac_fastapi/core/core.py b/stac_fastapi/core/stac_fastapi/core/core.py
index 053c8395..950a4f6f 100644
--- a/stac_fastapi/core/stac_fastapi/core/core.py
+++ b/stac_fastapi/core/stac_fastapi/core/core.py
@@ -318,9 +318,7 @@ async def item_collection(
             if maybe_count is not None:
                 context_obj["matched"] = maybe_count
 
-        links = []
-        if next_token:
-            links = await PagingLinks(request=request, next=next_token).get_links()
+        links = await PagingLinks(request=request, next=next_token).get_links()
 
         return ItemCollection(
             type="FeatureCollection",
@@ -619,9 +617,7 @@ async def post_search(
             if maybe_count is not None:
                 context_obj["matched"] = maybe_count
 
-        links = []
-        if next_token:
-            links = await PagingLinks(request=request, next=next_token).get_links()
+        links = await PagingLinks(request=request, next=next_token).get_links()
 
         return ItemCollection(
             type="FeatureCollection",
diff --git a/stac_fastapi/tests/resources/test_item.py b/stac_fastapi/tests/resources/test_item.py
index 20517f42..f84d9759 100644
--- a/stac_fastapi/tests/resources/test_item.py
+++ b/stac_fastapi/tests/resources/test_item.py
@@ -570,6 +570,15 @@ async def test_get_missing_item_collection(app_client):
     assert resp.status_code == 404
 
 
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_pagination_base_links(app_client, ctx):
+    """Test that a search query always contains basic links"""
+    page = await app_client.get(f"/collections/{ctx.item['collection']}/items")
+
+    page_data = page.json()
+    assert {"self", "root"}.issubset({link["rel"] for link in page_data["links"]})
+
+
 @pytest.mark.asyncio
 async def test_pagination_item_collection(app_client, ctx, txn_client):
     """Test item collection pagination links (paging extension)"""