What Is Link Building? Earning Links That Build Authority
Link building is the work of getting other websites to link to yours. The links that build authority are earned: another publisher links because the page is worth citing, not because the link was bought, traded, or automated. That distinction is also the line Google draws. Its spam policies treat links created to manipulate rankings as link spam, while links that publishers choose to give remain one of the signals Google’s systems use.
Why Links Matter
Links do two jobs. They help search engines find pages: Google’s overview of how Search works explains that Google discovers new pages by following links from pages it already knows. And they are evidence about a page: Google’s guide to ranking systems describes systems that read how pages link to one another to work out what pages are about and which may best answer a query, and it lists PageRank among Google’s core ranking systems today.
Links are one input among many. A link from a topically related, independent site is evidence a site cannot easily create about itself, which is why earning such links remains worth the effort.
Tactics That Earn Links
| Tactic | What it involves | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Original assets | Research, data, tools, or reference material others cite | Sites that can produce something new |
| Digital PR | Pitching a newsworthy finding or expert view to journalists | Brands with a timely story or data |
| Resource page outreach | Suggesting a page to sites that keep lists of useful resources | Evergreen reference content |
| Broken link replacement | Finding dead links on relevant pages and offering a live equivalent | Content that matches what the dead page covered |
| Source requests | Answering reporters who are looking for expert quotes or data | Subject experts with something specific to say |
| Guest contributions | Writing a useful article for a relevant publication, with a link that serves its readers | Writers with real expertise in the publication's subject |
None of these guarantees a number of links or a ranking outcome. In each, the link follows from something useful existing.
Where Link Building Becomes Link Spam
Google’s spam policies list the practices that count as link spam. The first is “Buying or selling links for ranking purposes,” which covers exchanging money, goods, or services for links, including sending someone a product in exchange for a post with a link. The list continues with:
- Excessive link exchanges, “Link to me and I’ll link to you,” and partner pages that exist only for cross-linking
- Using automated programs or services to create links to your site
- “Requiring a link as part of a Terms of Service, contract, or similar arrangement without allowing a third-party content owner the choice of qualifying the outbound link”
- Text ads and text links that don’t block ranking credit
- Advertorials where payment is received for articles with links that pass ranking credit, and keyword-rich anchors placed in articles, guest posts, or press releases published on other sites
Paying for visibility is allowed when the link is qualified so that it passes no ranking credit. The same policies accept paid links that carry a nofollow or sponsored attribute. Google’s guide to qualifying outbound links explains which value to use: sponsored for paid placements, ugc for user-generated content, and nofollow when neither applies.
When the Link Profile Has Problems
Most sites never need to act on their inbound links. Google’s disavow links documentation says Google can usually tell which links to trust on its own, so most sites never need the tool. It calls the tool “an advanced feature” that “can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google Search results” if used incorrectly, and reserves it for sites with many spammy or artificial links that have caused, or will likely cause, a manual action.
For an unnatural links manual action, Google expects removal first: contact the sites and ask them to remove or qualify the links, then disavow what you could not remove. Once a disavow file is uploaded, “it can take a few weeks for Google to incorporate your list into the index as Google recrawls the web and reprocess the pages that we see.”
Judging an Opportunity
- Would an editor link to this page on its merits, whether they found it or you told them about it, with no payment or exchange involved?
- Is the linking site about a related subject?
- Is anything given in return, directly or indirectly? If so, is the link qualified with
sponsored(ornofollow)? - Does the anchor text read naturally, or does it repeat the phrase you want to rank for?
- Would you be comfortable explaining how the link was obtained to a reviewer at Google?
Measuring Results
Count referring domains alongside total links: many links from one site carry less independent evidence than links from many sites, though a single well-placed link that sends real visitors can matter more than either count. Track the topical relevance of the sites that link, and watch rankings and organic traffic for the pages that earned the links. Links accumulate slowly and unevenly, and the ones that last come from work that would be worth citing whether or not search engines existed.