Links are still one of the main ways search engines find pages and decide which ones deserve to rank. What has changed is the kind of link building that works. Tactics that once moved rankings, such as bulk paid links, mass directory submissions and networks of free blogs, are now ignored at best and treated as spam at worst. This guide covers the basics, the links worth earning and the ones to leave alone.
What is link building?
Link building is the work of earning links to your website from other websites. Google is open about why it matters. Its link best practices say it uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages, and to find new pages to crawl.
Quality matters far more than quantity. A handful of links from relevant sites with real readers will usually do more than hundreds from sites nobody visits. Links that exist only to manipulate rankings can also count against you.
Key terms: hyperlinks, anchor text and link attributes
Hyperlinks
A hyperlink is an HTML element (an <a> tag with an href) that points to another page or file. Links on your own site help people navigate. Links from other sites to yours are called backlinks or inbound links, and they’re what link building is about.
Anchor text
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. It tells readers and search engines what the linked page is about. Good anchor text is brief and descriptive, and it fits the sentence around it. The safest anchors are the ones an editor would write anyway: a brand name, a URL or a descriptive phrase. Repeating the same commercial keyword across many links is a pattern Google’s spam policies specifically describe.
Nofollow, sponsored and ugc links
Link attributes tell search engines how a link should be treated. Google asks for paid links to be marked rel="sponsored" (or nofollow), links in user-submitted content such as comments and forum posts to be marked rel="ugc", and rel="nofollow" to be used when you don’t want to vouch for a site. Google treats these as hints rather than strict rules. Its guide to qualifying outbound links explains each one.
Is link building still essential for SEO?
For most competitive searches, yes. Content and technical SEO decide whether a page deserves to rank. Links help show search engines that other credible sites agree. Good links also do work beyond rankings: they send referral traffic, put a brand in front of new readers and add to the independent mentions that AI answer engines appear to rely on. We covered that shift in AEO vs SEO.
Link types worth building
Guest posts on relevant publications
A guest post is an article written for another site’s audience, with a link back to the author’s business. Done properly, it’s one of the most reliable ways to earn links from relevant sites. Google’s policies target guest posts distributed at scale with keyword-stuffed anchors, not useful articles on publications with real editorial standards. We explain the difference in why guest posting isn’t dead, and our link building services are built around that standard.
Editorial links and digital PR
Editorial links are links a publication chooses to include because the content is worth citing, such as original data, expert commentary or a genuinely newsworthy story. They’re the hardest links to earn and usually the most valuable, because they’re exactly the kind of endorsement links are meant to represent.
Niche edits
A niche edit adds a link to an existing, relevant article on another site. It’s only worth doing when the link genuinely adds something for that article’s readers, the site has real traffic and editorial standards, and the anchor text reads naturally. A link dropped into an old post on an unrelated site does little and carries risk.
Business directories and citations
Directories and citations list a business’s name, address and phone number, sometimes with a link. Their direct ranking value is modest, but accurate, consistent listings on the major and industry-specific directories matter for local search. Quality beats volume here too: Google’s spam policies name low-quality directory links as an example of link spam.
Social and brand profiles
Claiming your brand name on the major social and business platforms protects it and helps people and search engines confirm who you are. These links are mostly nofollow, so treat them as a foundation for your brand rather than a ranking lever.
Link types to avoid
Google’s spam policies list the link building practices it treats as link spam. The ones most likely to catch businesses out are:
- buying or selling links purely to pass ranking credit, including exchanging goods or services for links
- excessive link exchanges (“link to me and I’ll link to you”)
- using automated programs or services to create links
- low-quality directory and bookmark site links
- low-value content created mainly to manipulate links, such as networks of thin blogs that exist only to link to one site.
A useful test for any link: would it still be worth having if it passed no ranking value at all? If the answer is no, it depends on Google not noticing.
Link building strategies that still work
Outreach to relevant publications
Most good links start with a well-targeted pitch. Find the publications and websites your customers actually read, look at what they publish, and offer an article idea, data or expert input that fits. Personalised outreach with a clear reason to say yes beats templated emails sent in bulk. One polite follow-up is fine; three is not.
Broken link building
Websites link to pages that later disappear. Tools such as the Ahrefs broken link checker help you find broken links on relevant sites, including links that used to point to competitors. If you have a page that is a genuine replacement for the missing one, let the site owner know. You’re fixing a problem for them, which makes the request much easier to accept.
Citing and featuring experts
When you quote, interview or reference an expert, tell them. Many will share the piece, and some will link to it from their own site. This works best when the mention is genuine and the content is good enough that they’re happy to be associated with it.
Resources worth linking to
Original research, practical guides, checklists, calculators and templates attract links because other writers need something to cite. The best linkable assets answer a question in your industry better than anything else available, then get promoted to the people who write about that topic.
Publishing on other platforms
Writing on platforms such as Medium or LinkedIn can put your ideas in front of new readers. Links from these platforms are usually nofollow, so treat them as reach and reputation rather than a ranking shortcut. Free blogs set up only to link back to your own site are a different thing, and fall into the low-value content Google’s policies describe.
What is the difference between internal and external links?
Internal links connect pages within your own site. They help visitors and search engines find your pages, and they show which pages you consider most important. You control them completely, so there’s no excuse for important pages with few or no internal links.
External links, in the sense that matters for link building, are links from other websites to yours. They act as independent endorsements and are much harder to earn. The two do different jobs and aren’t interchangeable: internal links signpost and spread authority around your site, while inbound links bring authority in from outside it.
Are all links the same?
No. Two links can look identical in a report and be worth very different amounts. The things that separate them are:
- Relevance. A link from a site about your industry or location means more than one from an unrelated site.
- Real audience. Sites with genuine organic traffic and readers are worth more than sites that exist to sell links.
- Editorial standards. A placement on a site that turns pitches down means more than one on a site that publishes anything.
- Placement and anchor. A link in the body of a relevant article, with natural anchor text, beats one in a footer, sidebar or author bio.
- Attributes. Sponsored, ugc and nofollow links are treated as hints not to pass ranking credit.
Domain Rating, Domain Authority and similar scores are useful shortcuts, but they’re third-party estimates, not metrics Google uses. Treat them as one input, not the decision.
How do links fit into ranking factors?
Google uses many signals to rank pages, and links are one of them. Relevance and quality of content come first: no number of links will make an unhelpful page the best result for long. Links help separate pages that are otherwise similarly useful. For local searches, Google’s local ranking guidance names relevance, distance and prominence, and links to a business count towards its prominence.
How can I build links?
Start with content worth linking to, then go after the links that would be valuable even without their ranking benefit: relevant publications, genuine partners, local organisations and the people your industry already listens to. Avoid anything that only works if Google doesn’t look closely. If you’d rather not do the outreach yourself, a link building agency can run it for you. Agencies scaling their own SEO delivery can also look at a white label SEO partner, especially if link building isn’t keeping up with client growth.
FAQ
What is link building?
Link building is the work of earning links to your website from other relevant, credible websites. Links remain one of the main ways search engines judge a site's authority and discover its pages.
What makes a backlink high quality?
A good backlink comes from a site that's relevant to your topic, has real readers and traffic, and applies genuine editorial standards. The link itself should use natural anchor text that fits the sentence.
What is a nofollow link?
A link marked with rel="nofollow", which tells search engines not to pass ranking credit through it. Google treats nofollow as a hint, and also supports rel="sponsored" for paid placements and rel="ugc" for user-generated content.
Is guest posting still a good way to build links?
Yes, when the placement is on a relevant site with real readers and editorial standards. A useful test is whether the placement would still be worth it if the link passed no ranking value at all.
