Refreshing links refers to updating links to an external table. Links need to be refreshed when the location of an external table has changed. Removing links refers to the process of permanently removing links to an external table.
Access cannot find external tables if their locations have moved. You need to accommodate for this in your VBA code. Furthermore, there might be times when you want to remove a link to external data—when it is no longer necessary to use the data, or when the data has been imported permanently into Access.