Link building for SEO: strategies that still work

What is link building, and why do links still matter?

Link building is the work of earning links from other websites to pages on yours. A link from another site is a backlink; our guide to what backlinks are explains the basics. Links can send interested readers to your site, help search engines discover pages and provide a signal of relevance. Google describes link analysis and PageRank as part of its ranking systems, alongside many other signals. A link does not guarantee a ranking.

What makes a good link?

Look for a relevant page whose audience would benefit from your resource, and an editorial link the publisher chose to include. A useful mention on a page people read can send visitors as well as support discovery. Check the destination is live and the anchor text describes it naturally. Third-party scores are not Google rankings: see what domain authority means and the domain authority checker for context, not a guarantee of link quality.

A normal link without a qualifying rel value is often called "dofollow"; there is no dofollow attribute. Google's link guidance recommends rel="sponsored" for paid placements, accepts nofollow for them, and recommends ugc for user-generated content such as comments. It uses these attributes as hints. A qualified link can still bring relevant visitors.

Eight link building strategies that still work

1. Create linkable assets and original data

Choose a question your audience and industry writers need answered. Publish a useful tool, reference, survey or analysis using data you can explain and share. Include your methodology, sources and limitations, keep the page current, and identify writers who cover the subject. Send a concise note explaining what is new and where they can verify it.

2. Pitch digital PR

Find publications and journalists covering your field, then match a timely story or expert insight to their beat. Offer a clear angle, supporting evidence and a contact for follow-up; link to the source material in your pitch. Let the publication decide whether a citation is appropriate, and do not present an advertisement as editorial coverage.

3. Replace broken links with a useful resource

Find relevant pages that link to a missing resource. Check the dead URL and its original topic, then identify or create a genuinely suitable replacement on your site. Tell the page owner where the broken link appears and suggest your resource as an option. Use the broken link checker and learn how to handle broken links. Separately, restore or redirect your own missing pages that already have backlinks to the closest relevant live page.

4. Find unlinked brand mentions

Search for your brand and product names, review mentions for relevance, and check whether they already link to you. Contact the author with the page and passage, thank them for the mention, and suggest the most useful URL for readers. Accept their decision; a mention does not oblige anyone to add a link.

5. Suggest your site for resource pages

Find curated lists maintained by organizations in your field. Read their inclusion criteria and make sure your page fills a gap before contacting the editor. Name the list, explain the fit and provide the exact URL. Skip directories built only to sell links or lists unrelated to your audience.

6. Contribute to other publications thoughtfully

Choose publications with an audience you can help, read their editorial guidelines and propose an original topic grounded in your experience. Write a useful contribution rather than an article built around keyword-rich links. Include a relevant citation or author bio only where the editor permits it, and qualify paid placements appropriately.

7. Ask real partners and suppliers

Review the public partner, supplier or customer directories of organizations you actually work with. If a listing would help their readers identify your relationship, request an accurate listing and a link to the relevant page. Do not make a reciprocal link a condition of the relationship or create partner pages solely to exchange links.

8. Add internal links to support linked pages

Internal links are not backlinks, but they help visitors and search engines navigate from an earned-link destination to other relevant pages. Find related pages on your site, add descriptive links where they help readers and connect the linked asset to useful next steps. Our internal linking guide explains how to plan and review those links.

What link building tactics should you avoid?

Google's link spam policy covers links intended to manipulate rankings. Avoid buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, private blog networks (PBNs) created to manipulate links, automated link creation and excessive link exchanges. Paid advertising and sponsorships can be legitimate when links are qualified with sponsored or nofollow. Do not require a publisher to use a followed link or a particular keyword as a condition of a deal.

How do you measure link building?

Record the pages and referring domains linking to you before a campaign, then periodically compare new and lost links, referring domains, destination pages and relevant referral visits. Check lost links before acting: a page may have moved, or a tool may simply not have seen it again. Follow up on important changes and keep a record of outreach and responses. Compare search clicks and impressions over time, without assuming a single link caused a change.

Use the free backlink checker and our guide to checking backlinks to inspect a profile. MrKeyword shows backlinks it has seen itself, from its own crawler and the MrKeyword web graph; it does not see every link on the web. For your verified site, the Search Console Links report provides another partial view. Our guide to increasing domain authority puts link earning in the context of broader SEO.

Questions and answers